Ellis Island - Immigrant vs. Refugee

To find a better place.  Both the immigrant and the refugee put their faith in God toward this goal. 

This past Saturday I visited with friends at their home on Fire Island off Long Island (NY).  It was a great day and when we were in line waiting for the ferry to take us back to our cars, one of our group commented that we “looked like a bunch of refugees.”  There we were, sunburned, flip-flopped, carrying our minimum amount of “bare necessities” for a day at the beach and a day of visiting… chairs, coolers, umbrellas, beach bags, back packs, a cake carrier, etc.   I guess we might have looked a little tired, windblown or partied-out.  Certainly a far cry from looking like a refugee, we did look somewhat less put-together than our Sunday best.  (But at St. Andrew we’re not necessarily known for wearing our “Sunday best” anyway, so that’s par for the course I guess.)

We laughed at the analogy, but considering my recent visit to Ellis Island, it got me to thinking.

How many people who traveled through Ellis Island were not just immigrants but akin to refugees? Maybe they didn’t fit the strict definition of refugee, but many were fleeing the poverty, limited chance to prosper, or political hostilities of their home countries.

They came with just the bare necessities.  And $25 (if they had that at all.)

Yet, for all the hardships these immigrants faced in their journey to come to America, they had the hope of the promise of America.   They had faith in God to lead them to a better place. The Statue of Liberty bears a plaque with the sonnet “The New Colossus” by Emma Lazarus which reads, in part,

“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

In America there was hope for the future.

The choice was America.

Refugees don’t often have choices.  They are running for their lives.  They also place their hope and faith in God to lead them to a better place.

The United States has an “Asylum and Refugee Policy” that, as of 1999 allowed up to 78,000 refugees to obtain asylum here annually.  Today’s global conflicts and political uprisings are numerous.  People cry out for freedom all around the globe.  According to The Voice of America , there are currently about 15 million refugees worldwide.  The U.S. State Department identifies six “protracted refugee situations.” 

1.       Liberians in West Africa
2.       Somalis in Kenya
3.       Croatians and Bosnians in Serbia
4.       Afghans in Pakistan
5.       Bhutanese in Nepal
6.       Burmese in Thailand

Since 1939, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service has helped migrants and refugees to find hope and a future in American communities.  By 2008, LIRS had helped to resettle over 315,000 refugees. 

Next time we think we look like refugees as we trudge our few “necessities” back from a day at the beach, I bet we’ll all think twice about what that really means.

Thank you God for all the blessings we have in the freedom and prosperity that comes with the birthright of being an American.  Thank you, even more, for the people who fight the legal, economic and political battles on behalf of those who flee oppression and for those who help to make refugees feel welcome once they are granted the asylum they so desperately seek.  Amen.

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