#22: Where the Gospel Meets Immigration

#22: Where the Gospel Meets Immigration

Note: The Love Thy Neighborhood podcast is made for the ear, and not the eye. We would encourage you to listen to the audio for the full emotional emphasis of this episode. The following transcription may contain errors. Please refer to the audio before quoting any content from this episode. 

RACHEL SZABO: So do you remember back in 2017 there was a Super Bowl commercial about immigration? 

JESSE EUBANKS: Uh, Lumber…

RACHEL SZABO: 84.

JESSE EUBANKS: 84. Lumber 84.

RACHEL SZABO: Yeah. Do you remember what that commercial was about?

JESSE EUBANKS: Yeah, it was like the big controversial commercial that year. It was about like a woman and her child, and they’re traveling like through countrysides and across — like they get on a train and they’re in groups of people and they’re in bad weather, and eventually like you realize like ‘Oh, they’re traveling somewhere and it’s really hard and really difficult wherever they’re trying to get to.’ And then eventually like you realize they’re trying to get to the United States.

RACHEL SZABO: But then it doesn’t show the end of the story. The commercial just ends with something like ‘To watch the full story, go to this website.’

JESSE EUBANKS: And then I came to the office the next day, and like one of our practices is that we all are like communication nerds, so like we all wanna know ‘Oh, what are the best commercials?’ So the whole staff was watching, and we watched the full-length version of that commercial. 

RACHEL SZABO: Right. So when we were all sitting in the office watching that, I looked over at Leandro to kinda see what his reaction was.

JESSE EUBANKS: Okay, so, context. So Leandro is our Program Director, but he’s from Mexico. 

RACHEL SZABO: Right. So I looked over at him to kinda see how he was reacting to this commercial about immigration, and he’s got tears in his eyes.

JESSE EUBANKS: Oh yeah, I totally remember that. Like he was, he was really upset.

RACHEL SZABO: And at first I was kinda like ‘What a sucker.’ Y’know? Like the whole commercial is totally like meant to be emotional, like it’s meant to like pull on your heartstrings, make you feel some empathy for this mom and this kid who are trying to reach the border. And I was kinda like ‘Dude, you like totally fell for this whole, like, emotional game that they’re trying to play here.’ And so after the commercial was over, I said, ‘Leandro, what did you think of that commercial?’ And I’ll never forget his answer. He said, ‘I know people who have made that journey. I know people who have jumped on that train that they show in the commercial. It’s a very dangerous journey.’ And it occurred to me that I didn’t get emotional in that moment because I didn’t have to. Like for me, immigration is always about policy, but it was never something personal. Like it was removed from me. And I suddenly realized in that moment I had no idea what it meant to be an immigrant in the United States.

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JESSE EUBANKS: You’re listening to the Love Thy Neighborhood podcast. I’m Jesse Eubanks.

RACHEL SZABO: And I’m Rachel Szabo. Every episode we hear stories of social justice and Christian community.

JESSE EUBANKS: Today’s episode is where the gospel meets immigration. And we recognize that immigration is a hot button issue right now. I mean, many people have very strong feelings about it and about what we should be doing about it. 

RACHEL SZABO: And we aren’t going to endorse any certain policy. Instead, we’re asking the question — what does God think about immigrants, and how should we as his people respond when they’re among us?

JESSE EUBANKS: Welcome to our corner of the urban universe.

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JESSE EUBANKS: The United States currently has more immigrants than any other country in the world.

RACHEL SZABO: Yeah, according to Pew Research, we reached a record population of 44.4 million foreign born residents in the year 2017. 

JESSE EUBANKS: And as Christians, we’ve been faced with the task of how we’re going to respond. And it’s okay to differ in policy, to have different opinions on the best way to improve our immigration system. That’s just part of politics. But Christians don’t just differ on immigration policy — We actually differ on immigrants themselves.

RACHEL SZABO: So according to another survey by the Public Religion Research Institute, most groups of people agree that immigrants are good for our nation and for our society. 

JESSE EUBANKS: But the one group that doesn’t are white evangelicals, at 57%. White evangelical Protestants are the only major religious group to have a majority belief that immigrants threaten American society and our way of life. 

RACHEL SZABO: So it’s like, yeah, what you were saying. We don’t just have an issue with the immigration laws in our country. We have an issue with the people themselves. 

JESSE EUBANKS: Yeah. But as Christians we take our cues from God, and so the question becomes — what sort of attitude does God have toward immigrants? 

In the book of Deuteronomy, Moses is reiterating all of God’s laws to Israel. Moses is about to die, so he’s reminding them this is how God wants you to live as people. And in chapter 10, one of the things that he makes a point of reminding them of is this — ‘The Lord executes justice for the fatherless and the widow and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing.’

RACHEL SZABO: And those three groups of people — the orphan, the widow, and the sojourner — those are all throughout Scripture. And God says that he has particular care and compassion for those three groups of folks. 

JESSE EUBANKS: Yeah, then Moses continues — ‘Love the sojourner, therefore, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.’ And God is calling his people to remember their own experience in Egypt and how he cared for them as a means for determining how they should treat immigrants among them now.

RACHEL SZABO: Yeah, and I’ve totally heard that argument before, you know, that Christians say we should care for immigrants because our ancestors of faith were immigrants. You know, you look at Abraham, you look at Joseph, you look at Ruth, or you look at in this case the entire nation of Israel. 

JESSE EUBANKS: Yeah, unfortunately for a lot of us today, this exhortation falls a little flat. And the reason is because many of us just don’t personally know what it’s like to be a foreigner or a sojourner or an immigrant. And so this call to remember what it’s like, it just sort of bounces off. I mean it just, it does not easily resonate. 

RACHEL SZABO: Yeah, well, it’s totally like what I was talking about me watching that Super Bowl commercial. I didn’t get emotional and it didn’t resonate because I didn’t personally have a connection to it.

JESSE EUBANKS: Yeah, I mean there’s something to be said when it’s someone that you know, y’know, when it’s taken out of a hypothetical and made personal and it disrupts your world.

RACHEL SZABO: It’s funny you should say that because that — the going from hypothetical to personal — is exactly what happened to a church right here in Louisville.

Okay so, first, a bit of context about this church congregation. When it comes to diversity and different ethnicities, this church tends to lean in one direction in particular.

RUSSELL ANDREWS: We skew, uh, white middle class over the age of 60.

RACHEL SZABO: So this is Russell. He’s one of the pastors at this church. 

JESSE EUBANKS: Hold on. So, this church is mostly white evangelicals?

RACHEL SZABO: Right.

JESSE EUBANKS: Who, according to that study, are the religious group least likely to be welcoming to immigrants.

RACHEL SZABO: Yeah. Okay so, white evangelicals are the majority in this congregation. However, ethnic diversity isn’t completely strange to them either.

RUSSELL ANDREWS: We have a lot of African American families, a lot of Hispanic families. We’re seeing a large increase in Middle Eastern Arabic background. 

RACHEL SZABO: And it’s one thing to see these different groups of ethnicities on a Sunday morning at your church. It’s another thing when those folks start becoming your friends. And that’s what happened for Russell when a man from Liberia came and joined the church.

RUSSELL ANDREWS: He came up to me and he said, ‘Hi, I’m Clarence. I would like to sing with the worship team.’ And uh, it turns out he has an amazing singing voice, understands harmony, and he’s got great stage presence, and uh, one of the sharpest dressers I’ve ever seen. So yeah, I was, I was thrilled. 

RACHEL SZABO: And in fact it didn’t take long before Clarence and Russell became really good friends.

RUSSELL ANDREWS: I mean, we were texting and talking a lot and, uh, y’ know, I’ve got two kids and so it’s, it’s hard to always make time to get together. But I always made a point and he always made a point of, ‘Hey, just checking on you, seeing how you’re doing. How’s that, that job going?’ And so yeah, we were, we were close.

RACHEL SZABO: And so one morning Russell is taking one of his kids to school and he gets this phone call.

RUSSELL ANDREWS: It was — I wanna say it was like a Thursday morning, and I don’t know why I remember that. Um, I think it’s because Thursdays are my Fridays, and so I thought, ‘I’ve got an easy day ahead of me. I’ll just get to my weekend and then be ready for Sunday.’ And I get a call from a number I don’t recognize, and I don’t typically answer phones when I don’t recognize the number, but I did. And it was Clarence telling me that he had, uh, he had been arrested. 

JESSE EUBANKS: Wait he’s been arrested? For what?

RACHEL SZABO: Okay, so I actually had Clarence come into the studio and describe for me what happened that morning when he got arrested. And so here’s Clarence. Just a note — he’s from Liberia, so when he speaks English, he’s got a pretty heavy accent. 

CLARENCE KAMARA: I came downtown for a job interview.

RACHEL SZABO: So Clarence was driving downtown going to a job interview when this car pulls up behind him and starts following him. 

CLARENCE KAMARA: It was a black Chevy Tahoe that pulled up behind me.

RACHEL SZABO: So it was a Chevy Tahoe, and when Clarence parks his car, this Chevy Tahoe also parks the car. And then a man gets out of the car, approaches Clarence, and asks to see his I.D.

CLARENCE KAMARA: He’s wearing colored clothes, not uniform. ‘Can I see your I.D.?’ I’m like ‘No, I don’t know you.’

RACHEL SZABO: Okay, police have the right to ask anyone for identification. Like that’s legal. But this doesn’t look like a cop. Like he said, he’s wearing normal clothes. And so at first Clarence refuses. And then another guy gets out of the car. 

CLARENCE KAMARA: Then he show me a badge. I see ‘I-C-E.’ ICE.

JESSE EUBANKS: Oh my gosh. Did he just say ICE?

RACHEL SZABO: Yeah. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. And as you might imagine, these ICE officers are not playing around.

CLARENCE KAMARA: He said, ‘Now let me see your I.D.’

RACHEL SZABO: Clarence starts pulling his wallet out of his pocket, but as he’s doing that, they take him into custody.

CLARENCE KAMARA: These guys put handcuffs on me. They push me into the car…

RACHEL SZABO: They drive off with Clarence handcuffed in the backseat of this Chevy Tahoe. 

JESSE EUBANKS: What is going on? Like what did Clarence do that’s got ICE on him? 

RACHEL SZABO: Well hold on. We’ll get to that in a minute. So Clarence was explaining all of that just happened — y’know, the Chevy Tahoe, the ICE agents, getting handcuffed — he’s trying to explain that to his pastor Russell over the phone. And then he tells Russell, ‘Oh, I have to go.’ 

RUSSELL ANDREWS: I immediately notified the other pastors that I work with and, uh, their response was, ‘Do whatever you can to help him. Um, if we need to post bail, the church will be happy to help with that.’

RACHEL SZABO: So Russell’s not sure where to start, but he remembers that he’s taken Clarence to the immigration office before, so he knows where that is at least. And so he decides to drive over to the immigration office.

RUSSELL ANDREWS: They sent me to Homeland Security, which is down the street just a little bit. By the time I get there, um, he called me, I wanna say 7:15, 7:30. I get there probably by about 8:35, and they said he’s on his way to Chicago. 

JESSE EUBANKS: Okay, this is happening way too fast. I’m trying to keep up. Uh, I thought that he just got arrested a minute ago, and now he’s on his way to Chicago. I don’t understand. 

RACHEL SZABO: So what you’re feeling right now and all these questions that you have? This is exactly how Russell felt in that moment.

RUSSELL ANDREWS: It was a whirlwind, and it really got to this point of, I, I don’t even know where to start. I mean, who do I talk to? I, I don’t even know how I’m gonna get in touch with him. I don’t know where he’s going. I don’t know what rights he’s entitled to. So it was very much a just mass confusion on my part, just what, and helplessness. 

RACHEL SZABO: And at the same time, Clarence actually didn’t have much clarity about what was going on either. So he’s in the back of this van with another handful of immigrants, he’s being taken to Illinois, and finally one of the ICE officers tells him exactly what is going on.

CLARENCE KAMARA: ‘You came into this country with no permission, like you overstay your visa, and you are getting deported.’ And I’m like ‘What did I do? What is happening?’

RACHEL SZABO: Coming up — a lesson in visas, immigration policy, and a voice in the back of a van. We’ll be right back.

COMMERCIAL

JESSE EUBANKS: You’re listening to the Love Thy Neighborhood podcast. I’m Jesse Eubanks.

RACHEL SZABO: And I’m Rachel Szabo. Today’s episode is where the gospel meets immigration.

JESSE EUBANKS: Okay, so Rachel’s telling the story of Clarence. He’s from Liberia, so he’s not a U.S. citizen. He got pulled over. He’s been detained by ICE and they’re gonna hold him in Chicago and he’s now being told that he’s going to be deported. 

RACHEL SZABO: No, he’s being removed. 

JESSE EUBANKS: Removed.

RACHEL SZABO: They don’t call it ‘deported’ anymore because ‘removed’ sounds nicer.

JESSE EUBANKS: Okay well on the streets, we call it ‘deported.’

RACHEL SZABO: I don’t know what streets you’re on. (laughs)

JESSE EUBANKS: The streets where we call it deported. Okay, so why is he being removed?

RACHEL SZABO: Okay, so, here’s what we’re gonna do. We’re gonna take a walk through some different policies and immigration statuses. You ready?

JESSE EUBANKS: Yes.

RACHEL SZABO: So, when Clarence first came to the states, he had a six-month visa. And he came here for one reason, and that was to work.

CLARENCE KAMARA: I could work in Africa and I could make like hundred to 150 per month, but me coming here and me just working and making like 15 to 18 dollars per hour and bringing home like 1,200 dollars like two weeks — that was something new for me. 

JESSE EUBANKS: Okay, this is good. So I think Clarence is making an important distinction here between an immigrant and a refugee because immigrants choose to go to another country, so he’s choosing to come to work here. But refugees on the other hand, they are forced to move. 

RACHEL SZABO: Right. He’s not coming here for safety reasons. It’s purely economic. He can work here, send money to his struggling family members back in Africa and help them get a leg up, and then go home. However, at the end of the six months, when he was getting ready to go home, he actually couldn’t because there was an Ebola outbreak in Liberia. So flights to Liberia had been cancelled. He had to stay here, but his visa was expiring.

JESSE EUBANKS: Oh my gosh, so he can’t go home because of Ebola…

RACHEL SZABO: Yes.

JESSE EUBANKS: …he can’t stay here because his visa is expiring…

RACHEL SZABO: Right.

JESSE EUBANKS: …Like what do you do in that situation?

RACHEL SZABO: Yeah, so he applied for something that’s called temporary protected status.

DOROTHY ORTIZ: Temporary protected status is kind of like asylum.

RACHEL SZABO: So this is Dorothy Ortiz. Up until last year, she was an immigration attorney. And I called her up to explain to me just what temporary protected status is.

DOROTHY ORTIZ: For example, the earthquakes in Nepal, there were a lot of Nepalese citizens trapped abroad, like they couldn’t go home. Well, maybe their visa’s running out here but we can’t just kick them out. They have nowhere to go, they physically cannot return home, so we say ‘Alright, we’re gonna create this temporary protected status for your country. It’s gonna expire on this date.’

RACHEL SZABO: So temporary protected status is just that — it’s temporary. And you can renew it as long as your home country is still inaccessible, but it’s not an option for staying here long term.

DOROTHY ORTIZ: So it puts these people in a really unfortunate limbo, and if they can’t find another status to move into, then when the TPS ends they’ll have to leave.

RACHEL SZABO: But fortunately for Clarence, he did have another status that he could easily apply for. 

JESSE EUBANKS: Oh, okay. So, what status?

RACHEL SZABO: While he’s been living here, he actually met a woman. She was also from Liberia, but she is now a U.S. citizen. And they got married. And when you marry someone who’s a U.S. citizen, you can then apply for a green card through your marital status. 

JESSE EUBANKS: Oh. Like that’s what Leandro’s doing. Like his wife is a U.S. citizen. Leandro’s doing that.

RACHEL SZABO: Yep, same thing. But — there was a hang up with the paperwork for the green card, some problem where it said it was pending in this office in Chicago. And so that meant there was a lapse between his temporary protected status ending and waiting for the finalization of his green card, which means that technically, on paper, for a brief moment, he was here illegally. 

JESSE EUBANKS: Yeah, but like not on purpose. Like he can’t make the paperwork go any faster. I mean that’s, that’s not his fault. 

RACHEL SZABO: Which was kinda the frustrating thing about the whole situation. Again, here’s his pastor Russell.

RUSSELL ANDREWS: He’s trying to follow all the rules. Um, even the people in immigration, they weren’t nasty. They weren’t unhelpful. They were as helpful as they could be. You know, it says it’s pending in Chicago. Well, what does that mean? ‘I wish I could tell you. The best thing I can tell you is get in a car and drive to Chicago.’ And that’s not an option. And so that’s not me being intentionally negative about immigration in our system, but it is clearly a complicated, messy, broken system.

RACHEL SZABO: And because of that lapse in legality, that complicated, messy, broken system generated a warrant for Clarence’s arrest. 

JESSE EUBANKS: Oh, and that’s how the ICE agents found him, because he had a warrant out. 

RACHEL SZABO: Uh-hm. 

JESSE EUBANKS: Yeah okay, but I don’t know. Doesn’t ICE have like bigger things to do like than to deal with like, I don’t know, a worship leader from a church? Like why all the fuss? I thought ICE was supposed to keep the bad people out and let the good people stay?

RACHEL SZABO: Well that is what ICE was originally created for. However that’s not what they do today. So, a little history on ICE. ICE is a branch of the Department of Homeland Security, or DHS. DHS was created after the terrorist attacks on 9/11. The point was for the U.S. to have a much stricter and streamlined process for who or what came into the country and who was to be kept out of the country. The Department of Justice said ICE’s role was to quote ‘prevent acts of terrorism by targeting the people, money, and materials that support terrorist and criminal activities.’

JESSE EUBANKS: Okay, that’s good, but that definitely does not describe Clarence. 

RACHEL SZABO: So, over time, ICE began to morph. They started gaining more funding for having detention centers and then for having detainee quotas that they had to meet. And actually ICE hit an all-time deportation high of 435,000 people in the year 2013. Now the number of people that they’ve removed since then has since gone down, but today the majority of ICE does not deal with terrorists but they are focused on removing any and all undocumented immigrants from our country, which due to his temporary protected status ending and the hang-ups with his green card paperwork, Clarence did fall under. 

JESSE EUBANKS: So it’s an unfortunate snag in the system. I guess I just can’t get past the fact that like it’s not his fault, y’know, the system just can’t keep up at the pace that he needs.

RACHEL SZABO: Yeah, and we might all differ on thoughts on policy and what we need to do to fix the system, but one thing pretty much everyone does agree on is that our immigration system — it’s a mess. Okay so getting back to Clarence. Remember he’s in the back of a van, he’s on his way to Chicago. And for Clarence, he’s actually not frustrated at the system and how it’s broken and needs fixing. His frustration is actually with God.

CLARENCE KAMARA: I started crying and I told God like ‘Why me? This early morning when I woke up I pray to you asking for protection. So why me?’ Then I heard this in my head saying like ‘Why are you crying when I’m with you?’ I still remember that voice clearly. ‘Why you crying when I’m with you? Have I ever forsaken you?’

RACHEL SZABO: So those are the words that are ringing in the back of his head when Clarence gets locked up in an Illinois jail to await a court date. So let’s jump back over here to Louisville, where Russell and the other pastors are putting their heads together trying to figure out how in the world they can help Clarence. 

RUSSELL ANDREWS: So the first thing we did is we, we said he needs a lawyer. Once we got that train rolling, they made contact with him. They did everything they could as much as possible on this end. As pastors, we, we wrote lots of letters to submit to the judge of, ‘Okay, whatever happened we agree that, that, yes, he broke the law, but we don’t believe it to be intentional or malicious and he’s very involved and he’s an impact for good in our community.’

RACHEL SZABO: So Clarence was arrested in October of 2018, and he finally has a court date in December. But he doesn’t actually go to court. It’s a video court. It’s like court via Skype.

CLARENCE KAMARA: So they put me in the room with the video, and my lawyer was in Louisville on the video, the judge in Chicago on the video.

RACHEL SZABO: And as Clarence is in this room looking at the screen, here’s what the judge concludes.

CLARENCE KAMARA: The judge said, ‘Your wife has a mental problem and we believe that you marry her so you can obtain green card and stay in America.’

RACHEL SZABO: And just to clarify, his wife does not have any recorded mental disabilities.

JESSE EUBANKS: Well then why would the judge say that?

RACHEL SZABO: Well basically they’re accusing him of exploiting her, you know, saying, ‘Oh, you just want to stay in the states so you found a mentally disabled woman so you could use her to get access to a green card.’

JESSE EUBANKS: But she’s not mentally disabled.

RACHEL SZABO: No.

CLARENCE KAMARA: ‘So no bond for you. We going to set your next court date for January 19.’

RACHEL SZABO: So he’s put back in jail. Bond denied. And he’ll be spending Christmas in his cell — five hours from his wife and his church family.

CLARENCE KAMARA: It didn’t really hit me until like I went to bed. ‘God, why did you put me through this? No, no, no.’ I was so angry. I said, ‘I worshipped you. Tell me what I haven’t done. I wake up in the morning, it’s you. Before I sleep, it’s you. Even at work I talk to people about you. What do you want me to do?’ I was so angry, I was so angry.

RACHEL SZABO: In fact, Clarence was so distraught over this situation and the injustice he was facing and he didn’t see any way out of it that that night he actually managed to sneak an extra razor and take it back to his cell with the intent of killing himself. But when the moment came, he just couldn’t bring himself to do it. 

JESSE EUBANKS: Like the whole situation that he’s in is just so terribly sad, like he has tried to do everything that our laws have asked him to do, he is trying to take care of, y’know, family members back in Africa, he’s now in a jail cell five hours from his wife, away from his church community. The whole thing is just so terribly sad, and it’s hard to not feel like, like he has gotten the wrong end of this deal. And so imagine what it must be like for somebody who, who is now caught up in the system at the border. And even if they’re trying to do it legally, y’know, I think Clarence despaired to the point of death in his scenario — how much more so must people at the border be struggling with those same things?

RACHEL SZABO: You know, recently Samaritan’s Purse, who is spearheaded by Franklin Graham, even he has said it’s so bad that we need to go to the border and be with these people and help take care of them.

JESSE EUBANKS: Yeah, and he doesn’t have a liberal bone in his body.

RACHEL SZABO: But even he is saying ‘No, we need to go and we need to be present and help these people.’

JESSE EUBANKS: Yeah, and I think it just highlights the reality that like when immigration works well and functions well, it can be a really incredible and hopeful process. But when it doesn’t, it can be really dark and cause a great deal of despair.

RACHEL SZABO: So in his despair, Clarence remembers the words God spoke to him in the van, y’know, ‘I’m with you. I’ve never forsaken you.’ And so Clarence, he actually asks one of the jail guards for a Bible. 

CLARENCE KAMARA: ‘Do you have a Bible?’ They gave me the little small Bible, the blue one. I took it. I went to the room and start to read. I’m like ‘God, I don’t think I’m gonna be angry with you again. Like I know everything you’re doing you’re doing for a reason.’

RACHEL SZABO: And so from then on, Clarence starts reading his Bible every day and he just waits for his next court date. And while he’s waiting, he starts talking with some of the other immigrants that are being held in the jail and he finds out that they’re as hopeless and despondent as he was. And then, that voice that he heard in the back of the van? He hears it again. 

CLARENCE KAMARA: That same voice hit me again. ‘Will you allow these people to be sad? What are you gonna do about it? Teach these people the word of God.’

RACHEL SZABO: He hears God telling him, y’know, ‘Are you going to let these people be sad?’ Y’know, ‘What are you gonna do about it?’ Y’know, ‘Teach them my word.’ And so that’s what Clarence does. He decides to hold an impromptu Bible study. He gathers up some of the men, and actually a lot of them don’t even speak English so he has to find someone to translate into Spanish for him. And since it’s Christmastime, he just decides to read them the birth story of Jesus. And the other inmates — they’re fascinated.

CLARENCE KAMARA: ‘We really enjoyed that, so can we continue doing this? Can you do this for us every evening?’

RACHEL SZABO: So every evening, the inmates gather together and Clarence leads them in Bible study. And each time he teaches them on a different theme. Like for instance, on New Year’s Day, he taught them about gratitude.

CLARENCE KAMARA: ‘What are you grateful for? Even though we find ourself in prison, in jail, it’s okay to be in jail. But what are you gonna do while you are in jail? You just gonna turn your back on God? Maybe you in jail because he want to save you. So what are you grateful for?’

JESSE EUBANKS: Oh my gosh, that’s so amazing. Here’s this guy, like, y’know, days earlier this guy was wanting to kill himself and now all of a sudden like he’s leading like a spiritual revival in a jail. It’s amazing. It’s like biblical, y’know?

RACHEL SZABO: Yeah, and totally the whole time I was talking to Clarence, I kept thinking like ‘This sounds like something out of the Bible. This totally sounds like something out of the Bible.’

JESSE EUBANKS: Yeah, it’s awesome. 

RACHEL SZABO: Yeah.

JESSE EUBANKS: It’s like, it is, it’s like New Testament in action stuff.

RACHEL SZABO: Yeah.

JESSE EUBANKS: Okay so, so then what happened?

CLARENCE KAMARA: What started happening was like when people were having their court date they would come to me, say ‘Bro, tomorrow’s my court date. Can we just pray that everything go good?’ I’m telling you, I’ll just hold your hands, we all hold hands, we just pray for this person, and the next day he would go to court and come back and say ‘Man, I’m free. I’m out of here.’ Everybody before they go to court, they come and meet me, like ‘Can we pray? Can we pray? Can we pray?’ So it was getting serious.

RACHEL SZABO: Here’s what’s ironic though — is all these people were coming to him like ‘Can you pray for my court date?’ They pray, they’re free, they’re allowed to go.

JESSE EUBANKS: Yeah, but he’s like still stuck in there. 

RACHEL SZABO: Yeah, so while he’s there though, Clarence becomes like this renowned figure in the jail, like everybody knows who he is, everybody wants to talk to him. There was one moment where this Guatemalan man was having a mental breakdown and he was crying so loud and the doctors came in trying to help him and he told the doctors to go away and to bring him Clarence. He said, ‘I only wanna talk to Clarence.’ And so they bring Clarence to him.

CLARENCE KAMARA: I’m like ‘Okay, what do you want to talk about?’ He said, ‘Where’s your Bible? Can we pray? Can we just read the Bible and pray?’ And I’m like ‘Yeah, sure, sure, sure.’ This is what we read and talked about — Philippians chapter 4:6-7. ‘Be careful for nothing, but in everything by prayers and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God which passes all understanding shall keep your heart and mind through Christ Jesus.’ I started telling him my own story, like ‘When I first came here I nearly killed myself, but look at me today. I don’t even feel like I’m in jail when I wake up in the morning. I’m happy because I’ve asked God for that peace and I can feel it upon myself. So I just want you to feel the same way. Everything will fall into place. God has his own perfect timing.’

JESSE EUBANKS: Y’know, Clarence is like living out, y’know, a modern version of like, I don’t know, I think of like Joseph in the Old Testament who’s like thrown into prison and God used all that time in prison for Joseph’s good, for God’s glory. Y’know, I think of Paul being thrown into prison for Paul’s good and God’s glory. And then here we get to Clarence and it’s like, I just feel like the aroma of those stories is just so prevalent here. It’s amazing.

RACHEL SZABO: Yeah, and God’s not even done just yet. So a few days after all this, Clarence has his next court date.

CLARENCE KAMARA: I had my own court date March 25. This is what happened. 

RACHEL SZABO: Stay with us.

COMMERCIAL 

JESSE EUBANKS: Welcome back to the Love Thy Neighborhood podcast. I’m Jesse Eubanks.

RACHEL SZABO: And I’m Rachel Szabo. Today — where the gospel meets immigration. 

JESSE EUBANKS: Okay so, Rachel, Clarence was arrested in October 2018. Where are we now?

RACHEL SZABO: So it’s now March 2019. He’s been in jail for five months. 

JESSE EUBANKS: Five months? Hold on, I thought you said that his church was trying to help him out, like so where is his pastor Russell?

RACHEL SZABO: Yeah so, actually at one point while he’s been in jail, Clarence was actually able to get Russell’s phone number. And so he’s been calling Russell about once a week or so, just kinda updating him on what’s going on, where things are at. And since Russell’s not a lawyer, he’s not an attorney, y’know, there’s not much he can do for Clarence. But what Russell can do and what he and the rest of the church are doing is praying. 

RUSSELL ANDREWS: Every Sunday morning, part of our process is we all meet and we just go through ‘What do we need to be praying for? What are some praises that we have?’ And uh, oftentimes it was spurred on by somebody saying, ‘How’s Clarence doing? Y’know, what do we know about Clarence?’ And so there was a lot of concern there for him. ‘When will he be back? Do we know is he coming back?’

RACHEL SZABO: And all those questions finally got answered at Clarence’s next court session. So he’s at another video court hearing. It proceeds in typical fashion. Clarence is just looking at the screen waiting for the judge to address him, and just like his very first court appearance, the judge says something completely shocking.

CLARENCE KAMARA: I thought she was gonna turn to me and ask me some questions, but the judge said like ‘Why did you guys allow me to keep this innocent man in jail for five months?’

RACHEL SZABO: And then the judge turns to Clarence’s wife, who has driven up to Illinois to be there in the courtroom.

CLARENCE KAMARA: ‘This girl look like she have a mental problem? She look beautiful! And she know how to dress too!’

RACHEL SZABO: I think Liberians must be like really great dressers. (laughter)

JESSE EUBANKS: Yeah, Liberians seem like really snappy dressers.

RACHEL SZABO: ‘Cuz Russell was like ‘He’s a sharp dresser.’ The judge was like ‘Man, she knows how to dress.’

JESSE EUBANKS: I need to get some Liberian fashion tips.

RACHEL SZABO: That’s right.

JESSE EUBANKS: So what does the judge decide?

RACHEL SZABO: Yeah, so essentially the judge is all like ‘this has all been pointless’ and grants Clarence a bond and dismisses the case. 

JESSE EUBANKS: So that’s it?

RACHEL SZABO: Well not yet. I mean he has to pay the bond to get out. So his wife and some of his other friends start putting the money together and they call Russell and tell him, y’know, ‘This is how much we need for the bond,’ and all Clarence has to do is just wait for the money to come.

CLARENCE KAMARA: I went back to — they took me back to jail, and me thinking maybe it will take me like a week to get out. The next day I was out. The next day I was out.

JESSE EUBANKS: Wow, the next day.

RACHEL SZABO: Yeah, overnight, like less than 24 hours. 

JESSE EUBANKS: That’s awesome.

RACHEL SZABO: And Russell buys him a greyhound ticket so he can come back to Louisville and come home.

RUSSELL ANDREWS: So he called me first thing in the morning. He said, ‘I’m home. I’m about to crawl into my own bed. I’m so tired. But I just want you to know that I’m safe, that I’m back home where I belong.’

JESSE EUBANKS: Oh my gosh, it’s like finally all over.

RACHEL SZABO: It’s almost like you like breathe this sigh of relief. You’re like ‘Ah, he’s home.’

JESSE EUBANKS: Yeah, like he finally gets to go back home, be reunited with his wife and his church family, and like get back to his normal life.

RACHEL SZABO: And so yeah, now that Clarence is back home, Russell tells him, y’know, ‘take as much time off from serving in the church as you need to to recover, like get your bearings back after all this that’s happened.’ But the very next Sunday, Clarence insisted on being back on stage and singing because there’s little else he would rather do than just sing to God. 

CLARENCE KAMARA: Can you sing the chorus? Let me just get back on — ‘Oh the overwhelming, never-ending, reckless love of God. Oh it chases me down, fights ‘til I’m found, leave the 99. I couldn’t earn it. I don’t deserve it. Still you give yourself away.’ 

Like it just speak to me, like even though I’m going through the toughest time of my life, I still believe that there is hope, like once I can just hold onto God, like there’s nothing that’s impossible once it comes to God.

RACHEL SZABO: So today, Clarence is still waiting on his green card. He’s contacted the office more than 15 times, but they just keep telling him ‘It’ll be in the mail. It’s coming in the mail.’

CLARENCE KAMARA: We were just hoping to see the mail, but up to today’s date we haven’t seen that mail. 

RACHEL SZABO: And while he still gets frustrated at the system and he sometimes still asks God, y’know, ‘Why is this happening to me?’ he can look back and remember that time he went to jail for five months for what seemed like no reason but how there was a reason — for him to teach his fellow inmates about God.

CLARENCE KAMARA: I understand exactly why I went to jail. This same judge that told me like, ‘I kept this innocent man in jail for five months.’ No, no, no. You didn’t keep me in jail for five months. God sent me there for a reason. No matter what you go through in this life, no matter the circumstances or the condition of your situation, don’t give up. Don’t give up on God. Just trust God. He knows what he’s doing.

RACHEL SZABO: And, y’know, for Russell and the other folks at his church, having spent these five months in the thick of immigration with their friend Clarence, he says it’s definitely changing the way they view and talk about immigration.

RUSSELL ANDREWS: I will say that this has led to some more nuanced conversations with individuals, about, y’know, ‘I thought, I thought if you just follow the rules and did what you were supposed to do and did it right that it was all just gonna work out for ya.’ And that’s not what happened. 

JESSE EUBANKS: Yeah, y’know, according to the study about white evangelicals, this church should not have gotten involved. But the truth is that they stepped in, and now immigration is not just about policy. It’s personal.

RUSSELL ANDREWS: We’re, we’re dealing with human beings on both sides of it. People who are immigrating here and people who are trying to enforce immigration policy, that we’re all human beings. When we lose sight of that, when it becomes just numbers and legislation that we forget the human side of it, it becomes easy to debate about it. 

JESSE EUBANKS: Yeah, this reminds me a little bit of the episode that we did on abortion. That, y’know, we can have very clear convictions of where we stand on an issue, but until we’ve heard the stories of those who are in the middle of that issue, I don’t know, we’ve got to be more compassionate and gracious in how we talk about it.

RACHEL SZABO: Yeah, immigration is messy. It’s complicated. It’s not going to work perfectly every time, and policies and laws are gonna change. But what shouldn’t change is our posture towards those who are vulnerable. Y’know, I asked Dorothy, the immigration attorney, ‘What do you think a Christian’s attitude should be towards immigrants?’ And her answer was actually pretty simple.

DOROTHY ORTIZ: I would just say that Jesus didn’t say love your neighbor who lives within an arbitrary line drawn by man that denotes a country or a state. He didn’t say love your neighbor unless loving them is going to infringe on what you see as your rights, only love them if they’re not going to hurt your economy. He said ‘love them.’ What is the two greatest laws? Love God, love your neighbor.

JESSE EUBANKS: Yeah, I think at the end of the day the reality is like we’re not advocating for open borders. Y’know, countries and nations need laws and they need processes. But at some point policy has to become personal. And it actually becomes very dangerous when policy doesn’t become personal. And by that I don’t just mean personal meaning ‘Oh, how does it affect me?’ But personal in terms of ‘How does it affect my neighbors?’ Y’know, are the policies that we’re putting in place impacting people in ways that are good for them, that are gonna bring vibrancy and life to them, that are gonna show the kingdom of God at work? And here’s the thing anyway. Y’know, for all the ways in which we may be skeptical about immigrants or we may even have strong feelings about how immigration should work, the bottom line is this — there is no greater immigrant than Jesus himself. Jesus himself traveled farther and came to the most foreign of lands. And what happened? We rejected him, we despised him, and we unfairly crucified him. Instead, we should have embraced him and loved him and walked with him. But what’s amazing is that, even when we were still sinners, Christ died for us. So what does it look like for Christians to radically and compassionately love the immigrants among us? Because we don’t get a choice on whether we should or should not love immigrants. God’s word makes it clear. The question is — are we willing to see immigrants the way that he does and love immigrants the way that he does?

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JESSE EUBANKS: For more resources on this topic or to hear past episodes of this podcast, visit our website at lovethyneighborhood.org/podcast. 

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RACHEL SZABO: So, we thought this was the end of the episode, but actually just last week I received a phone call from one of Clarence’s pastors and this pastor had an update. Clarence had an upcoming court date, the immigration lawyer advised him, ‘If you go to this court date, you will be removed from this country,’ and so the lawyer told him, ‘The best thing you can do right now is go to Canada.’ And so, as of right now, Clarence is staying at a homeless shelter in Canada while he awaits for more progress on his immigration status. 

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JESSE EUBANKS: Special thanks to our interviewees for this episode — Russell Andrews, Clarence Kamara, and Dorothy Ortiz.

RACHEL SZABO: Our senior producer and host is Jesse Eubanks.

JESSE EUBANKS: Our co-host today is Rachel Szabo, who’s our producer, technical director, editor, and frequent napper in the middle of the day.

RACHEL SZABO: Additional editing by Resonate Recordings.

JESSE EUBANKS: Music for today’s episode comes from Lee Rosevere, Podington Bear, and Blue Dot Sessions. Theme music and commercial music by Murphy DX.

RACHEL SZABO: Apply for your social justice internship supported by Christian community by visiting lovethyneighborhood.org. Serve for a summer or a year. Grow in your faith and life skills.

JESSE EUBANKS: Which of these was a neighbor to the man in need? The one who showed mercy. Jesus tells us, ‘Go, and do likewise.’