My letter to Senator Lindsey Graham

Firstly, I would like to thank you for your service to South Carolina, and to the United States. My purpose in writing you is to discuss the issue of immigration and border security. I understand that on Thursday, June 25 at 2:00pm EST, members of Congress will join the President at the White House for a meeting that is expected to create a roadmap for legislative action on comprehensive immigration reform in 2009.
I'm currently three weeks into a year long internship on the border in south east Arizona with a bi-national ministry called Frontera de Cristo. I live in Agua Prieta, Sonora, Mexico. This is ground zero for immigration. Every day I meet people who have been deported at the Migrant Resource Center where I work. Many of these people simply want a cold glass of water, a warm burrito, and to find a way back to there homes here in Mexico. As you know, immigration is a very complicated issue, and I feel that we are approaching it in the wrong way. I have met several times with the Border Patrol just across the border in Douglas, Arizona and their goal has been stated to me very plainly. To secure the border. Unfortunately, the way in which we are securing the border is causing people to go further out into the desert in order to cross. This kills people. It kills family members. It kills fathers and mothers who try to cross the desert to attempt to make enough money to sustain families. It kills children with the promise of finding a better life in the U.S. And it kills grandparents who have decided to leave a world they know behind. These migrants who cross the border are at extremely high risk. Risk from the elements of an unforgiving desert, risk of wild animals, and they are also at risk of encountering dangerous people on the border who want to take advantage of them. Senator Graham, these people want to come into the United States to find hope, to finds jobs, and to find renewal. I'm not proposing that we open the floodgates. I just wish there was an easier way for people to enter this country who want to do it so their kids won't go hungry. Or so they can get the education they need to fullfill their dreams.
The economic reality is this: employers in the United States want cheap labor. And many of the people coming across the border from Mexico want to work. I'm sure you know this just as well, or better, than I do. Its supply and demand. If we are going to do true immigration reform citizens of the United States must be held accountable also. Regardless of how tall the wall is, or how dry the desert is, people will cross, because they can live better in the United States. While I was in graduate school at Winthrop University some one commented to me that "all the problems down on the border aren't going to be solved until we completely close the border." I don't think there is a magic door that will close the border. Walls, literally and metaphorically, come down. Always.
I see it through the lense of Christianity. These people are hungry. They are thirsty. They are poor. I believe we, citizens of the United States, as members of humanity and citizens of the world are called clothe the naked, feed the hungry, and help those who ask for it. It wasn't so long ago that we as a country said to "give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free." Have we forgotten this? I would venture to suggest that that wall that has been built in southern Arizona expresses a completely different position: keep out.
I don't have a solution to problem that immigration and border control poses. But I do want to suggest one thing: that we remember that the people who attempt to cross are human. Just like you. Just like me. Just like my friends from Great Falls and Winnsboro and Rock Hill. And just like my parents in Mount Pleasant. It does not make sense to me that because some one was born south of a line which was drawn almost 160 years ago by American railroad tycoons and soldiers they shouldn't be able to live a full and healthy life.
Life, Liberty, and the Persuit of happiness. Does that apply to only citizens of the United States?
Political boundaries are important, but I think justice, compassion, and kindness transcend any border.
Thank you, Senator Graham, for receiving this message. One thing I ask you to remember. Remember that these people trying to cross th border are humans. Humans who deserve to be treated compassionately.
Thanks again. Sincerly,
Jordan Bullard