Long Island should accept asylum-seekers

I am alarmed at the growing fear and anger about asylum-seekers being sheltered on Long Island. Having spent 17 years as pastor of El Cercado, a Catholic mission the size of Nassau County in the Dominican Republic on the border of Haiti, I witnessed firsthand what drives people to seek asylum in another country. Our Dominican parishioners welcomed and helped Haitians who crossed the border to escape their country’s political chaos. Poor Dominicans aiding even poorer Haitians.

Today, 100,000 immigrants are in New York City, having fled similar conditions in their countries. They need our help. Yet local government officials are telling them, “Not in our backyard.” This culture of exclusion is not who we are as Americans, a land John F. Kennedy called “a nation of immigrants.”

I currently celebrate Spanish Masses at St. John the Evangelist Church in Riverhead, one of the towns that had an executive order barring local inns, motels and shelters from receiving asylum-seekers. This is the same parish served by Sister Margaret Smyth, OP, who sadly passed away last December, described in Newsday as Long Island’s “Mother Teresa” for her service to immigrants. Margaret often said that compassion is “entering the chaos of another’s life.”

I sometimes accompanied Sister Margaret as she served our immigrant parishioners. I asked one of them why he left his Central American homeland, and how he got here. He said he walked after the gangs murdered his brother with a machete, and “I was next.” He is one of many immigrants in Riverhead who lift up the local economy with their hard work in our farms, vineyards, restaurants and other businesses. We see them everywhere. We cannot do without them.

Contrary to common perceptions, immigrants sheltered by New York City are not “illegal.” U.S. immigration laws require that they demonstrate to officials at the border a “credible fear” of peril preventing them from returning to their countries. They have been admitted to the U.S. so they can make their case for asylum before an immigration judge.

Meanwhile, they are here. New York City is at capacity. New York State and the federal government need to do more to shelter them and help them find work so they can become contributing members of our communities.

So, what is our responsibility as Long Islanders? Our first responsibility, taken from the Christmas story, is not to be the innkeeper who refused to shelter Mary, Joseph and their infant. And we certainly should not be King Herod who ordered the infant slaughtered with a machete, forcing the family to seek asylum in Egypt.

Sister Margaret devoted her life to charitable service of immigrants and all people in need. But she also worked for justice, advocating to change political and economic structures like our broken immigration laws. She believed, as I do, that justice is what love looks like in public.

I recently presented the Riverhead Town council with a letter, now signed by 162 local faith leaders, supporting asylum-seekers being sheltered on Long Island. The council has a unique opportunity to replace the culture of exclusion with one of inclusion, welcome and, yes, public love or justice. If this could begin in Riverhead and spread throughout Long Island and beyond, imagine how much public love we could create while uplifting our local economies and being true to our nation’s sacred tradition of welcoming immigrants.