Obama’s executive action is a first step to protecting families

Over the past few years, my heart has been broken repeatedly by the stories of families torn apart by our nation’s immigration policies. But there is one day that remains in my heart and consciousness. In July, I had the privilege of standing with my immigrant sisters and brothers in front of the White House, risking arrest while pleading for an executive action that would offer relief from deportation for their relatives and their friends.    

I was honored to be in the presence of women and men, young and old, who risk deportation every day and yet courageously engaged in civil disobedience with dozens of us from the interfaith community. I was horrified by their stories of separation and threats of arrest, and inspired by their determination to do whatever they could to bring about change.  They gave witness to everyone there about the meaning of being an active citizen of the very U.S. that was ignoring their cries for help. I wanted to stand in solidarity with them in some small way. Feeling the discomfort of being weary, handcuffed and thirsty was symbolic of what I can only imagine to be the plight of women, men and children crossing a hot desert believing the risk and discomfort is worth gaining safety from violence.

{mosads}I thought of those men and women with whom I was arrested on that hot summer day, and their families, as I heard President Obama’s long-awaited announcement of his use of prosecutorial discretion to ensure that fewer children experience being tragically separated from their loved ones. 

The president’s action is recognition that mass deportations harm entire communities, destroy families and cause long-term consequences for millions of children who are U.S. citizens.  This is a victory worth celebrating but our work is not done just yet, since Congress still has the responsibility to pass comprehensive immigration reform and permanently repair our broken immigration system.

As a Sister of Mercy, I am part of a congregation of Roman Catholic women religious that has a long history of serving immigrants as teachers, healthcare workers and pastoral ministers. In fact, we were immigrants ourselves when we came to the United States from Ireland in the mid-1800s. I’m currently inspired by sisters who are ministering to immigrants on the Texas-Mexico border, visiting immigrants detained in facilities in Chicago and Omaha, and housing detained women and children in New York.

I’ve been writing letters to legislators, urging them to reform our immigration policies to include an emphasis on uniting families and creating an earned pathway to citizenship. And rather than blaming immigrants, we should look at U.S. economic and security policies toward Central America and Mexico which have been driving families north into the U.S.  It seems like as the pace of my advocacy has picked up, so has the stubbornness of members of the House of Representatives in rejecting these ideals.

That has left me frustrated and angry. This is about people’s lives, not political partisanship.  I want to be proud of my country, not ashamed of it.

According to the United States Immigration, Customs and Border Enforcement agency (ICE), 72,410 parents of U.S. citizen children were deported in 2013. Many of them had committed no crimes or were charged with low-level, immigration-related offenses.  Due to a number of factors over the past two decades, the U.S. system of mass-deportations has developed into a well-oiled machine, which unnecessarily targets many undocumented immigrants who have strong familial connections and are contributing to their communities.   

Roughly 9 million people in the United States live in a mixed-status family, which includes one or more U.S. citizen children and one or more undocumented parent. Until President Obama’s announcement, these families lived in isolation, out of fear they would be forever ripped apart by a deportation. They had every reason to be fearful, since an estimated 660,000 children in the United States were separated from one or more parents through deportation from 1998 to 2012, the most recent statistics available. If President Obama did not take action, an estimated 150,000 children annually would continue to lose a parent to deportation.

For a child, the loss of a parent often leads to an increase in depression, an inability to focus at school, behavior problems, and health complications. Additionally, the loss of a primary wage earner can mean a severe drop in income, leaving many families in poverty. Needless to say, mass deportations harm more than the person removed from the country.  It destroys the people they leave behind, many of whom are innocent children. 

While not at all ideal, the president’s actions will provide some needed relief for families, including those headed by some of the brave men and women I stood with that hot summer day, until members of Congress summon up the courage to make permanent fixes to our broken immigration system.

Campbell is the vice president of the Institute Leadership Team of the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas.