| No room at the inn: reliving an ancient story today  By Nancy Lanman Whats new about Christmas? Every year I get to ask myself this question and every year my work with the Justice for our Neighbors ministry of the United Methodist Committee on Relief gives me more answers than I could ever imagine. A royal decree for a census sent families living in the Roman Empire to their places of ancestry. As members of the House of David, Jesus parents had to journey outside of their city of Nazareth in Galilee and enter the city of Jerusalem. This requirement to register put them in a strange city without a suitable place to stay when Jesus birth neared. When Marys labor began, they found no hospitality anywhere and were forced to take refuge in a stable where he was born and cradled in a manger. The plight of Jesus parents is not altogether unlike that of would-be immigrants and asylum seekers in our own country, who, in a post-Sept. 11 world, have been lumped into an all-encompassing category of undocumented, and therefore would-be-terrorist. Laws that might seem like reasonable security measures to us have put tens of thousands of ordinary, yet vulnerable, people in jeopardy. A recent example is the requirement that males of certain ages and countries of origin, almost all Middle Eastern and Muslim, must register annually with immigration authorities. This special registration requirement represents a limited and unfair attribution of guilt by association for those who unfortunately share the same faith as known terrorists. Even the governments announced intention to end this provision of the law does not obscure what is a disheartening lack of political will to deal with national security with discretion and proportionality. Justice for our Neighbors is a mod ern-day response to this current, critical need for safe haven and welcome. The organizations partners, at 16 sites in 10 annual conferences, now offer life-sustaining legal services to those whose uncertain immigration status has put them in the same suspected group with international terrorists. The still unfolding story of Gods love for wholeness and peace on earth would have us temper our very real fears and need for greater security with the exercise of compassion in our efforts to find and eliminate would-be terrorists. The Baltimore Hispanic Initiative is one such partner that has opened its doors to confused and threatened immigrants, applying soothing balm to the hurt of fear and distrust of immigrants so strong in the wake of the Sept. 11 tragedy. Among those recently served are a small group of Indonesian Christians from a local Presbyterian Fellowship whose members have fled civil war and persecution in recent years and have been waiting-out a still precarious state of affairs in their own country. For many this has meant overstaying their visas a situation made more complicated by the special registration requirement. Like the family of Jesus, who was required to submit to a seemingly harmless legal condition, those previously compelled to register their presence are at risk of indefinite detention or deportation to countries of origin that cannot or will not insure their well being, all without the benefit of constitutional rights taken for granted by the rest of us comfortably legal in our immigration status. The ethnicity and religion of Jesus family made them suspect and Jesus status a life-threatening political liability, which precipitated their flight to Egypt. Many today are fleeing our borders to Canada rather than risk a similar fate. Jesus family benefited from divine intervention in the guise of an angelic messenger whose warning helped to circumvent Herods secret attempt to use the Magi to learn of Jesus whereabouts. We Christians today might also consider how to use our influence as citizen advocates to mitigate the erosion of long established and deeply cherished democratic and civil liberties by governmental authorities, even in the name of national security. Immigrants and asylum seekers fleeing abusive regimes and other life-threatening circumstances are no longer assured a welcome or even an impartial hearing before our courts in the wake of Sept. 11s frightening realities. Emory UMC in Washington and First UMC of Hyattsville have become Justice for our Neighbors partners, opening the doors of their inns to people whose U.S. spouses have threatened to turn them in to authorities should they divulge the abusive relationships their marriages have become. Together their members work with Justice for our Neighbors attorneys to assure that such people have adequate and trustworthy representation before immigration authorities and courts. They work to assure that those who are eligible for work authorization have the correct paperwork to support this benefit. They work to translate the stories of abuse and persecution into coherent testimonies that will be given the due process in a court of law they deserve, not as citizens, but as human beings and children of God. Like the Magi, Justice for our Neighbors partnering congregations seek to overcome the human tendency to stereotype and render guilt by association. In churches, newcomers and long-term citizens work together sharing Gods grace and love in their relationships. Like the Magi, modern day Christians are heeding the words of a divine messenger that cautions us to love and care for the sojourners in our midst, lest we miss having entertained angels unawares. In the faces of vulnerable immigrants we see the face of the baby Jesus and his family, and seek to experience Gods love by risking to live as Jesus lived. Nancy Lanman is a probationary deacon serving as program manager for ministry development on the national staff of Justice For Our Neighbors-UMCOR. She is a member of Chevy Chase UMC. | 
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