Fr Sean Fernandez: Refugees and Levites

This article is a bit of a departure from my previous efforts. I have generally dealt with historical or theological topics; here, I deal with an issue of some currency with legal and political dimensions. My topic is ‘boat people’.

‘Boat people’ is a metonym for asylum seekers who come here by sea. I shall focus here on boat people because they are continually in the headlines in Australia.
Some facts on asylum seekers in the Australian context: ‘The majority of asylum seekers arrive in Australia with a valid visa and live in the community while they pursue their claims’ according to the Department of Immigration and Citizenship. A background note of the Department of Parliamentary Services notes that ‘estimates vary, but it is likely that between 96 and 99 per cent of asylum applicants arrived by air originally’.
And more than 91 per cent of boat people are found to be refugees as opposed to 20-30 per cent of those who arrive by air.
Australia is one of 147 countries that is a signatory to the United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees.
The Convention was a response to the situation of Europe after the Second World War and dealt solely with those persons displaced by conflicts preceding 1951.
In 1967, a protocol was signed which removed the limitations of the 1951 Convention. Australia signed on to the Convention in 1954 and the Protocol in 1973.
The Migration Act gives effect to our obligations under the Convention and Protocol; it provides that an asylum seeker is to be granted a protection visa if he or she is someone whom we have a duty to protect under the Convention and Protocol. 
In the Convention, a refugee is defined as someone who has a ‘well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country.’
Australia has processes for deciding whether someone is entitled to a protection visa. Recently, the High Court found that the regimen under which asylum seeker applications were considered in our excised territories “did not treat the provisions of the Migration Act 1958 (Commonwealth) and the decisions of Australian courts as binding and, further, failed to observe the requirements of procedural fairness”.
Bishop Joe Grech said after the judgement that “the Bishops of Australia sincerely hope that this is the end of the so-called ‘Pacific solution’ in which those seeking asylum in Australia are moved to remote offshore locations in order to avoid their access to Australian laws. Mere political expediency is no justification for detaining such people in remote areas.” I shall briefly comment on two common beliefs regarding ‘boat people’.
1 – Boat people have come here illegally. But asylum seekers who come here by boat are not illegal entrants. Under the Convention, they have a right to seek asylum in another country. If an asylum seeker’s claim is judged to fall within the terms of the Convention, then they are deemed to be a refugee and are granted a protection visa.
2 – Boat people are queue jumpers. But there is no queue. Claimants have a right to go to a country that is party to the Convention. Australia took in fewer than 15,000 refugees last year – we are one of the few countries with an annual quota, but the number we take in is not large. There is an obvious response to complaints of queue jumping; raise the quota or do not include those who are processed in Australia in the quota.
There has been much ink spilt discussing this issue in legal terms. I would like to suggest some reflections from the perspective of faith.
Care for the asylum seeker is an expression of the consistent Christian ethic of life. Cardinal Bernadin said that “when human life is considered ‘cheap’ or easily expendable in one area, eventually nothing is held as sacred and all lives are in jeopardy.” We care for all human beings in all the stages of life because all life is loved by God and sacred to Him.
Daniel Groody, in an article on a theology of migration, warns against dehumanisation of the asylum seeker.
We label people for convenience, but in the process there is the danger that we forget their humanity and dignity. We need to keep before us the idea that the refugee is an individual with dignity, created in the image of the living God.
The Vatican II document Gaudium et Spes (“Joy and Hope”) teaches us that people have a right to ‘everything necessary for leading a life truly human, such as food, clothing, and shelter; the right to choose a state of life freely and to found a family, the right to education, to employment, to a good reputation, to respect, to appropriate information, to activity in accord with the upright norm of one’s own conscience, to protection of privacy and rightful freedom, even in matters religious’ (26).
If they cannot meet these essential needs in their homeland, then they have a right to go where they can. We must not forget the human face behind the label, the frightened person with arms outstretched. ‘Boat people,’ asylum seekers, are our brothers and sisters; this is not just sentimentality but a reality deeply rooted in the Gospel. Christian Revelation reinterprets human nature, its unity and relationality (Caritas in Veritate).
The Church herself is the sign and instrument of the unity of the human family (Lumen Gentium 1).
Citizenship of earthly lands is not insignificant (though a relatively recent construct), but what should be more important to us, Christians, is the awareness that we are citizens of the Kingdom of God.
This citizenship radically qualifies all other forms of identity.
Finally, we may choose to avert our eyes from the boat person who comes to our shores, but then are we any different from the priest and the Levite who crossed the road to avoid the man beaten by robbers (Lk. 10.25-37)?
The Lord asks us to be a neighbour to the person in need, whoever he or she is; it may not be convenient or we may not like them, but that is all beside the point for ‘just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me’ (Matt 25.40).