In the early 1600s, a young man named William Shurtleff came to Plymouth, Massachusetts from England. William was a puritan and was seeking freedom to practice his religious beliefs freely in a land away from what he saw as the tyranny of the Church of England. Many like William began the treacherous journey to what is now known as the United States. While they may not have wanted to leave their homes, they did so because it was their only option to safely practice their religion. To this day, people like Wiliam are celebrated in this country for their courage and bravery in the United States.
In the mid-1800s, his descendants fled Missouri, then Illinois, to what is now known as Utah in order to practice their religion free from persecution. An extermination order had been issued by the governor of Missouri against their people and their leader had been killed. These people did not want to leave Missouri, they didn’t want to leave Illinois, but they had to. They had to so that they could openly practice their religion. The bravery and courage of those pioneers to find a better life for themselves is still celebrated in Utah and in the United States to this day.
In 2024, one of their descendants, an attorney at Contigo Law, represented a woman from Venezuela. This woman was held captive by men working with the Venezuelan government, while being held captive, her captors discovered that she was a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They started to mock her for her religious believes, then proceeding to sexually assault her, force her to consume substances she was morally opposed to, and all the while doing this while mocking her religious beliefs.
The Immigration Judge denied this woman’s application, claiming that she did not qualify for asylum based on persecution on account of her religious beliefs. The judge found that there was not sufficient evidence to show that this woman had suffered on account of her religion, despite the men specifically telling her that they were doing it because of her religious beliefs. The Immigration Judge denied this woman’s application, condemning her to return to the same persecution she’d suffered in her home country.
There are countless stories of individuals coming to this nation to build a better life, not necessarily for themselves, but for their descendants to follow them. People who fled tyranny, who fled persecution and discrimination, to come to the land of promise. These people understood that they needed to work to provide a future for their family that was not possible in their homelands. In fact, many would argue that the spirit of immigrants is what made this nation great. It is almost impossible for any American citizen to look back in their history and not find someone who fled from their home nation to the United States in search of a better life. In fact, we as a nation celebrate the bravery of those that came before and who had the courage to take the treacherous journey to come to the land of promise.
Today, however, individuals in similar situations are being vilified for doing just that. For fleeing their nations not because they want to, but because they had to. People who are seeking the right to worship how they want to worship, believe what they want to believe, and live the lives our constitution would allow them to live. Our nation was built not only on the concept of freedom, but on the concept of protecting the freedoms of others. Our nation was built on the foundation of people leaving their homeland not because they wanted to, but because they had to. Not because a better life was necessarily waiting for them there, but because a possibly better life was available for them and their families if they put in the work. It is because of these sacrifices that our nation is great.
Asylum seekers in the United States today are here to seek the very rights we take for granted. Much like our ancestors, they have come to the United States for the right to practice their religion, to life their lives openly, and to believe their beliefs freely. The protection they seek is a protection our nation has offered for centuries, and should continue to offer, because that is what makes our nation great.
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