1. This photo of 19 white men sitting around a table debating the fate of 2,300+ kids they stole from their parents is a pressing a reminder that we must address how white supremacy has always shaped US immigration policy—and adjust our demands accordingly. 
2. Immigration policy in the US has always hinged around conceptions of whiteness—intentionally operating to both expand the conception of who is "white," and shut out those it excludes.
3. Groups like the Irish, once despised ethnic minorities, were slowly integrated into popular understanding of whiteness, while simultaneously laws like the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act specifically barred others from migrating to the US.
4. As the foreign born population grew in the early 20th century, our government quickly passed strict immigration quotas in 1924 to limit the influx of immigrants. And these quotas were not colorblind: 86.5% of slots went to immigrants from Northwest Europe and Scandinavia.
5. Again and again through our history, we see this hegemonic push to preserve "whiteness." And, it is not coincidental that the current backlash against immigrants occurs as white people are projected to become a minority in the US by 2045.
6. This nativistic push must be understood in the context of white fragility and the sinful desire to maintain power and dominance. That's why discussing @realDonaldTrump's policies as racist is insufficient. Racism can be simply interpersonal, white supremacy is structural.
7. Structural problems require structural solutions. Therefore, our demands cannot simply be to replace @realDonaldTrump with someone less bigoted. We must set our sights broader, and begin to reconceptualize what we owe our global neighbors, and demand laws that reflect this.
8. As the climate crisis grows increasingly dire, millions will be displaced. And that's not even factoring those who will migrate due to war or other forms of violence.
9. In light of this reality, people of faith and conscience must declare unapologetically: We have a moral obligation to welcome the stranger. We are required by God and our very humanity to shelter those who need it. Nothing less than total welcome is acceptable.
10. When that becomes our collective aim, it will naturally frame lesser forms of evil at the border as still being wholly unacceptable. It's not enough to stop separating children from their families when your "solution" is to detain them all together. That is still violence.
11. We must consciously subvert the white supremacy that has always framed immigration by demanding radical hospitality for all who need it. Only when we abandon this sinful framework of "desirable" vs. "undesirable" immigrants will we begin to approach the kindom of God.
