Immigration in the Haggadah and Halachah (Bilingual)

From the Haggadah:

Ha lachma anya di achalu avahatana b'ara d'Mitzrayim. Kal dichfin yeitei v'yeichul. Kal ditzrich yeitei v'yifsach. Hashata hacha, l'shanah haba'ah b'ara d'Yisrael. Hashata avdei. L'shana haba'ah b'nei chorin.

This is the bread of affliction that our ancestors ate in the land of Egypt. Let all who are hungry come and eat. Let all who are in need join in our Passover. This year we are here, next year in Israel. This year we are slaves, next year we will be free.

On the Refugee Crisis by Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks

You would have to be less than human not to be moved by images of the refugee crisis threatening to overwhelm Europe: the scenes in Budapest, the 71 bodies found in the abandoned lorry in Austria, the 200 people drowned when their boat capsized off the coast in Libya and, most heartbreaking of all, the body of three-year-old Aylan Kurdi, lifeless on a Turkish shore: an image that will linger long in the mind as a symbol of a world gone mad.

This is the greatest humanitarian challenge faced by Europe in decades. Angela Merkel was not wrong when she said: “If Europe fails on the question of refugees, its close connection with universal civil rights will be destroyed.”...

...I used to think that the most important line in the Bible was “Love your neighbour as yourself”. Then I realised that it is easy to love your neighbour because he or she is usually quite like yourself. What is hard is to love the stranger, one whose colour, culture or creed is different from yours. That is why the command, “Love the stranger because you were once strangers”, resonates so often throughout the Bible. It is summoning us now... Wars that cannot be won by weapons can sometimes be won by the sheer power of acts of humanitarian generosity to inspire the young to choose the way of peace instead of holy war.

Abraham, Sarah and the Arizona immigration law

The Oregonian, May 3, 2010

By Maurice Harris

In the Bible's Book of Genesis, we read about Abraham and Sarah's journey to the Promised Land. Shortly after they arrive, they encounter famine and head to Egypt in search of food. Foreigners without family or clan to protect them, they are afraid. Abraham asks Sarah to pretend to be his sister in the hope that this will help them avoid trouble -- an act of deceit that made sense in the context of their times. The gamble works out badly. Pharaoh's courtiers notice Sarah's beauty, and the king summons her to his harem. Only divine intervention lets Sarah escape without having to sleep with the king.

It's a pitiable story. Abraham and Sarah lie and humiliate themselves to try to survive in a foreign nation they have not received permission to enter. It must have been agonizing. It's a story of strangers in a strange land, without protection, without connections and without a right to go about their business unmolested. It's an illegal immigrant's story...

It's also a story that Jews have known well many times over in many lands. Jews desperately did whatever necessary to seek a safe haven in different countries after the Spanish Expulsion of 1492. During the great Jewish immigration waves to the U.S., in order to escape poverty and anti-Semitism, some Jews faked their documents or "married" American citizens to gain entry to the country. During the Nazi era, most European Jews couldn't legally emigrate to other countries. Some weighed their options and chose to try to escape Hitler by making their way to British-run Palestine -- but even in attempting to emigrate to their ancient homeland, they had to enter Palestine as illegal immigrants. They used many forms of disguise and deceit to get there.

Abraham and Sarah's deception is pathetic. As uninvited immigrants, these unwanted Hebrews have no social or governmental structure to protect them -- no way to seek recourse against anyone harming them or taking advantage of them financially or, as the sister/bride deception points to, sexually. Years pass, they return to Canaan, and still their marginal status as immigrants continues. They face suspicion from the native citizens and do their best to try to gain a foothold in their adopted country. When Sarah dies, despite the many years Abraham has lived and worked in Canaan, he still has not so much as even a claim to a grave site where he can bury her. He ends up having to go to the country's citizens, hat in hand, and ask if he can purchase a small cave for her grave. He ends up overpaying for it.

Abraham and Sarah came to Canaan without permission, but they brought blessings to the people of the region. Mexican and Latino farmworkers, legal or not, bring Americans the blessing and bounty of cheap and abundant produce, and poverty drives most of them across our borders.

...In the Jewish community, we know from our experience that when people are desperate and seeking a better life, and when they are in precarious circumstances, sometimes they lie or break the law in order to get by. It's humiliating. It's not what people would prefer to do. We can judge them for it, or we can try to empathize and factor in their circumstances and difficult choices as we try to find better national policy.

The Facts on Immigration Today: 2017 Edition

By the Center for American Progress Immigration Team and Michael D. Nicholson

• In recent years, the unauthorized population has declined slightly after continued growth for decades. In 2014, there were an estimated 11.1 million unauthorized immigrants residing in the United States. This population reached a high of 12.2 million in 2007 but saw a gradual decline during the Great Recession
• The majority of unauthorized immigrants are long-term residents of the United States. In 2014, the median length of residence for unauthorized immigrants in the United States was 13.6 years
• Many unauthorized immigrants are eligible for a green card but cannot adjust their status from within the country and face lengthy bars to re-entry if they leave. 3 million unauthorized immigrants could qualify for a green card by virtue of having a close relative who is a U.S. citizen, but they are unable to adjust their status to lawful permanent resident from within the country because they have never been admitted or paroled into the country.
• Unauthorized immigrants are often part of the same family as authorized immigrants and native-born Americans. There are 7 million people living in mixed-status families—those with at least one unauthorized immigrant—including 9.6 million adults and 5.9 million children who are U.S. citizens.⁴⁰

• Unauthorized immigrants are overrepresented in the labor force relative to the size of the overall population. In 2015, 7 million unauthorized immigrants worked in the United States. They represented 4.9 percent of the U.S. labor force, although they comprised only 3.5 percent of the U.S. population.⁴¹

Refugee resettlement

• Across the globe, a record number of people are being forced from their homes. The number of forcibly displaced individuals worldwide has increased from 33.9 million in 2010 to 65.3 million in 2015. Of these, 21.3 million are United Nations-recognized refugees; 37.5 million are internally displaced within their home countries; and 3.7 million are stateless.¹⁶⁹

• Refugees come from all over the world. In 2015, 4.9 million Syrian refugees resided in 120 countries, making Syria the largest source country of refugees worldwide. Afghanistan was second at 2.7 million, Somalia third at 1.1 million, South Sudan fourth at 779,000, and Sudan fifth at 629,000. Large numbers of refugees also originated from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Central African Republic, Myanmar, Eritrea, and Colombia.¹⁷⁰

• Muslim refugee admissions have been trending upward, but non-Muslims still make up the bulk of refugees. In FY 2016, the United States admitted 38,901 Muslim refugees, the majority of whom were from Syria and Somalia. These refugees constituted 46 percent of all those admitted. Over the past 15 years, Muslims made up 32 percent of all refugees admitted while Christians made up 46 percent.¹⁷⁶

• Syrian immigrants are excelling socially and economically in the United States and are well-positioned to help Syrian refugees get on their feet. Resettlement agencies are placing Syrian refugees in communities with established Syrian communities to facilitate their integration. The median annual wage of Syrian immigrants who arrived prior to 2014 is $52,000—$7,000 higher than that of U.S.-born individuals. Twenty-seven percent of Syrian immigrant men possess an advanced degree, compared with 11 percent of U.S.-born men. Further, 11 percent of Syrian immigrants are business owners, compared with 3 percent of the U.S.-born population.¹⁸³

Women and children are fleeing violence in Central America

• Tens of thousands of children and families from Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador have fled violence in their countries and come to the United States. In FY 2016, nearly 60,000 unaccompanied children and nearly 78,000 people who crossed as families—generally, mothers with young children—were apprehended at the U.S. southern border, mostly from Central America.¹⁸⁴ A
• Central America’s Northern Triangle—comprised of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras—is racked by organized crime, gang violence, and poverty. At 108.5 murders per 100,000 people in 2015, El Salvador’s homicide rate was 24 times higher than that of the United States. Its murder rate has nearly doubled since 2012, when a truce between two of the country’s main gangs dissolved. Honduras’ homicide rate is almost 14 times that of the United States, and Guatemala’s is more than six times higher. Residents of these three countries pay an estimated $651 million annually to criminal groups, who threaten them with violence should they fail to pay.¹⁸⁸

• Homicide rates against women are high, and perpetrators are seldom convicted. The 2015 female homicide rate reached 14.4 per 100,000 residents in El Salvador, 10.9 per 100,000 residents in Honduras, and 9.1 per 100,000 residents in Guatemala.¹⁸⁹ By comparison, the U.S. female homicide rate was only 1.9 per 100,000 residents. Perpetrators seldom face charges: In Guatemala, the conviction rate is 1 percent to 2 percent.¹⁹⁰

• Women and children face violence if they return to their home countries. In 2015, the UNHCR interviewed more than 160 women who had recently arrived in the United States from Central America. Sixty-four percent of women interviewed reported that they fled their homelands due to direct threats or experiences of violence. These women recounted that criminal groups could track them anywhere in their homelands, necessitating that they seek refuge abroad and collusion between armed groups and law enforcement. These findings were similar to those of a 2014 study of Central American children in the United States, in which 58 percent of respondents interviewed claimed that they could face danger if their asylum claims were denied.¹⁹²