Francisco Lozada / Theology of Immigration: Crossing Porous Borders, Welcoming Strangers, and the Faith of the Migrant

What can the faith of the migrant teach us about a living theology? The resilience and communal outlook of immigrants offers a way of seeing human relationships—political, social, religious—as porous and permeable, meant to encounter God in the other, welcoming each other in love and hospitality. Francisco Lozada (Brite Divinity School) joins Evan Rosa to reflect on his experiences at U.S.-Mexico borderlands, leading travel seminars and teaching about immigration and justice from a theological framework—they discuss the influence of liberation theology's guiding principle of the preferential option for the poor, the centrality of history in understanding immigration, the problem of American xenophobia, and the racialization of U.S. immigration policy.