Issues of immigrant rights found only minutes away from Elon
This semester at Elon, through a class in the religious studies department, I had the opportunity to intern with Faith Action International House, a social justice organization located in downtown Greensboro. I came into this class and the resulting internship expecting to learn a lot, meet new people and take critical looks at what it means to be a Christian in today’s rapidly changing world. What I did not expect was to be confronted with very real injustices that are occurring not just thousands of years ago in the Bible, and not just across the world and in presidential policy debates, but right here in our neighborhood. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) centers are used to hold undocumented immigrants. According to ICE policy, individuals are held based on suspicion of visa violation, illegal entry or unauthorized arrival. The practice of detaining undocumented immigrants in these centers began in the United States in the early 1980s, but was made mandatory by legislation passed in 1996. Historically, these detention camps reach as far back as World War II, when Japanese-Americans and other “suspicious” immigrant groups were forced to relocate during the war. On any given day in the United States, approximately 31,000 non-citizens are held in about 250 immigration detention centers nationwide.