Wesley joins other ASU campus ministries to support undocumented students

by Brian Schlemmer, Wesley alumnus

Illegal or undocumented? Economic necessity or drain? Liberal or conservative? Refugee or Terrorist? Each of these questions highlights a particular paradigm through which individuals understand the current immigration crisis in the U.S. and in Arizona in particular. Is immigration a legal issue or an economic issue? A political issue or a national security issue? The answer of course depends upon which of these or any number of other paradigms you choose.

As a young person of faith, struggling with how best to answer scripture and follow Christ in a complex and broken world, my paradigm has led me to questions much different from those I hear in the current immigration debate. For instance, as I read Leviticus 19:33-34, my questions become, "Are we mistreating the alien in our midst?" and "Are we treating the alien as the native-born among us?" As I read Matthew 25:31-46, my questions become, "Who are the strangers whom Jesus calls 'the least of these'?" and "Do we welcome Christ when he comes to us as a stranger?" As a young person of faith, these are the questions that haunt me as I hear people dismissed as "illegals," or when I see a constant move in the state that is my home to eliminate health care, educational opportunities, and a right to safety for our sisters and brothers who are aliens in our midst. But I now know that as a young person of faith, I am not alone.

The students of Wesley Campus Ministry at Arizona State University, in collaboration with the students of the Newman Center and the campus Episcopal and Lutheran groups have decided to take up God's call to care for the strangers in our midst. In response to the 2006 proposition which eliminated funding sources for undocumented university students in the state of Arizona, and began charging them out-of-state tuition regardless of where they live or where they graduated high school, the students of these campus ministries have developed the "I Was a Stranger and You Welcomed Me" scholarship. This scholarship will go toward giving undocumented students living in Arizona access to education at ASU, affirming the United Methodist Church's stance that access to education is a basic human right, and the Biblical teaching that all people are created in the image of God.

I am proud to be a part of this courageous ministry, and I hope that you will be, too. If you would like to donate to the scholarship campaign, please make checks payable to the ASU Wesley Foundation, marking "I Was a Stranger" in the notes. If you're not yet ready to embrace this vision of ministry in our neighborhoods, we'd invite you to talk with us about it. Together we can explore what it means to be a faithful people in a complex world. That is what it means to be the body of Christ.

Brian Schlemmer is a student at the Theological School at Drew University and a candidate for ministry in the Desert Southwest Annual Conference. He is a graduate of ASU where he was an active member of Wesley Campus Ministry.