When Immigration Policy Separates Families We Know

Here’s an op-ed piece i sent to seattle times today. Concerning a wonderful child i baptized and confirmed who is now being held by ICE. Tragic. It’s long but trying to share my Christian conviction for the world. Praying for Nathan’s family

When Immigration Policy Separates Families We Know

Immigration debates are often argued in statistics and policy language. But sometimes the story is a face you know — a child whose life unfolded in your own community, someone who feels like family.

Years ago, while serving a congregation in Vermillion, South Dakota, a young boy named Nathan became part of our church family. His parents were immigrants seeking citizenship, and at one point they were required to travel to Washington, D.C., for interviews that would determine whether they could remain in the United States. There was real fear they might be sent back to Zimbabwe.

During that uncertain week, my wife and I signed legal documents agreeing to become temporary guardians for Nathan and his sister if their parents were not allowed to return. The children stayed with us while their parents waited for the decision. Thankfully, their parents were granted citizenship. It felt like grace had prevailed.

But the story did not end there.

Like many young people often referred to as “Dreamers,” Nathan grew up in the United States without an automatic pathway to citizenship. Today, years later, he finds himself in the custody of immigration authorities. I find myself grieving and asking what kind of nation we are becoming when policies separate young adults from the only home they have ever truly known.

Now serving a congregation in Washington state, I see every day how immigrant families are woven into the life of our communities — raising children in our schools, volunteering in our neighborhoods and building lives alongside neighbors who know them not as policy questions but as friends. Across Washington — from Seattle to Yakima to small towns like my own — congregations, schools and local businesses rely every day on the stability and contributions of immigrant families who are already deeply rooted here.

Immigration policy is complicated, and reasonable people can disagree about laws and enforcement. But there is a moral line our country should hesitate to cross: removing people who have grown up in our schools, worshiped in our congregations and built their lives in our communities as if they were strangers.

As a pastor, I baptized Nathan. I confirmed him. In the language of my Christian tradition, baptism is a covenant — a promise that a community will nurture, protect and walk with a person throughout life. When public policy tears people away from the families and communities that formed them, it does not feel abstract. It feels personal — like watching someone you love being cut off from the bonds that shaped them.

Behind every immigration case is not just a legal file but a human story: a child who grew up saying the Pledge of Allegiance at school, a teenager who learned English in American classrooms, a young adult who works, volunteers and dreams alongside neighbors who know their name. Nathan is not a statistic to me. He is someone whose life I watched unfold, whose family prayed and struggled to belong, and whose presence has shaped the lives of many who know him.

A constructive path forward is possible. Congress and policymakers can create clear, stable legal pathways for long-term residents who were raised in the United States, particularly those brought here as children, while maintaining thoughtful border and visa policies. Solutions that recognize both the rule of law and the reality of lives already rooted in American communities would strengthen families rather than destabilize them.

My hope is that our nation will choose policies that reflect not only legal authority but moral imagination — remembering that behind every immigration case is a human life shaped in our neighborhoods, our schools and our communities. When we protect the families who already belong among us, we protect something essential about who we are as a people.

This just in! Due to pressure put on by Nathan’s family, community, and beyond, and a good lawyer, Nathan was released this morning! We are thankful for this release, but also aware that many others are still imprisoned.