Hundreds of millions of people are on the move around the world. Historians will remember our century for the large numbers of refugees, asylum seekers, economic migrants and those fleeing religious persecution or just seeking a better life for their children.
Many of us have not had much contact with actual migrants. We may never have encountered real refugees, persons fleeing war and crime and trafficking, and it can be easy to think of these people as “them,” some anonymous, faceless group. But they are real individuals, just like us, in seeking what we seek for ourselves and our families.
Migration and people fleeing their home countries is much in the headlines and was certainly a factor in the U.S. presidential election. As governments deal with issues of immigration, there is a danger that migration can become just a political football, portraying migrants as threats to us or our interests without our consideration of God’s call to care for the aliens and strangers and without being guided by our Catholic social teaching.
My work in Cambodia is leading an NGO (non-government organization) for deaf people and being pastor for the English-speaking Catholic community. As pastor, my work is almost entirely with immigrants. Of 700 or 800 parishioners, probably only five or six were born in Cambodia. The rest are from more than 55 countries around the world.
They come to Cambodia for different reasons. Some come for excitement, for a lifestyle and culture totally different from the U.S. or Europe. Some are Christians fleeing religious persecution. Some are embassy personnel, some are NGO workers. Some are running from the law (they tell me that). Some are fleeing warfare and conflict.
Many are lured by phony advertisements for non-existent high-paying jobs. Many have applied for U.N. refugee status and been rejected and placed in immigration detention centers for years.
But the majority of immigrants to Cambodia are seeking employment of any kind to support families back home, and they find Cambodia is practically the only country that will allow them in. To get a visa for Australia or Europe you need a guaranteed job, a letter of invitation, enough money in the bank and an employment visa. To enter Cambodia, you only need $35 and a passport photo.
That gets them into the country, but after 30 days that tourist visa expires. They have sold everything they owned to buy a ticket here or pay smugglers to bring them to Cambodia, and their money quickly is used up.
They know nothing about Cambodia before coming and have no idea how difficult it is to survive here. It is expensive for foreigners to live here, and without Khmer language it is very difficult to get a job. And with an expired visa, they cannot get work even if a job is available.
Many of these people end up on the streets or as captive workers in Chinese telephone scamming compounds, where they are held against their will. They are without food, medical care, housing and education for their children. When their passports and visas expire, they incur a penalty of $10 per day.
These immigrants find their way to the church and our St. Vincent de Paul Society. Some of the finest people I have met in Cambodia are immigrant families, mothers and fathers who have agonized over the risks and dangers and uncertainty of bringing their children to what they had hoped would be a place safe from persecution and a better life. Their prospects for that are not good here, but our parish community offers what we can in accompanying them, listening to them and offering our limited resources.
Father Charles Dittmeier, a priest of the Archdiocese of Louisville, is the co-director of the Deaf Development Programme in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and pastor of the English-speaking parish there. Follow his journey at parish-without-borders.org.
