CPTnet
16 April 2009
BORDERLANDS: A Holy Week with immigrants

by Anton Flores-Maisonet


[From Palm Sunday to Good Friday, approximately 1300 pilgrims united in Georgia's first Holy Week Pilgrimage for Immigrants, a prayerful walk trekking 50 miles through North Georgia and metro Atlanta to express solidarity with immigrants.  The Pilgrimage called for the end of law enforcement raids that separate families, the passage of humane immigration reform and the revision of trade policies that currently increase unauthorized immigration.  CPT's Steering Committee Chair, Anton Flores, was a key organizer, and CPTer Haven Whiteside was one of the core group of walkers.  See www.drivefast.wordpress.com for more information and pictures. The excerpts below have been edited for length.] 

Maundy Thursday
Over 500 pilgrims had just completed an eight-mile journey through Cobb County, home of some of Georgia's most vitriolic anti-immigrant residents, and it was time to engage in the subversive ritual of foot washing; an act of holy resistance to the dehumanizing dynamics of this world.

Six unauthorized immigrants sat on a stage while six United States citizens stooped down and washed their feet.

In the center of this holy huddle was Amabel, a Guatemalan immigrant.  A single mother of two, she had recently been the victim of an automobile accident while on her way to her job.  However, Amabel was driving without a driver's license so she soon found herself held in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).  Now Amabel is free on a conditional release awaiting her forthcoming deportation.  Her foot was washed while bearing its cross-an electronic monitoring anklet-a sign that the Gospel is for those deported to the margins of this sinful system.

Good Friday
Roberto Martinez Medina, thirty-nine, died in March while held in ICE custody at the Stewart Detention Center.  ICE waited days before announcing his death and has yet to explain what caused it.

We do know that the Stewart Detention Center in rural Lumpkin, Georgia is owned and operated by Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), a private company in the prison industrial complex with quarterly profits of over $35 million.

In remembrance of Roberto, approximately sixty of us stood vigil outside the ICE field office wearing black t-shirts and asked why he had to die in detention. 

Glimpses of Resurrection
On Wednesday, the pilgrims were to stop at Plaza Fiesta, the self-proclaimed "Latino Capital of Georgia."  However, for unknown reasons, this Mecca for Latino immigrant consumerism refused to allow us to enter their parking lot even though media vehicles were already set up on this same "holy" ground of American capitalism. 

Walking around the perimeter in a modified Stations of the Cross procession, we reached the rear entrance to Plaza Fiesta and prepared to stop for the final station, "Resurrection."  At that location, we found ourselves standing before an abandoned church with a stunning dogwood tree in full bloom. 

With my megaphone, I invited the mall's security guards to join us in our closing reflection and prayer but they refused.  So as we stood before this reborn tree of life, I reminded the forty of us gathered here that although a rejection of hurt lied just behind us, a resurrection of hope was awaiting unwelcome immigrants.

And everyone shouted "Amen!"