I recently spent a day helping a Hispanic family who are going through the asylum process. It required a trip to Indy. My rudimentary Spanish came in handy.
The father and his five-year-old son came in May 2018, at the height of the Trump Administration’s deliberate policy of separating children from their parents. ICE deported the father to his home country, and sent the boy to the Bronx, where he went through a series of detention centers before landing in a foster home. For eight months he was separated from his family. A five-year-old child. My country did that, and it was unconscionable.
When I picked them up, the boy and I walked out to my Dodge Durango. He suddenly stopped in his tracks, looked at me with bugged-out eyes and a delighted grin, and exclaimed, “Nice car!” He’s a happy, fun kid who loved getting my attention for his playful antics. But I couldn’t help wondering about those eight months.
Just before the Civil War, a United Brethren minister wrote a song which swept through the North and rallied sentiment against slavery. “Darling Nelly Grey” told the story of a runaway slave from Kentucky whose sweetheart had been sold to a Georgia plantation.
It was based on a real situation. Benjamin Hanby and his father, a UB bishop, were highly involved with the Underground Railroad. Among the fugitive slaves they sheltered was Joseph Selby, who told about his “darling” who had been sold away. Selby died in the Hanby home, and Benjamin later wrote that song. It grabbed people’s hearts, because tearing families apart has never been an American value.
Today, we need a Benjamin Hanby to write a song about that Hispanic father and child. But I sense that American sentiment is already pretty much rallied against what happened to them.
When I write against the forced separation of families, I feel I’m in the best tradition of United Brethrenism. That applies to deporting a parent from an intact family that has been here a long time. And it applies to removing children from parents who cross into the States illegally as a punitive tactic of deterrence. The family is sacred. We can make allowances. Increasing the number of single-parent homes doesn’t make America better.
Bishop William Hanby, one of my predecessors as the denominational editor and a writer of UB history, intentionally broke the law to help slaves. He wrote:
“We may be bound by a man-made law, but we are more bound by a Lord given conscience….I have made my voice known and shown my scorn for injustice, and I will continue to stand against any law that makes it a felony to give food to a hungry slave or befriend precious men, women, and children who deserve freedom….When a man-made law is in conflict with God’s law, there is no compromise. We choose one way or the other.”
Amen.
