FOR-USA has been headquartered in Rockland County, New York since the 1950s. So when a press conference was called by the local immigration rights group Proyecto Faro in response to the county refusing to allow buses of refugees to enter and be sheltered at a local hotel, we set off to pray with our legs. County Executive Ed Day had accused the refugees of being \u201cchild rapists,\u201d gang members and \u201ccriminals” and declared a so-called state of emergency to prevent the busses from coming in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There is an actual state of emergency in Rockland County and the broader U.S., but it isn’t refugees seeking shelter. It’s the xenophobia, hatred and white Christian nationalism that are preventing us from fulfilling our obligations to \u201cLove Thy Neighbor\u201d and \u201cWelcome the Stranger.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
As <\/strong>FOR-USA Director of Operations Susan Smith said at the May 11 press conference, \u201cEach and every one of us \u2014 with the exception of the Indigenous peoples \u2014 we, our families, our parents, our grandparents, came from somewhere else. We came here as children of God. We are all brothers and sisters, created by God, to take care of and provide refuge for each other.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Refugees seeking shelter is not our emergency. It’s the white Christian nationalism preventing us from fulfilling our obligations to \u2018Welcome the Stranger.\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":651,"featured_media":53326,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,60],"tags":[159,96],"region":[66],"series":[],"article_type":[],"class_list":["post-53338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","category-migration","tag-migration","tag-united-states","region-north-america"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n