"For Good Times and Bad Times, I'll be on Your Side Forever More"

This is a tremendous lyric from a Burt Bacharach song and I thought a great way to corral our thinking and celebration of Mothers this week.

Mothers have a way of being supportive when we need it the most. Mothers have a way of stepping into our lives bigger than ever when the world has walked out. Mothers aren't about judging you where you are, they're about loving you where you are.

I am so thankful for my Mom. She accepted at an early age that I was a dreamer. She encouraged my dreams. Yet loved both my brother and I equally. 

Erma Bombach, the great humorist, was asked once if she had a favorite child? Her answer was swift and without hesitation, "of course I do." The interviewer looked stunned and asked which one? Quick as a cat she answered "whichever one needs me the most right now."

Some families are comprised of individuals who might be defined as strangers. People who know each other intimately, but have nothing in common (and want to keep it that way). Even in these instances, Mothers have a way of navigating things and continuing to love and encourage everyone steadily.

There is a great truth in a Mother's love ... and that is consistency. I think we should try always to apply this aspect of love to our Christian brothers and sisters. We need to be there for each other in good times and bad times. We never know all the surrounding facts of a person's situation, but we know that God does, and God is loving that person through the situation and has vowed to be by their side forever more.

The Bible has many verses about Mothers - it describes them as being clothed with strength and dignity; as speaking with wisdom; and as the one who trains a child. I love Proverbs 6:20 "My son ... do not forsake your Mother's teachings ... they will be a garland to grace your head and a chain to adorn your neck."

My experience has been in "good times and bad times, Mom was forever on my side." I am so happy one of America's greatest composers has written this lyric. It's inspiring to me, and I hope to you.

Happy Mothers Day in advance to all of you wonderful Mothers - and thank you for all the encouragement, tears, and inspiration you've given us.

A grateful son ... Paul

Last week on May 2, a contingent of Presbyterians joined dozens of other people of faith outside the Dilley detention center to call for the end to the inhumane incarceration of refugee mothers and children. Across the country, solidarity marches and protests are planned leading up to Mother's Day, including one outside the White House in Lafayette Park.

Join us in telling the Obama administration to #EndFamilyDetention.

The number of immigrants detained in our nation increased significantly in 2010 because of the immigrant detention bed quota, a federal budgetary mandate that 33,400 beds be made available at any given time. By 2013, the quota rose to 34,000. In 2014, 32,163 immigrants were detained every day.

Family detention was a problem from the start. In 2009, President Obama closed the T. Don. Hutto Residential Center, located in Taylor, TX, which had housed families since 2006, because of concerns related to abuse by guards, improper nutrition and medical care. He announced that this signaled the end to family detention, other than 90 beds in Berks County, Pennsylvania.

This was not the case.

By June of 2015, the United States will have the capacity to detain 4,000 women and children, a rise from 90 total beds in June of 2014. Since then, more than 2,500 families have been detained in four facilities: a retrofitted Federal Law Enforcement Training Campus in Artesia, NM; Dilley Residential Center in Dilley, TX; Karnes Residential Center in Karnes City, TX, and Berks County Residential Center in Leesburg, PA. The Artesia facility closed in November of last year, with remaining detainees moved to one of the two Texas facilities.

This is in response to the arrival of 68, 684 family units at the U.S./Mexico border in 2014. These families are fleeing extreme violence from the Northern Triangle of Central America: El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala. The government cites public safety and concerns that families would abscond from their immigration hearings as reasons to incarcerate them. At the opening of the Dilley facility in December of 2014, Jeh Johnson, Secretary of Homeland Security, stated that family detention served as a deterrent to future migration. Advocates point out that this detention is in clear violation of the 1997 settlement in Flores v. Meese case, that stated minors must be put in a family or legal guardian's custody, or be detained in the least restrictive setting possible. Moreover, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child declared that the detention of children was fundamentally contrary to the dignity of children. The U.S. and Somalia are the only countries yet to ratify it.

The conditions in these facilities are substandard. Advocates have reported that children there are malnourished, dehydrated, and receive subpar medical care. Recently, mothers in the Karnes facility have gone on hunger strike protesting the conditions and the detention of their children.

The women and children detained in these facilities report partner abuse, gang rape and beatings, death threats, and religious persecution as reasons they fled to our shores. According to the American Immigration Lawyers Association, the majority of these families would qualify for asylum with proper legal representation. Notably, you cannot claim asylum unless you are on U.S. soil. Many of these families are looking for Border Patrol agents to apprehend them at the border.

Detention is not only inhumane; it is costly. Alternatives to detention, like ankle bracelets, cost around $22 per day, whereas the cost of detention beds is around $166 per day.

Private Prisons

Corporate profit is driving this surge of family detention. The Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) operates the Dilley Center and GEO Group the Karnes Center. Both corporations spent $16 million dollars between 2008 and 2014 on federal lobbying, in addition to more than $132,000 in contributions to Congressional members who serve on the Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security (which controls the bed quota). The result of this lobbying is clear.

Presbyterian Policy

As people of faith, we must recognize that family detention impacts some of the most vulnerable peoples: mothers and children fleeing horrific violence and abuse. It is an affront to the Biblical mandates to care for the least of these and welcome the stranger.

The 211th General Assembly (1999) reaffirmed principles behind Presbyterian policy on immigration and refugee issues, saying, "Love of neighbor requires Christians to seek justice for refugees, asylum seekers, and immigrants."

Furthermore, in 2003, the 215th General Assembly published a "Resolution Calling for the Abolition of For-Profit Private Prisons," stating, "since the goal of for-profit prisons is earning a profit for their shareholders, there is a basic and fundamental conflict with the concept of rehabilitation as the ultimate goal of the prison system."

Family detention is the opposite of justice for these families. It is the exploitation of the most vulnerable for profit.

Take Action Now:

Pray for the mothers and children in detention.

Call on the Obama administration to #EndFamilyDetention.

** A lawsuit challenging family detention will be resolved within the next 30 days. A temporary ruling suggests that the judge will rule against the use of family detention, but the implications are unclear.