This year’s nativity of the Claremont United Methodist Church in California is caged. Baby Jesus is in the middle, Virgin Mary and St. Joseph are on either side, as in a traditional nativity scene, but in this one a cell separate each figure from each other. The three figures are locked in in cages that are similar to those in which the U.S. Border Patrol locked migrant families on the southern border. In doing so, the authorities also separated children of varying ages from their parents. This happened in 2017 and 2018, because ofthe immigration policies of Donald Trump.
The manger has been exposed outside the temple since last weekend. Karen Clark Ristine, one of the church ministers, presented it with a message, along with a photo, on her Facebook account. Her post already has 14,000 comments of all kinds and has been shared more than 24,000 times: “Shortly after the birth of Jesus, Joseph and Mary were forced to flee with their young son from Nazareth to Egypt to escape King Herod, a tyrant. They feared persecution and death.What if this family sought refuge in our country today? Imagine Joseph and Mary separated at the border and Jesus no older than two taken from his mother and placed behind the fences of a Border Patrol detention center as more than 5,500 children have been the past three years.”
The latest estimates from the American Civil Liberties Union, according to data provided by the government to its lawyers, say that U.S. authorities have separated more than 5,400 children at the border since July 1, 2017.
On June 26, 2018, a San Diego judge ordered a halt to the practice of separation “except in limited circumstances, such as threats to child safety or doubts about whether the adult is really the father.” The judged also ordered a reunion of those children with their parents. From July 1, 2017 to the date of the judge’s order, 1,566 children were separated from their families. 207 of them were less than five years. Some were as young as five months old.
According to NBC News, the Trump government has still separated 1,090 children from their families even since the judge’s order.
Fulfilling the judge’s order to reunite families has been difficult because U.S. systems for tracking children were inadequate. It has been complicated to locate them. Volunteers from the American Civil Liberties Union work to find families and reunite them with their children, “door-to-door in countries like Guatemala and Honduras.”
The Clarmont Methodist church wants to show their position on this issue through this year’s nativity, they say in a statement they published on their website to respond to the impact the manger has had on public opinion. “We find the detention and family separation policy immoral in any administration, and this congregation has opposed those policies since their inception,” they say.
“We believe and proclaim that all people are made in God’s image. The message of our nativity encourages us to see God’s image and the love of Christ in every person (…) We are grateful for the conversations the nativity has inspired, and we hope they raise greater awareness in each of us for God’s care for the least of these,” the statement adds.
Jose A. Del Real and Adeel Hassan, reporters for The New York Times, went to the church, which is about 50 miles east of Los Angeles. Journalists describe that the outside of the building is decorated with rainbow-colored posters that say, “Everyone is welcome.” A peace sign is hanging from one of the trees.
Members of the 300 member congregation, whom the two reporters consulted, say the church “has a long history of inclusion and advocacy.”
Domonique Sanchez told them that she has been part of this congregation for decades and that she feels comforted in the church taking a stand against the separation of families, even when doing so invites controversy. “My family has been in this country for a very long time, for five generations, and we’re more American,” she said. “But racism is always an issue, it never goes away, and now it’s more blatant and in your face,” she told the reporters.
Indeed, it’s not the first time a manger of the Clarmont Methodist church pushes buttons. In their statement, they recall that the nativity scenes they displayed in 2009 and 2012 attempted to “to raise similar awareness on immigration policy concerns.”
CBS News also mentions other shaking nativity scenes. In 2014, the church displayed Virgin Mary as a homeless woman with a baby wrapped in a burlap at a bus stop. In 2011, the CBS continues, one homosexual and one heterosexual couple were displayed and the scene was vandalized. In 2013, Trayvon Martin was in the manger. Manger was a young African-American high school student shot by George Zimmerman, arguing self-defense.