MCALLEN, RGV - Community leader and former Catholic priest Michael Seifert gave a homily to around 100 faith leaders from across Texas who visited the Rio Grande Valley recently.
The two-day trip was organized by the Texas Interfaith Center for Public Policy to help clergy learn more about U.S. immigration policy.
Seifert’s homily came towards the end of the trip. He told the faith leaders that when he did his theology studies he was “always struck by this notion of the transcendental love of God being made categorically present in Jesus of Nazareth. That is a nice way to think about that. This big, big thing becoming very, very specific. Then I came to the border and found that specificity almost every single day of my life.”
Seifert has lived in the Valley for almost 30 years. Speaking of the region, Seifert said: “It is an incredible place to be, it is a lovely place to be. It is also a challenging place.”
During his presentation, Seifert played a body-cam video showing a Department of Public Safety officer stopping a car because a brake light was not working. A young couple were in the car with their baby. “She is a classic girl from Brownsville, polite, respects authority,” Seifert said. When the DPS officer learned the young man did not have the required paperwork to be in the country legally he contacted Border Patrol. Seifert said the young woman threw up when the scale of what had happened kicked in.
“Deportation is like a nuclear bomb. It is an extraordinarily awful experience that has all kinds of collateral damage,” Seifert said.
Seifert said that under international and national law, asylum seekers have a right to have their application reviewed if they set foot on U.S. soil. However, he said, the Trump administration has prevented this from happening by putting up road blocks in the middle of international bridges.
“So they cross the river,” Seifert said. The coyotes who help migrants cross the Rio Grande have a simple message, according to Seifert. “Once you cross the river, keep walking until you get to this thing called the Border Wall. Sit down there and wait and the Border Patrol will come along and you surrender to them. So, Trump’s Border Wall does not slow immigration. It is a lighthouse. It is home plate.”
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