Sunday, January 23, 2022
Sunday Reflection: In the cold
There was a terrible story here in Minnesota this week: a family of four from India, including a baby froze to death trying to cross over the northern border from Canada. Their bodies were found just ten yards from the border.
It's a haunting and tragic image: these people who had traveled halfway around the world not quite making it to their goal.
Part of the tragedy, of course, is that people who try to get into the US are taken advantage of by immigrant smugglers, and that is part of this story. It seems that when it comes to immigration there is a disconnect between our ideals and our reality. There must be a more humane way to allow people in.
It's a faith issue, of course: we are to welcome the stranger. But their are broader cultural and political points that seem to sway many self-identified Christians on this question, often focused on the idea that foreigners are "stealing our jobs." While it's true that foreign labor does tend to reduce pay in a general way (and a specific way in some industries), right now there is a labor shortage in this country that is dragging down the economy.
And this, too: is it really Christian to have a faith imperative on one hand and an economic interest on the other, and to pick the economic interest?
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This tragedy really stuck with me this week. I’m from that area. I grew up about 40 miles south of the Emerson/Pembina border crossing. My dad was a US Customs agent there after he quit farming.
It is hard for non-locals to understand the winters there. It is desolate, wind swept, and absolutely frigid. It is an area of open fields with deceptively deep snow drifts. There are very few people, and the only light in the fields and shelter belts comes from the moonlight. It is a lonely place in the warmth of the summers, but it feels like you are the only person left on Earth when you are out there in the winter.
I can’t help but think of what it was like for them. The hope of being “almost there” certainly faded away upon a realization they were separated from the group. Desperation set in. They must have cried out for help, their pleas drowned out by the howling wind in -30 temps. Hypothermia in those conditions can kill you quickly, but I imagine it was an antagonizing few minutes for them. But the idea that sticks with me the most is that one of them was the last to die. He or she must have witnessed the death of the baby and the others. And then it was his or her turn… alone on the prairie.
It is tragic. But so many immigrant and refugee stories are. Families split. Sinking boats. Herculean efforts to make a better life for your family. Yet we seem so immune to this.
Maybe because it is framed as an economic problem, or a national security problem. It is seldom portrayed as the struggle or death of one person. I think that is on purpose, for the death of one man is a tragedy, but the death of a thousand is a statistic.
I don’t know what the answer to the immigration problem is, but I know now I will frame the question on a much smaller scale
It is hard for non-locals to understand the winters there. It is desolate, wind swept, and absolutely frigid. It is an area of open fields with deceptively deep snow drifts. There are very few people, and the only light in the fields and shelter belts comes from the moonlight. It is a lonely place in the warmth of the summers, but it feels like you are the only person left on Earth when you are out there in the winter.
I can’t help but think of what it was like for them. The hope of being “almost there” certainly faded away upon a realization they were separated from the group. Desperation set in. They must have cried out for help, their pleas drowned out by the howling wind in -30 temps. Hypothermia in those conditions can kill you quickly, but I imagine it was an antagonizing few minutes for them. But the idea that sticks with me the most is that one of them was the last to die. He or she must have witnessed the death of the baby and the others. And then it was his or her turn… alone on the prairie.
It is tragic. But so many immigrant and refugee stories are. Families split. Sinking boats. Herculean efforts to make a better life for your family. Yet we seem so immune to this.
Maybe because it is framed as an economic problem, or a national security problem. It is seldom portrayed as the struggle or death of one person. I think that is on purpose, for the death of one man is a tragedy, but the death of a thousand is a statistic.
I don’t know what the answer to the immigration problem is, but I know now I will frame the question on a much smaller scale
Gavin - thank you for this very real and heartbreaking description of what this area is like and what these people filled with so much hope and desperation were likely experiencing. It is truly tragic.
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