When meaningful conversations fail, action or apathy remain the only options. Over the past three decades, as global migration rates surged, discussions and debates on viable solutions and equitable policies in the United States devolved into bitter political talking points. In January 2025, when the newly elected administration took office, an anti-migrant machine swiftly sprang into action. There’s no longer time or space for debate; instead, daily arrests, overcrowded detention centers, and deportations of individuals who live, work, and send their children to school in our communities, just like us, have become the norm.
Immigrants living in the United States today are facing ever-increasing threats and persecution. Rebecca Sharpless, Professor of Law at the University of Miami and founder of the Immigration Clinic, recently described the new American policy as, “a shock and awe—scorched earth—approach toward immigration.”[1] Immigrants, even without permanent status or citizenship, have rights under existing law and the constitution, including the right to due process. Today, these rights are being undermined, challenged, or simply decided by federal and state administrators, officers, and agencies on the streets and behind closed doors.
Immigrants living in the United States today are facing ever-increasing threats and persecution.
Personal liberty, freedom, and the right to a fair hearing with the presumption of innocence until proven guilty are not being universally applied. Americans are living in a nation of double standards where these rights are arbitrarily granted to some but not all. Instead of progress toward a more inclusive society, racial and ethnic profiling are becoming increasingly normalized.
The Persistent History of Discrimination and Falsehoods
The discrimination and “othering” of our neighbors is not a new condition. During the post-World War II and Civil Rights era in America, desegregation led to a reactionary social phenomenon often referred to as “white flight.” This phenomenon was fueled by the false belief that overpopulation, the degradation of social services, and violence were associated with migrating Black folks. However, the more reasonable cause of these challenges was the overall migration of many white and Black families in America, which was a result of the rapidly growing and thriving middle class. Despite a new reality where the majority of society was benefiting, discriminatory attitudes persisted.
Today we face similar challenges, but on a global and interconnected scale. At a high-stakes gathering of world leaders at the United Nations, President Donald Trump spoke about “the number one political issue of our time, the crisis of uncontrolled migration.”[2] Indeed, the mass migration of people has been steadily growing. The causes of migration are just as diverse as the people, but the most common trends are directly related to displacement due to war and violence, climate and weather-related disasters, natural disasters, and economic conditions. Globally, migration rates have increased over 60% since the turn of the century, where there are an estimated 281 million people around the world living in different countries than the one they originated in. For comparison, total international migrants make up just 3.6% of the world’s population.[3]
The growing trends in migration have introduced new social pressures on the nations and communities that have welcomed others. Housing, health care, education for children, paying jobs, and transportation are what every family needs in our modern society. Sudden increases in population create strain on existing systems and institutions, and a complex immigration system makes helping and creating solutions that benefit the whole of society difficult, if not impossible.
The causes of migration are just as diverse as the people, but the most common trends are directly related to displacement due to war and violence, climate and weather-related disasters, natural disasters, and economic conditions.
Despite these unsolved challenges in American policy, the people who relocate are not the cause, but are the refugees of larger, unresolved crises. War and violence, climate change, and economic sustainability are matters of justice that demand political solutions because they involve the affairs of people, societies, and a representative governance. Contrary to the popular opinions of our time, migration and the people who migrate are not a crisis to be solved. From the beginning of time, humans have always been on the move as nomads, explorers, settlers, and refugees. People, regardless of where they have come from or where they intend to go, are our global neighbors and part of one human family. They are entitled to the same dignity, compassion, care, and liberty as we would hope to be extended if we found ourselves in their shoes.
Contrary to the popular opinions of our time, migration and the people who migrate are not a crisis to be solved.
A Growing Sentiment of Animosity
The President of the United States continued his speech on the floor of the United Nations, where he used his position of influence to share an alternative vision of the world. This vision is one where immigrants are an existential crisis to Western civilization. In this vision, an individual’s dignity and culture is celebrated, but from afar in the place they came from and should remain. In this vision, the world is binary and fair because everything is a zero-sum game where there are winners and losers—people and nations who do great things, and those who do not.
Directly addressing the European nations, President Trump spoke in clear terms a vision where the ideals of nationalism and nativism are the rules the world order should be dictated by:
We have reasserted that America belongs to the American people, and I encourage all countries to take their own stand in defense of their citizens as well. You have to do that because I see it. I’m not mentioning names. I see it and I can call every single one of them out. You’re destroying your countries.[4]
…What makes the world so beautiful is that each country is unique, but to stay this way, every sovereign nation must have the right to control their own borders. You have the right to control your borders, as we do now, and to limit the sheer numbers of migrants entering their countries and paid for by the people of that nation that were there and that built that particular nation at the time. They put their blood, sweat, tears, money into that country, and now they’re being ruined. Proud nations must be allowed to protect their communities and prevent their societies from being overwhelmed by people they have never seen before with different customs, religions, with different everything. Where migrants have violated laws, lodged false asylum claims or claimed refugee status for illegitimate reasons, they should, in many cases, be immediately sent home.[5]
Despite unfounded claims of nations in ruin, irrational fears of cultural erosion, or delegitimizing an individual’s desire to start a new life, our neighbors both near and far are not our enemies.
A Vision Toward a Better Tomorrow
There is another vision of the world that does not shy away from the pressing issues of our time, but instead seeks justice for all people in all places. This vision, however, experiences greater resistance because it challenges and disrupts the powerful, influential, and entitled among us. This vision seeks to confront and reform systems that perpetuate injustices like violence, oppression, discrimination, and cruelty that thrive on apathy and group privilege. This vision, like the other, is also about survival—not for one nation, people, or civilization, but for all people in all places.
Everyday, violent action is taking place against our neighbors. Parents are pulled away by armed, masked men from their children’s arms, spouses separated, and individuals detained without access to due process, communication with their loved ones, or support to the vital people and systems in place to help them. The very nation our immigrant neighbors sought refuge in with hope and promise has now become their nightmare—and our own. A nation empowered to selectively choose who stays and goes is a nation that no longer seeks justice, but unequal justice, which is no justice at all.
In contrast, justice is love in action—in our hospitality, compassion, and service to others. Love does not operate in the economy of scarcity, but in abundance-creation where healing, reconciliation, belonging, and life is made eternal. In this way, true justice is established through acts of love and self-sacrifice that uphold the dignity of others, and in turn, our own.[6]
[1] September 20, 2025, Immigration Town Hall event in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
[2] https://www.rev.com/transcripts/trump-speaks-at-un (24:06)
[4] https://www.rev.com/transcripts/trump-speaks-at-un (25:51)
[5] https://www.rev.com/transcripts/trump-speaks-at-un (26:43)
[6] The words of the New Testament writer to Christians in the first century are instructive for us today, just as it was to them in their time. “Keep on loving each other as brothers and sisters. Remember to welcome strangers, because some who have done this have welcomed angels without knowing it. Remember those who are in prison as if you were in prison with them. Remember those who are suffering as if you were suffering with them.” (Hebrews 13:1-3)
Matt Till 