_{Photo credit: Immigration rally in 2017. Via Ted Eytan/Flickr}

Our days are filled with extreme concerns for our immigrant population, especially refugees seeking asylum in the United States.  Levels of anxiety, uncertainty and fear seems to rise daily, not only for those who are directly affected but by those of us whose faith traditions have specifically called us to care for foreigners. We, or our ancestors, were once aliens in a strange land.  Due to famine, war, religious persecution, and literal death threats, most of us came to the United States as immigrant refugees of one kind or another.        

As an infant, Christian tradition tells us, Jesus and his parents, Mary and Joseph, had to flee Israel. They went to Egypt as refugees, for safety.  In the Gospel Book of Matthew (Chapter 2:12-13) we read that baby Jesus’ life was threatened by earthly King, Herod. Wise Men– philosophers, scientists, astrologists–from a variety of Eastern countries with various religions and beliefs, came to visit the child. They brought expensive gifts honoring him, believing him to be a special child who would one day be King.  They knew they could not tell vicious King Herod where the child resided, as it would put his life in danger. Jesus’ father, Joseph, learned in a dream that he needed to go to Egypt, to protect his family from literal death at the hands of a tyrannical King.

Deep in our Biblical tradition is the belief that when God’s people are threatened with their lives, God guides them to places of refuge.  Not only in the Biblical tradition, but across most, if not all, faiths, is the belief that our Creator calls each of us to “welcome the stranger”, offering hospitality.

The Episcopal Church is part of the world-wide Anglican Communion, which has a long history of being dedicated to welcoming refugees. My own great-grandparents were fleeing from religious persecution and found hospitality and refuge in The Episcopal Church.

Episcopal Migration Ministries has for over 40 years resettled 100,000 refugees, in partnership with the government.  Nearly 40% of our funding has been grants from the U.S. However, in January 2025 the U.S. Government stopped doing the work of refugee resettlement, until early May. Then, white Afrikaners, so-called refugees, were brought from South Africa. They are not classified by the United Nations or any other group as “threatened with their lives.”  Episcopal Migration Ministries, under the leadership of Episcopal Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe, knew our faith could not, as a moral imperative, resettle Afrikaners while being told not to continue the resettlement efforts for current asylum seekers: true refugees who were promised entrance in the U.S. after assisting us with the Afghan and Iraq wars.  We were also denied opportunities to continue resettlement of people already here from such places as Guatemala, Sudan, El Salvador.  The Episcopal Church decided we would no longer receive funds from U.S. government grants as of September 30, 2025.  The Episcopal Migration Ministry will continue its work through non-governmental funding.

Here in the Episcopal Diocese of El Camino Real our Social Justice Committee assisted our Bishop in creating a Diocesan special financial support system called “Love Our Neighbor” discretionary fund.  These funds are used primarily to help those in need within our diocese.  We encourage you to give generously, as the needs are great:

As we approach July 4^th Independence Day, remember on our Statue of Liberty, Lady Liberty states:

 “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

The Rev. Mary B. Blessing