I knew we had entered a troubled time when a family with a pregnant woman called me and said they had nowhere to live. City government officials had said immigrants were welcome, but practically speaking, the resources weren’t there, and what it amounted to was that the migrants were welcome to live on the street.
Twelve years ago, I read The Call to Discernment in Troubled Times, by Dean Brackley, S.J. He was right in thinking that in the midst of real-world social issues, there isn’t always a clear answer, yet we can find freedom. This past summer, I have had to put my training in Ignatian discernment to the test like never before.
I do immigration work in Kansas City, Mo., with Advocates for Immigrant Rights and Reconciliation. We got another call one night in May. A partner group let us know there was a local church that had no idea what to do with a Venezuelan family who arrived at their door.
The church staff and the immigrant family were happy to see me, but they had the misconception that someone from a refugee resettlement group would give the family housing. I had to break the bad news: Families seeking asylum don’t have refugee status. And refugee resettlement organizations usually have federal funding only for those with United Nations refugee status. Asylum seekers often are on their own in their search for housing. In Kansas City, where I live, the majority of asylum cases lose in the end, and the families get a deportation order.
The church could offer the family space only until the end of the workday. That gave me less than eight hours to work community connections to find them a temporary place. The mother, a Catholic, and I prayed together, recognizing we would need God’s help on this one.
Fortunately for her family, we found them a place to stay. Unfortunately, things did not always work out for many asylum seekers this year.
The whole network of immigration organizations here in Kansas City saw countless families arrive without prior notice. Almost always it was a Venezuelan family from Denver, but sometimes families came from New York or Texas. Usually they have the same story: The Denver government bought us a bus ticket to Kansas City. We had the impression someone could receive us. But when we got off the bus station here, we wandered around and realized now we were living on the streets.
Once they have been living on the streets for a few days or weeks, they sometimes are able to contact an organization and ask for help to go to a city with a migrant shelter (we have no migrant shelters in Kansas City). It’s been heartbreaking to tell families that in Kansas City the government currently offers no practical support for asylum seekers. Many nonprofits here do what they can, but no one was prepared for this. One partner group spent over $50,000 of its own money on emergency hotel rooms, but they did not have a budget in place to keep filling in for what should have been a government responsibility.
On the part of the Kansas City municipal government, public comments were made months ago inviting immigrants to come. The problem is that local government had no understanding of the reality of housing for asylum seekers. When those comments were made, there was minimal coordination with local organizations that had real experience around asylum seekers.
The practice of busing migrants somewhere else without even trying to coordinate with local organizations ahead of time (as Denver city officials have tacitly acknowledged doing) is irresponsible, at best. It is one thing to honor people’s right to choose where they want to go, but based on the stories of the families I met, most people did not have the information they needed to make an informed choice.
In one of the most shocking cases I have seen, an asylum seeker called me on a Saturday morning, just 30 minutes after arriving in Kansas City. There was a group of two families. One mother was pregnant and due to deliver in two weeks. How could anyone think they were doing her a favor by busing her to another city just to live on the streets? Our network scrambled to work on an emergency plan.
I have been exhausted by seeing this situation unfold again and again. Everyone in the immigration network here says the same thing: There was no plan for this.
It is, to recall the title of Father Brackley’s book, a “troubled time.”
I have kept my eyes on Christ and focused on the mission. None of the setbacks of the past year have deterred me from prioritizing families. Ignatian discernment is very powerful. But by the end of May there was a point where I felt mentally exhausted beyond belief. In the middle of that troubled time, I stopped.
I prayed my midday Examen. My spiritual director taught me to focus on gratitude. And in one of the most memorable moments of my spiritual life, I found the grace to pray to God, reviewing the entire past month, with all the injustices, all the setbacks, all the heartbreaks and all the turmoil—and extraordinarily, somehow, I gave thanks to God for everything.
Both at work and in my personal life, so many things had gone wrong all month (a storm tore the roof off of our office, and someone hit my car, to name a few). To actually give thanks was nothing short of a spiritual grace, what the Jesuits might call that deep sense of obedience. That means a listening heart that trusts in God, and the acceptance that things are not always in our control—knowing that even in such troubled times the Spirit is at work.
Considering how many bad things had happened all month, there was nothing to feel good about, and yet grace allowed me to give real thanks to the Holy Trinity. Then I could rest my heart and keep moving forward again, in a summer that became one of the most troubled times I’ve seen in my career.
I wouldn’t normally remember a particular daily Examen, but I’ll remember that day’s for the rest of my life.
It’s a troubled time. The way forward is not clear. But this is clear to me: Nationally and internationally, we have the money and space; what we do not currently have is the political will to create a new way forward for those coming to our country and for our nation itself. Inviting people to live on the streets is not the answer, but mass deportations are also not the way. It’s time for a global discernment. This starts with examining ourselves and then taking a long, hard look at the global realities and local realities we might not want to see.
