What did I do in front of ICE?

The dramatic images of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents gunning down citizens in the middle of the street or detaining a five-year-old child are a new sign of the West's drift away from its Christian roots.

The controversial immigration control operation carried out by the federal government is the result of irrational fear of immigrants, a fear that works very well as an electoral tool in contexts of uncertainty and economic crisis. But fear has never been the driving force of our civilization, the one Trump claims to defend.

Fear did not build cathedrals or universities; fear did not promote human rights or the creation of hospitals, schools and social institutions; fear did not drive anyone to set out to sea in search of new trade routes and to widen the world. On the contrary, it is fear that leads us to fear human life and to promote abortion and euthanasia; it is fear that leads us to fear precariousness and to promote a selfish and exclusionary economy; it is fear that leads us to fear human relationships and to reject the family and to prefer cities of «singles» instead of authentic villages; it is fear that leads us to wars and to design weapons of mass destruction.

Some, however, try to stir up fear of migrants by accusing them of being the ones to blame for destroying our culture, when the truth is that it is they, on many occasions, who maintain the values that we have lost here. Values such as family, care for the elderly, solidarity or religious practice are firmly defended by those who come from abroad, serving as a brake on the secularist drift of Europe and North America.

We have so much to learn from migrants! They have so much to teach us about not being afraid! «In a world darkened by wars and injustices, even where all seems lost - Leo XIV reminded us this summer - migrants and refugees stand as messengers of hope. Their courage and tenacity are a heroic witness to a faith that sees beyond what our eyes can see and that gives them the strength to defy death on the various contemporary migratory routes.».

Of course we must regulate the flows, of course we must defend the right not to migrate and fight the mafias that traffic in people, of course we must protect societies from those who take advantage of the welcome of a community to do evil and of course we must demand that immigrants respect the culture and laws of the country that welcomes them; hence the four verbs that Pope Francis repeated: welcome, protect, promote and integrate; but we will continue to sink into misery if we do not incorporate people with a will to live, with hope and illusion to open new paths, new routes, new horizons. With the sky closing, the West has stopped dreaming of the promised land, of God's providence in the middle of the desert, and has preferred to stay in Egypt eating onions. The welfare society is terrified of those who do not have full barns but believe in the future, those who do take risks for a better world, those who are capable of leaving behind their security by crossing the desert and throwing themselves into the void, only trusting in God. Let us take advantage of the wealth they bring us!

In Spain, the Government has announced the extraordinary regularization of half a million immigrants. It has not been the parties who have promoted this measure, it must be remembered, but the people and social organizations, among them the Spanish Episcopal Conference, Caritas or CONFER. The Popular Legislative Initiative (ILP) that has ended up achieving this extraordinary measure has been signed by no less than 600,000 citizens and 900 entities, which makes it the ILP with the most support in history. 

It is very good news for Europe, because the 500,000 immigrants who lived in no man's land, despite avoiding the collapse of our birth rate, paying taxes for us and maintaining our productive and service fabric, will recover their human dignity and will transmit us their hope, that which we have lost along the way. And it is also very good news because in our polarized world, where if you are of one side you cannot be of the other, this ILP promoted by the bishops and finally approved, although in that way, by the most radical left, is also a ray of hope that dialogue and the search for the common good is still possible. 

And if anyone is still moved by the discourse of fear, they should be even more afraid to read that foundation of our civilization which is Matthew 25 with that Lord who rebuked his own saying: «I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me”. Then these also will answer, “Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty, or a stranger or naked, or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?” He will reply to them: “Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do to one of these, the least of these, you did not do to me.” And these shall go away into eternal punishment, and the righteous into eternal life», so much for the quotation.

And now, let us ask ourselves this question: What about me? What did I do when the Lord was a stranger? What did I do in front of ICE?