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Kinship Across Borders: A Christian Ethic of Immigration
Author(s): Kristin E. Heyer (Author, Contributor)
- Publisher: Georgetown University Press
- Publication Date: 2 Oct. 2012
- Language: English
- Print length: 208 pages
- ISBN-10: 158901930X
- ISBN-13: 9781589019300
Book Description
The failure of current immigration policies in the United States has resulted in dire consequences: a significant increase in border deaths, a proliferation of smuggling networks, prolonged family separation, inhumane raids, a patchwork of local ordinances criminalizing activities of immigrants and those who harbor them, and the creation of an underclass–none of which are appropriate or just outcomes for those holding Christian commitments. Heyer analyzes immigration in the context of fundamental Christian beliefs about the human person, sin, family life, and global solidarity to illuminate the plight of and receptivity to undocumented immigrants in this country, particularly immigrants from Mexico. She demonstrates how current US immigration policies reflect harmful neoliberal economic priorities, and why immigration cannot be reduced to security or legal issues alone; rather, immigration involves a broad array of economic issues, trade policies, concerns of cultural tolerance and criminal justice, and, at root, an understanding of the human person. Grounded in scriptural, anthropological, and social teachings, a Christian ethic of immigration calls society to promote structures and practices reflecting kinship and justice. The person-centered approach Heyer proposes demands basic changes to systems and rhetoric that abet and disguise immigrants’ exploitation and death, requiring enhanced human rights protections and respect for the rule of law. Central to this ethic is attentiveness to the lived experiences of immigrants and a theologically inspired summons to “subversive hospitality.”
Editorial Reviews
Review
Kinship Across Borders is a necessary text for university libraries that maintain collections in Theology, Politics, Law or Philosophy. It should be read by anyone interested in finding solutions to the immigration problems we all face today.
Enables new understandings of the human person threatened and renewed, and . . . reveals threats to family and civic bonds while pointing to how those bonds may be strengthened
Readers will find this text valuable in helping inform their understanding of immigration and Christian social ethics and rooting it deeply in human dignity and the broader Catholic social teaching tradition.
About the Author
Kristin E. Heyer is Bernard J. Hanley Professor of Religious Studies at Santa Clara University. She is the author of Prophetic and Public: The Social Witness of US Catholicism, which won the College Theology Society’s Best Book Award, and coeditor of Catholics and Politics: Dynamic Tensions between Faith and Power.
