Today, for Holy Monday, we share a reflection by Becca Knight on the First Station: Jesus is Condemned to Death.
The crowd, who a few short days before had been welcoming Jesus ecstatically, turns against him. They want blood and Pontius Pilate is weak. Pilate said: 'Shall I crucify your king?' The Chief Priests answered 'We have no king except Caesar.' So at that Pilate handed Jesus over to them to be crucified. (John 19:15-16)Jesus stood by himself in front of Pilate. He was defenseless. He was alone. I believe Jesus felt abandoned and afraid; he was being blamed and treated unfairly.
As I entered into my second year of post grad volunteering, I knew I wanted to do something different. Cue my arrival at the National Immigrant Justice Center, an immigration law office in downtown Chicago. I focus primarily on unaccompanied minors held in detention. We visit the kids each week, explain their rights, accompany them in court and advise on legal relief.
I work with children from around the world, although the majority of kids I serve are from Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador. Most are caught entering the United States illegally. Some of my kids are orphans, some are sent here to work, others are running from abuse. They may be victims of trafficking, or came to the United States to live with a parent. Many are threatened by gangs. Kids need to be taken care of; they need parents, family, support. They need to be kids.
Instead, they are placed in jail, in federal custody for their sins against our country’s laws. Like Jesus, my kids are defenseless and alone. They are vulnerable, isolated, and afraid.
A study investigated what happens to those immigrants that are denied the right to stay. In a sample of 200 Guatemalans sent home, researchers were able to find 15. 185 people vanished. Are we as Americans, condemning others to die?
Pontius Pilate, like our own government leaders, had to make a decision that his people were split on. Pontius faced pressure to have Jesus killed and most likely the same pressure to let him live.
Jesus was condemned to death- held in detention for one night and forced to walk with his cross. My kids travel 2,000 miles. They believe that once they set foot on our soil, they will be saved. They trust their lives in the hands of strangers. They walk for days in the desert without food, are cold, tired and lost. Just as Jesus did when he carried his cross.
Roughly half of the kids I meet qualify to stay here legally. Those are the hopeful, uplifting cases. About half will eventually have to leave the United States. I tell kids that because of our laws they will have to return to their dangerous country of suffering, poverty, and little opportunity, I tell kids they will have to go back to a place of fear, disadvantage, and threats. I feel as if I am condemning a child to death. As if they aren’t worthy of a better life because of where God chose them to be born. I have a hard time admitting to myself that there are people I can’t help. What value do I have? I’ve looked into the eyes of young kids that have experienced trauma, and it pains me. I can’t tell them whole heartedly that things will be ok. I can literally do nothing to save them. And this makes me feel useless and horrible.
A boy brought here as a baby, that has lived his whole life in the United States, how is he less American than me? I met a boy who cried for his mom, he’s worked since age 10 to help her. Think about where you were when you were 10, and if dropping out of school to support your mom was ever an option.
This is everyday life for the kids I meet in detention. The stories are consistently the same- an epic journey to escape the life they were given. Like Jesus, their lives are being shortened. They are being condemned to death, the minute they were born.
Have mercy on us, for none of us are innocent. Allow us to see where we have refused to take responsibility, feared involvement in the suffering of others, and turned away at the cost of the innocence. Grant us the grace, the courage, to face suffering, to stand against those that would crush the blameless, to contend with evil knowing that my failure to find my outrage is my complicity in it. Judgment is no more mine than it was Pilate's. Open our hearts to pray for all those condemned to die. Are we, our brothers and sisters, not numbered among them?
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