Immigration issues examined

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Updated: December 18, 2011 9:19AM

The North Shore Unitarian Church of Deerfield is conducting a multi-week course on “Immigration as a Moral Issue.”

The program, which is free and open to the public, is being presented at 7:30 p.m. Wednesdays at the church, 2100 Half Day Road. Sessions go through Dec. 7.

The topics are:

Understanding the causes of migration.

The history of immigration in the United States.

The economics of immigration.

Security, enforcement and human rights.

Who benefits from a broken system.

Seeking solutions.

Although the first presentation took place Nov. 2, everyone interested is invited to attend any and all of the remaining sessions because each part of the curriculum was created by the Unitarian Universalist Association to stand on its own, said Holly Kerr, a social action member of the church who presented the issues.

Much confusion surrounds the U.S. immigration system, with much of the discussion at this time centering on people sneaking over the Mexican border, Kerr said.

The media portrays people using ladders to climb over barbed-wire fences or tunneling under them, which makes the activities seem criminal, she added.

More than half of the estimated 11 million aliens in this country entered without documentation, Kerr noted.

However, an estimated 45 percent entered the country legally, then overstayed their visas.

Some left their sponsoring employers to escape exploitation. Others came to attend college or graduate school, then found love and work here, she said.

And some came here on tourist visas to visit loved ones, and could not part.

But these are civil disobediences, not criminal acts, Kerr stressed. The U.S. regulations have created borders where none before existed, she noted..

For example, Mexicans lived on the land known as the Southwest long before it became part of the United States, according to the program curriculum information.

When the United States forcibly annexed the land, it split extended families, making them citizens of different countries.

While Mexicans and Indians have different names today, there are native people who recognize their commonality, as well as native Americans who object to the country’s exclusion of their brethren from south of the border, the church study stated.

“And from very early on, there has been a significant and powerful segment of the U.S. who views the United States as a ‘white’ nation, and has fought to keep it that way,” the study added.

The presentation includes immigration problems and injustices involving migrants, such as wars, catastrophes and climate changes, as well as concerns about people who will be displaced from their homelands in the future.

But the church’s approach is still the same: “The conquests of the past are of the past, but the injustices perpetuated in the present are our responsibility.”

For program information, contact Kerr at (847) 831-2905 or hollyfk@aol.com.