This week, Reform rabbis from across the country will lead a pilgrimage to the U.S. border with Mexico to call attention to three ongoing crises near the border: The asylum seekers languishing on the El Paso-Juarez bridge, teenagers confined to a tent city surrounded by barbed wire in Tornillo, and the humanitarian crisis in El Paso, Texas, where immigrants and refugees are being released randomly with no access to support or resources. The Let Our Families Go pilgrimage represents a bold new effort to mobilize faith communities (particularly Jewish faith communities) around the issues of immigrant justice and human rights.
“We, as people of faith, stand for the reunification of children with parents or guardians regardless of immigration status,” said Rabbi Josh Whinston, rabbi at Temple Beth Emeth in Ann Arbor, Michigan and co-chair of Let Our Families Go. “The time has to bring an end to the outrageous practices that keep asylum seekers and immigrant teens mired in desperate poverty or locked in prison camps. This pilgrimage is a fulfillment of our obligation as religious leaders to support the most vulnerable among us, and an acknowledgement of the immigrant identity embedded in our own Jewish heritage.”
