The Episcopal Church is deeply concerned with the recently released Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) interim final rule on asylum. The United States is obliged by international and domestic law to provide protection to people fleeing persecution, including asylum seekers. This rule wholly upends our current asylum system and will leave vulnerable people in further danger.
As Presiding Bishop Michael Curry recently said, “When you welcome the stranger, you welcome Jesus. The book of Hebrews in the New Testament says those who have welcomed the strangers have sometimes welcomed angels unawares.” The men, women, and children fleeing their country and seeking asylum in the U.S. are not only exercising a legal right to do so, but are also deserving of our care and compassion. Rather than prevent those persons from seeking the protection they need, the U.S. should respond by improving our existing system and investing in efforts to address root causes of migration in the first place.
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Learn and Act: Resources from the Office of Government Relations
Watch: Presiding Bishop Michael Curry “Who is my neighbor?”