Behind the Headlines: The Human Side of Immigration with William Hanna

0:01 Welcome to the Wayne Watson Podcast, where Grammy nominee and multiple-dub award-winning artist Wayne Watson engages in lively conversation with remarkable people from every walk of life. Artists to healthcare professionals, athletes and leaders to everyday believers whose stories reflect the power of faith at work in the world. Join us as we go beyond the spotlight and into the heart of what it means to live with purpose and conviction. Diving into real conversations about the moments that shape us, the faith that sustains us, and the God who inspires it all. Now, here's your host, Wayne Watson.

0:43 Let me just introduce you to everyone. This is William Hanna, a longtime friend and an even longer time friend to my wife. And I want to get to that. But William is 35 years plus, I think now probably, of courtroom experience. Season litigator, repeated recognition as one of the best lawyers in America, I read. That's awesome. Well, but I want to ask you, I was also in high school in who's who in American high schools. And the way I got in that is we said, yes, we will buy your book. So I want to know if if best lawyers in America is, yeah, well, you will put you in here, but you need to spend $100 on this hardback book. I didn't make the cut for who's who in high school.

1:25 Oh, come on. Really? Really? I don't think I did. I'm sure I did. Well, your parents didn't want to buy the book. That's why. Yeah. Yeah. And I don't know if the standard for best lawyers in America is all that much different, but it's all good. But you were recognized as one Kansan that everyone should know. What is that? I think I was nominated for something for the Ingrams Magazine and just came up with a number of people. Yeah. who were out and about doing things in Kansas. So, yeah, that was an unexpected honor and very nice of them. Nice. Well, you're certainly one of two that I know. The other one is our friend Rex Hudler, who does TV for the Kansas City Royals.

2:09 That's right. Yes, you two are definitely Kansans that I know. Before we get to the serious stuff, though, tell me about your family, your wife, Tanya, and your kids and all that kind of stuff. Sure, sure. So we've been married now for 35 years. And have lived in Kansas City the whole time. We have three children, Chase. And Chase went to KU, and he's a professional golfer. He is in Sweden this week as we speak. He is an awesome young woman named Hannah. So she is Hannah, Hannah. Hannah, actually. They've heard all the jokes. They've heard all the comments.

2:50 And she's terrific. Has somebody put the bowman in there somewhere? Yeah. They've heard it all. They've heard it all. That's right. And our middle daughter, Mackenzie, she also lives here in Kansas City, and she works at KU Med as a social worker in the neurology unit. And our youngest is Madison. Madison has graduated, and she also lives here in town. She works for H&R Block downtown. Okay. We have two of the three in town, and you never know where Chase is. I follow him. As you know, I follow his golf exploits and his endeavors to keep rising to the top.

3:32 And, man, what a life that is. I mean, now, I know he has sponsors, and so there are probably some people helping him pay the bills. Yeah. And the number of people that want to be in that top tier of the golf world is staggering and very competitive. As we talked about last week, I think his first round he shot a 72 and then the next two rounds 66. And you and I texted and said, that tells you how many good golfers there are. He shot 66 two days in a row and was still 25th on the week before. That's right. It's a big world of golf. Oh, man. It's a big world of golf, and it's an international sport.

4:12 So that means everybody plays, and it's very competitive. But, yeah, he's been blessed enough to do it since 2017. Wow. So he's been doing it now for nine years, and you have no home games. You are constantly traveling. You are on tour. Right, right. The Royals play. I'm sorry to interrupt you. Go ahead. had some health issues, I think, right? She did. Is she doing well? She is. She's doing great. So McKinsey in 2017 had autoimmune encephalitis, which I knew nothing about and then learned a whole lot about, but that's when your autoimmune system impacts your brain and attacks your brain.

4:57 So she was very sick for a very long time. And so we spent a winter at the Mayo Hospital in Rochester, which isn't the best place to spend January and February. And then she went to the Madonna Rehabilitation Hospital in Lincoln, Nebraska for brain injury patients. And that's where she really began to turn. And she has made a full recovery with her patients. with her mind, with her brain. So completely 100% there. And she still has a little difficulty drawing with her right hand, but it's a great reminder to her of just how far she's come and just the journey she was on.

5:40 She lives in historic northeast of Kansas City, which is where a large percentage of our immigrant community lives. And she chooses to live there for that reason. So she's involved in the immigrant community, as am I, which we're going to talk about. So we have followed your family. Why don't you tell people how I know you? I've known you for quite a few years, but I've known your wife, Megan, since about 1981, I would say. So we go back a long time to high school. We were good friends in high school, good friends through college. And then I was at law school at Baylor when Megan was an undergrad at Baylor and remained friends then.

6:24 So we've just known each other for a long, long time. And even though you live in Houston now, of course, we live here in Kansas City. It's great to have longtime friends who've known you from way back. And that includes her. And it's been a joy to get to know you through that longtime friendship, which is great. Great. Okay, a couple of silly questions before we get to the heavy stuff. And I will just tell people this episode might not be for the faint of heart as far as some of your embedded beliefs and convictions. So I would ask people to have an open mind and listen to what is being said and process it as a grown-up.

7:11 But before we do that, if you had to guess a number, how many times do you think you have been in a courtroom doing business? Thousands? Certainly hundreds. I mean, certainly in the civil litigation side, which is different from the immigration side, which I do now, The vast majority of your cases get settled or resolved before you even get to court. Okay. And usually that's done through mediation, or you'll see the judge rule one way or the other before you actually get to a trial. Right. Okay. And the reason why that's done is because the federal courts are so backed up with other things that they really try and encourage the parties to mediate and resolve their differences before it ever gets to a jury or a bench trial.

7:58 The immigration side is different just because it's always, it seems, one way or the other. So you're in court much more often on the immigration side because there isn't the ability to try and resolve the case via agreement before you get there. It seems to me that courtrooms are great places for recycling of church pews. I've only been in court. Let me edit this. I've only been in a courtroom three times. Once, I won't talk about. The second time was to adopt our little boy.

8:42 Six months after he was born, I went in the wee hours to the courtroom and waited for the doors to open. And a wonderful, nice gentleman judge made our adoption official. And I have pictures of that. That was a great day. The other one was not too long ago. I got a ticket on Interstate 10 for having a cover over my back license plate on my car. And I'm driving along. I'm going the speed limit. Sort of. And we're driving along, and he pulls me. I think, what in the world, man? And he pulls me over. He said, you know, those covers are illegal. I said, well, it's not one of those smoke covers. He said, any cover on your license plate is illegal.

9:24 Did not know that. Neither. And he walked around to the front of my car, which did not have a license plate on it, which in Texas is required. I didn't know that either. and he gave me a ticket for not having a license plate on the front of my car. But he said, if you'll comply, just take this to the courthouse, close to our house here, and they'll take care of it. So I walk up to a window, and I think, I'm just going to pay whatever the fee is and get this dismissed. And she said, go into courtroom number three over here. And I was like, what? whoa, I didn't bring jail clothes. I thought I was just going to come pay for this, you know. And so I go in and the church pews are all there. They look like they've been well worn.

10:06 And this nice gentleman said, Mr. Watson, you come forward. And $10, the law, he gave me a little speech, said the law allows me to dismiss this, $10, pay the clerk. And that was it. So those are my two courtroom appearances. And hopefully I won't have another. What time is it? I hope I won't have one, another one today. Exactly. Well, on the immigration side, which is what we're going to talk about, I suppose, if you go into our federal courts or even our state courts, you'll see quite a few pews and the ceilings are 40 feet high or who they are. Our immigration court here in Kansas City, for example, is not in a courthouse at all.

10:49 It's an office building. It sits in an office building in downtown Kansas City on the fifth floor. And there are three courtrooms. So we have three judges in Kansas City that cover all the immigration cases in both Kansas and Missouri. So, and the courtrooms are very small. They would not be dissimilar to a... courtroom that you would go in to pay your speeding ticket in Oakland Park, Kansas or Prairie Village, Kansas. There's only going to be about three or four pews. So it's not the courtroom like we see on Law and Order. No, it is not. It's a nice, beautiful wood panel.

11:29 It is not. It is different. Now, you practice law in a different manner for all those early years coming out of law school. What was it that made you flip the switch and go over to basically, I guess it's all pro bono work for immigration law for this firm you work with now, right? Yeah, it's all immigration work. Now, it's not all pro bono. It is all immigration. And so, yeah, so I came out of law school in 1989, which seems an awful long time ago, and it is an awful long time ago. And so I took a job at a firm here in Kansas City, and never changed jobs until last year.

12:14 And so I was there for 36 years and loved it. And it's a major law firm, main offices in Kansas City and Minneapolis, but also offices in St. Louis, in Phoenix, and now there's offices in Tampa, New York, Dallas, and all over. And I loved it. It was wonderful to work with great people and wonderful clients. But in 2016, you were always encouraged to do pro bono work, and I enjoyed doing that as well, of course. So it was about 10 years ago that I started doing more immigration cases.

12:56 That would have been in 2016. Hmm. And I said, well, I was just hearing, just talking our national discourse about immigrants and I just didn't like what I was hearing. And I thought, well, rather than just sit here and stew about it, I should do something about it. So I took a case for a family that was a refugee family. I said, I want to represent a refugee family. They said, well, you want one, you got one. So I represented a refugee family and applied for them for their green card applications. And a green card is a legal permanent residence. And then continued on and established a relationship with that family, wonderful family who left Syria during the war there.

13:41 And I just enjoyed the relationship with the people. I mean, I enjoyed the relationships with my clients, my corporate clients that I had represented for so many years. But this was different. This was more personal. And you get to know those families. And that's what got me hooked. So I started doing more and more of that as the years went on. What led you into the law? Did you grow up in Newton, Kansas? Is that what was your home? I did. Right. I'm from Newton, Kansas, just north of Wichita. And I went to University of Kansas undergrad and loved it there. Went to Baylor for law school where your wife, Megan, was there. I've been through Newton.

14:22 I've driven through Newton. It didn't take long. No, it doesn't. I also drove through Megan's hometown of Heston, Kansas, when she said, it won't take you long to drive through. But I came from a town of 1500 with one traffic light that never changed unless a car ran over the strip on the side road. So when you guys talk about our small towns, your kind of town is the one we went to for a nice date. That's right. That's right. It's always a matter of debris, right? Right. So what led you into the law from growing up in Kansas? I just really enjoyed it and could see myself just really having a career that I would enjoy and would be challenging. And so that's what I did.

15:04 And so then I always kind of felt that I wanted to come back to Kansas City. And so that's what I did once I graduated and I enjoyed the firm that I was with. But it just became... more and more apparent that for me to really do what I wanted to do, I was going to need to leave because the firm was fine with me doing the pro bono cases that I was doing. And they were wonderful in allowing me to do that. And then it just became a time where this is what I want to be able to do full time. But the clients that I wanted to represent, it was just going to be very difficult to do that and stay at the firm where it was.

15:45 Last year, I joined the Sharma Crawford Law Firm here in Kansas City. And if you Google Rekha Sharma Crawford and Michael Sharma Crawford and firm, they take the most challenging immigration cases that you might find. So what a better place to learn even more than what I've learned. needed to know than there. Because I was humble enough and also had enough real life experience to know there was plenty that I did not know, even though I'd been doing a lot of immigration cases for a while. And so that's where I started. And the firm is a... removal defense firm.

16:25 So we focus on trying to keep people into the country and keep them legal and keep them here if all possible. So that's green card applications, that's asylum applications, that's citizenship applications, but it's also representing people in immigration court And it's also representing people in USCIS, which is the second massive federal bureaucracy that governs our immigration system. Now, for those who are uninformed and, dare I say, I'll use the word ignorant, and I don't mean that disrespectfully.

17:06 As you might know, I'm a big Andy Griffith fan, and there's an episode where Andy's trying to educate Ernest T. Bass from the hills. Right. And Ernest T. says, I'm just no account. I'm not no account. I said, no, you're just ignorant. Right. And Ernest T. responded, oh, you're just being nice. Ignorant is not necessarily a personal criticism, but there's so many things about this we don't know. And I think mostly the men on the street and women on the street are ignorant to the details of what is. makes what you do not some militant, poster-wearing, you know, radical trying to usurp the dignity and the laws of the United States.

17:55 That's certainly not what you're about. Right. And I appreciate you saying that. And so, and you're right, because we're all ignorant. Word is ignorant in different subjects, right? It's just different things. So maybe to explain our immigration system, you have two massive federal bureaucracies that govern our immigration system. And one is the USCIS. So that's where you go through and if you want to become a United States citizen or you marry a woman from some other country and want her to have permanent residence in this country, that's the organization that you go through.

18:36 And another massive federal bureaucracy is the immigration court. You'll be shocked to know that these two bureaucracies don't always communicate well with each other and always aren't the most efficient. But those are the two different ones. So when you represent someone in immigration court, it's because the government is taking the position that, hey, we think you are removable from the country. You're inadmissible to be in this country. That's just a big picture idea. You are not entitled. The government will not appoint a lawyer for you.

19:16 So when you're in federal court or state court, if you're charged with a certain crime, the government will appoint a lawyer for you. Right. We know that from all the movies and TVs about Miranda rights. Right. In immigration court, you are not guaranteed a representation. So you're either going to represent yourself or you're going to have to hire someone. And you're either going to have to pay that person to represent you or find an organization that can represent you for free. So that's one of the differences of being in immigration court. So if someone is detained by ICE, for example, they will be presented in immigration court.

19:57 So the judges in immigration court are appointed by the Department of Justice. And the person who is essentially a prosecutor in immigration court is from the Department of Homeland Security. So that is the process and how that works. So if you're detained by ICE, and that's the enforcement provision of the immigration system, At least in Kansas City, for the most part, you're going to be at one of three detention facilities. You're going to be at the Chase County Detention Center, which is in rural Kansas. It's in Strong City, Kansas. You're going to be detained at the Green County facility, which is in Springfield, Missouri.

20:40 Or you're going to be at a newly opened facility in Leavenworth, Kansas. It's operated by a private organization, CoreCivic. So, and you're going to appear in immigration court on via internet or via WebEx. So you're not going to appear in person. The attorney can appear in person, but you're going to appear on the video. And, but you can be in immigration court and still not be detained. If your case is before the immigration court, you can be out having a normal life, but you're still going to be appearing before the court, and you're either going to have to be there by yourself, or you're going to have to pay for an attorney to do it, or find an organization to do it for free.

21:24 So, it's sort of like being out on bail. You can go ahead and go about your life, but you still have to be respectful of the process. That's right. I'm not afraid to get into anything controversial or sticky. Some of the excessive actions of people being detained, I can see detaining someone who they've been looking for, but to kill someone in the process of being detained, what do you think that's about? Is that just something gone terribly wrong?

22:05 Is that some individual who has taken it upon themselves to... To be macho and in control or just hateful? What do you think that's about? Right. There's a lot there, no doubt. And where I look at it, maybe coming at it from a big picture, is we can be a lawful nation and a welcoming nation. We can do both, right? And that's what most people want. When we talk about immigration, it does not need to be such a hot-button topic, particularly among the faith community where it appears to be. And I think for the most part, we hear so many voices in the media and in our politics that are the loudest voices.

22:51 On the political spectrum, they are either a one or a ten. But if you talk to just normal people with normal lives, We're just going about living their lives, but do vote and are concerned. They're more on the four, five, and six perspective on the political spectrum. The comment that I get most when I talk to people about immigration, and I've talked to a lot, is, hey, I don't mind legal immigration. It's the illegal immigration that bothers me. And they will say that. And then one of the things that's been most important, troubling to me has been the limits that we've been placing on legal immigration.

23:34 Okay. So, for example, student visas for our country are down substantially this year for colleges. Just because it's harder and harder to get a student visa and people in foreign countries have been noticing the climate of, in the United States, of how we have, um, responded to our immigrant community. And so applications for colleges from foreign and international students are way down in the United States. Meanwhile, competing countries have seen our weakness and seen our vulnerability. If you're in Canada, those schools are saying, hey, we'll take you.

24:14 And so enrollment in those places are up. We can be a lawful nation. We can But we don't need to necessarily restrict the legal immigration that we have to this country as well, which is what we've certainly been seeing. And on the other hand, no one wants to see people who have an extensive criminal history and committed bad things remain in our country. And it's also a totally reasonable position to say we cannot have people just walking across the border and we don't know who they are. And they are here for years and we don't know anything about them. That is not an unreasonable position. Right.

24:54 Do you think students with student visas are afraid? Is that sort of an element of mystery to them as they come here and try to get college degrees, postgraduate degrees? Are they nervous? Yes. Yes, they are. And it's a situation of, well, why should I come here if I'm going to be at risk for having my visa? I can come here for two years or one year and having my visa denied. and then be unable to stay or graduate, or be at the risk of removal based upon a charge that they feel would not be appropriate.

25:34 So those are just some of the examples that I see. And it's just seeing a number of those that made me get to the point to change positions at the time that I Are visas being more restricted because of the fear of terrorism? Is it a political football or is it out of safety or economic, the thinning of what we have to offer people as far as care and luxuries to some of them, which coming from other countries would definitely be luxuries to be here? Sure. One of the issues that the United States Supreme Court dealt with this summer was birthright citizenship.

26:19 So the issue before the court on the birthright citizenship is how you determine the language in the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution, which has been the law since the 1870s. And so that law says all persons born in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are United States citizens. So really what the Supreme Court took up, and that issue was how do we interpret all persons born in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction of this country should be United States citizens. So that's what the case was about. That case was decided this summer by Chief Justice Roberts.

27:02 He wrote the majority opinion for the court. I don't suggest anyone in your audience is necessarily going to go back and read that case, but if they wanted to, they certainly could. But it is a situation where Agree with Justice Roberts, disagree with him or not. He's written a number of decisions through the years. People go back and forth. But he is a good teacher. And if you read his opinion on birthright citizenship, the theme that comes through is how careful his explanation of history shows. How the immigration debate rarely changes throughout the history of our country.

27:44 The argument that these people are too different to join us has been a theme that has just failed socially, culturally, morally time and time again. But it's been an argument that we've seen throughout the history of our country. That argument has been made about people from Italy. That argument has been made about people from Ireland. It's been made about people of the Catholic faith. It's been made about people from China. It's been made about people from Vietnam. So the theme has been repeated throughout the history of our country. So it's no different, this period of history that we're going through right now.

28:25 What does it mean to be American? Who can be allowed to stay? Who cannot be allowed to stay? And at the same time, it is a situation where It's also totally acceptable for a country to have borders. It's totally acceptable to have a country to have decisions to be made on who's allowed to live here and who's not. Those can be made, but it can also be made without the venom or the vengeance or the anger at the other. And I think that is one of the more disturbing things that we see. I'm sure in the 40s, people who were immigrants from Japan faced, I mean, anybody that knows anything about World War II history or that era know what happened to Japanese citizens who were legal citizens of the United States who were put in camps.

29:14 That's right. A specific time of that. So this birthright citizenship was passed in 1870. Yeah. Did that have anything to do with freed slaves? Were African Americans prior to 1870 considered citizens? No, that was the issue that the amendment, at least one of the issues that the amendment was tried to address because there was the Dred Scott decision, which actually came originally out of St. Louis. Yeah. about, okay, whether an African-American person is a slave, is that going to be someone who's entitled to vote? Is that entitled to citizenship? And on and on and on.

29:54 And so after the Civil War, the 14th Amendment was passed, but it certainly wasn't restricted just to slaves or to African-Americans because the amendment didn't say so, right? It says all persons. And so that is the issue that the Supreme Court addressed. And to be honest, it doesn't really matter what William Hanna's opinion said. is on that issue. It matters what five justices on the Supreme Court decide. And that was a, depending how you slice it, that was a 5-4, 6-3, 7-2 decision in favor of upholding the same law that's been the law of this country since over 150 years.

30:36 What's the difference in asylum and immigration? So to seek asylum in this country, So people often ask me, what is the difference between being a refugee and what's the difference being an asylum seeker? So a person who is a refugee is coming from a different country because there's been some catastrophe in that country, a civil war, an earthquake, flood, something like that. And those people apply to be refugees. The United States is not the only country that accepts refugees. Right. And it's a very detailed vetting process where the people are vetted and vetted and vetted and vetted by the United Nations, by the CIA, by the FBI, by the Department of Homeland Security, for everyone before they allowed to be entered into this country.

31:28 So a refugee is by definition a legal immigrant. So they have come to this country basically at the invitation of our country. So they're allowed to come. The number of refugees that this country takes, again, this is legal immigration, has varied through the years. So in the last year of the prior administration, I believe our refugee count was about 125,000. So the first year of the current administration, again, this is legal immigration, right? That number went from 125,000 down to 7,500, 7,500. It's gone up a little bit this year, and I looked that up number, and I think it's up to 12,500.

32:14 So the vast majority of the people currently coming to the country as refugees, again, legal immigration, are South Africans, are Caucasian South Africans. Nothing against the South Africans. If they fit the refugee status, they should be entitled to come here as refugees as well. But I also would humbly suggest that I don't think that those are necessarily all or the people that are facing the greatest hardship in their own country. But that's a huge number that's gone down. So that is refugees. So you've got a terrible situation in your country and you're invited to come to this country.

32:56 And then you can apply to be a green card holder, which is a permanent resident, after you've been here a certain period of time. And then you can apply to be a United States citizen if you choose to do so after a certain period of time. So an asylum seeker is different. So to seek asylum, you have to be physically in this country to seek asylum. So you can't do that from another country. You have to be in this country, and then you are saying, that you want to seek permission to stay in this country because you feel you have a reasonable fear of persecution or you've been actually persecuted in the past. But it's got to be for a particular reason.

33:38 It's got to be based upon your race. Now, where is that statement made? When they get off an airplane or off a ship, where do they make that statement that differentiates them from being an asylum seeker as opposed to a refugee? Who do they make that? To whom do they make that statement? They make that application for the most part to the USCIS, to the United States government. And under the law, with a few exceptions, under the law, you have to do that within one year of entering the country. So you fill out a form. It's an I-589 form. Of course, it's a federal government bureaucracy, so it's got to have a form and a number to it. Yes, that's right.

34:19 That's right. And you basically say, hey, here's why I don't want to go back to my home country. Okay. But you've got to be able to show and prove that it's because of my political opinion or it's because of my race or it's because of my religion or because I'm a member of a particular social group, that type of thing. And you've got to be able to show that you would be persecuted. And there's a legal definition from persecuted. Because of those things. So if your argument is, hey, I don't want to go back to this country because there are gangs in this country and they're terrorizing the neighborhoods. That's going to be a difficult asylum case to win because the judge is going to say, or USCIS is going to say, that's really terrible and that's really awful.

35:04 But if it's happening to everyone, it's not particularly happening to you because of your political opinion or your race or religion or your sex. That's not going to be a sufficient basis to win an asylum case. We can win asylum cases, but that's not to say that they're easy. One of my guests on a previous episode is a friend named Michael O'Marty, and just legendary record producer. His last name indicates to most people that know history a little bit is he's of Armenian heritage. And he and I were talking about his grandparents came here.

35:46 after the Turks slaughtered millions of Armenians and came here under that very thing you're just talking about. Came here because it was so dangerous. Now, it might not have been dangerous just for them. It was dangerous for everyone of Armenian Orthodox heritage. But, yeah, that's what brought so many people here. And, you know, you talked about... from Ireland, from Italy. And yeah, there are stereotypes, but the contributions that have been made, we could go on for days talking about contributions of upstanding people of conviction and people with moral compass to do things in this country that we would never be able to do without.

36:32 No, you're right. You're right. The immigrant community that I talk to every day, they love this country in ways that those of us who've lived here our whole lives, we can't really appreciate. Because we can't really, it's like we talk about freedom of religion But you talk to a Christian from Afghanistan. Let's just say that their definition of freedom of religion and their definition of persecution might be just a little bit different than someone else who's lived here their whole life. And has felt like they've been persecuted because they had a friend on Facebook make a negative comment about their faith. Well, and it's not the same as, I'm not going to go to the Baptist church anymore.

37:15 I'm going to go to the Methodist church or something like that. That's right. It's a little bit different. And I'd also say, on the other hand, the loudest critics of our country, our loudest critics choose to stay. So for as many faults as our country has, it's still the best country in the world. It is not a bad thing. The people are willing to leave their families, leave their culture, leave their food, leave their weather, and be willing to travel thousands of miles at great personal risk to come to this country to wash your plate at dinner. That is not a bad thing.

37:56 That is a good thing. But that doesn't mean we can take everybody either, right? So immigration is not a bad thing. It is a wonderful thing that we live in a country where other people want to come to live. That doesn't mean that everyone gets the opportunity to live here, but that doesn't mean those who've done that to seek a better life are some terrible people who have done probably the same thing that all we would have done. And I think the other thing from the immigrant community, I would say is we as Americans feel like, well, once they're here, this is the land of milk and honey and it's going to be great and they're going to love it. And they do.

38:37 enjoy being here and they're glad they're here. But I also say for many in the refugee community, the immigrant community, it's a hard life. Um, they feel lonely. Um, they feel they come here and they feel like, wow, everything is going to work out great. And they find out they may have to work, wait for years and years to get a green card or things aren't as efficient as perhaps they were told it might be. Um, We have people that come to this country. Well, they were a principal at an elementary school in Syria, but they come here and now they work. Still a great job, but they're working in childcare with not near the responsibility or the pay in this country.

39:21 So it's different, but they also see a better life for their children. And so they are willing, just like you are and just like any other parent is, they're willing to sacrifice a great deal of their own comfort for the chance for their children to have a better life. That is not a bad thing. And there's no need to demonize people who want the same thing for their children that we all want. But that doesn't mean that if you commit a serious crime, that you should be allowed to stay. And that does not mean that we can't have border enforcement, which is a good thing. And that means that we can't make decisions on who can stay and who can go.

40:06 with some compassion, with respect, with humility for the other. There's something to be said for feeling safe also that we take for granted, I think. But, you know, as time goes by, I feel less and less completely safe than I did, say, 20, 30 years ago. my brief stint with the Episcopalians, I read one line that stayed with me in a book of common prayer that said, only in thee can we dwell in safety. And every night when I lock my door, I think that. Only in thee. This door, it's got glass in it for crying out loud.

40:46 I mean, what do I think? Somebody couldn't take their elbow and bash that glass in? So I think there's an overriding desire for safety, right? giving up some freedoms to be safe. It concerns me a little bit that we're willing to go to great lengths to give up freedoms for what we determine to be safety. What has been the input of your faith into your compassion, your heart for these people who are seeking a better life here? I've had the opportunity to go and speak to several church groups around Kansas City, around Missouri. And the way we've usually done that is the pastor speaks to the group first and gives his interpretation or tells the congregation, whatever he wants to tell them about what the Christian obligation is to the immigrant community, to the stranger, right, to the immigrant.

41:40 And it's usually best for the group to hear that from their own pastor than hear that from me, right? And then I can get up and just explain some basic things like we've talked about today, like what's the difference between... someone seeking asylum or a refugee or what a green card is, what a legal permanent resident is. But I always start that group and say, okay, for my very first slide, I'm going to show you all the Bible verses that specifically tell us what the American immigration system should be. And then the next slide is always blank because, I don't think the Bible necessarily tells us exactly what the American immigration system should be any more than it tells us what our tariffs should be or what our international policy should be towards Canada or Greenland or anywhere else.

42:31 But again, we can be a lawful nation and a welcoming nation. We can do both. It's an American problem. It's not a Republican problem. It's not a Democrat problem. It is an American problem. Because if we look at it as just a problem created by the other team, then no one really has any responsibility or accountability to try and solve it. And I really shouldn't call it a problem. I should really say it's an issue. But if we realize that we're in this position together and we all, for the most part, all have the same goals, it makes it much easier to be able to solve. But I do feel like I don't know if the Bible tells us a lot of things, like you say, about what should be our policy on taxes or health care or the policy on Iceland or Greenland or any other country.

43:23 But the Bible is very clear and Jesus is very clear about how we should care for the immigrant and how we should care for the person that we don't know. Right. And the person that we should care for as our neighbor. And so if you start from there, we can be able to go from there and be able to make some progress on that. And that's where I look at it. And that is what drives me. And that's why I do what I do is because I just felt like I've been hearing for so long. just in our natural discourse, things that were not consistent with what I believe America should be and what, as Christians, we should be doing.

44:06 And so that's what's prompted me to do what I do. And the people that I work with are really, really good, not just the attorneys, but the paralegals and the assistants and the interpreters and everything else. And that helps us all to get us to where we want to be. Well, like you said, the Bible doesn't specifically address an American policy on taxes or immigration or pretty much anything, like you said about the blank slide. But the Bible does hold a mirror up to us and say this is what a Christlike person is. This is what a Christlike person's heart is. And as difficult as that might be to grow into, it is what we're challenged to grow into if we're going to be Christian.

44:50 And if not, don't call yourself that. Don't call yourself that if you're not going to at least make an effort to mold your heart and follow after Jesus. That's what's here. Tell me a few success stories. I'll start maybe with the very first immigration case that I had. It was probably an eye-opener because I lost it. But I went to Haiti in June of 2010. That was about six months after the big earthquake in Haiti in January of 2010. So I went there. And I met a young man named Dexter. Dexter was under the care of an orphanage that was organized by the Global Orphan Project, which is a nonprofit based here in Kansas City.

45:35 There's just something different about Dexter, not the least of which he spoke English very well and was very bright. And on his second trip down to Haiti before I came, he messaged me and said, hey, could you bring me a math book, a math textbook? And I thought, no, that's a little different. I don't remember any of the Hannah kids ever asking for a math textbook for Christmas. So that just gives you this young man is just different. And so we did all the work for to get a student visa for Dexter. This is when he was still in high school. And to get a student visa for him to come to high school, we found a place for him to live in South Florida, which has a big Haitian population.

46:17 We found a family that would take him. got his tuition paid for. And so he went for his student visa interview at the embassy in Port Prince and it was denied. And it was denied because one of the reasons to be able to get a student visa is you have to show a substantial tie to your home country, which translation is, how do we know you're going to go back once you've graduated? Well, if you're an orphan kid from Haiti that doesn't know anything, it's going to be pretty hard to show your substantial tie to your home country. So his student visa was denied. So that was a wake up call for me. Dexter took that news a lot more maturity than his lawyer did.

46:59 Um, But there was a great plan there. And he stayed there in Haiti. He continued and graduated from high school. And then he began working for the same ministry that had been supporting him for all that time. So he would then drive groups around who came down to Haiti to serve. He would be the interpreter for them because he spoke English fluently and Creole. and he would take them around to all these places. Well, a few years later, after my defeat, he meets a young woman who's come down for the same reasons to serve. So they start to message back and forth on Facebook and talk, and she comes down a couple other times. Then they get married in 2021.

47:42 So marriage is a legal basis to immigrate to the United States. So, and it's not lost on me, so it took a lot of work. for then Dexter to be able to come to the United States and to get his green card. Dexter is now married to Amber. They come visit, and we plan to go visit them. They have a wonderful young son named Matthew. They live in Richmond, Virginia, which is Amber's hometown. And Dexter is now a proud green card holder, which is a legal permanent resident. And it's not lost on me that my timing is not God's timing. And if the Hanna plan had worked, Dexter would have been able to come here and get a wonderful education, but he wouldn't have been able to stay because on a visa, then you're going to have to go back.

48:30 And he never would have met Amber. And so he met Amber and he's able to stay here permanently. And of course, now he's going to be a student in the nursing program at Virginia Commonwealth. enrichment because goodness knows our country needs nurses. And so it's going to have a much greater perspective where God's plan is better than the Hannah plan. Well, like you say, in his timing, it's like, we want to get things done now. We want to, this has got to happen now. Surely God wants this to happen now. Not always. That's right. That's right. So that's one. And then the Syrian family that I've talked to you about, they've become United States citizens, great contributors to our country.

49:11 the youngest daughter who we consider our goddaughter just because it's easier to say this is my goddaughter rather than the whole story. She's graduated from KU with two degrees and is working here in Kansas City, has a wonderful group of friends, very active and just doing fantastic. Well, I want you to send me some pictures. I'm pretty sure I have some pictures of that family you're just talking about. But I want to put some pictures up for people to see. And William, thank you so much for your transparency and for really clarifying a lot of The things that we have misconceptions about, myself included, it's so easy to be swayed by a soundbite and thinking from a soundbite, well, I get this.

50:01 I understand that. I understand why they would do that. Now, it's much deeper than that. And it affects people's lives. It affects people who are made in the image of God. And as Christians, people, we should have compassion towards it. So thank you for letting us visit with you today. Well, thanks for being willing to take on a delicate topic. This shouldn't be a delicate topic. Maybe I'd close you're a fan of history, and I am too. President Lincoln's Gettysburg Address gets all the flowers, and deservedly so. But his second inaugural address after he was elected for the second time is really appropriate for a time like this.

50:42 Because people ask me, I realize that people have different views than I do, but they also pray to the same God that I do. And so they also have very strong views. And so how do you respond to that? And I think that President Lincoln showed us the way, way back in the 1860s, how you do that. In his second inaugural address, what did he say? Both sides of the Civil War, they read from the same Bible, right? They pray to the same God. Each evokes his name against the other. So let us not judge now, lest not we be judged. The prayers of both cannot be answered.

51:23 And so that's the same way whether we're dealing with immigration or we're dealing with whatever else. People on the other side, sometimes they are dealing in good faith, but sometimes they are. So I respect those that, at least some of them, many of them, who are serving with enforcement, with ICE, and recognize they feel like they're doing the right thing just as like I feel like I'm dealing with mine. You know, when you talk about President Lincoln saying both prayers cannot be answered, there's a great episode of MASH years ago where there was a pilot who was brought to the MASH unit, and he had a serious mental collapse and thought he was Jesus Christ.

52:12 And so the doctors brought the priest in, Father Mulcahy, and said, Father, we got a friend of yours in here. So he comes in and he says, I'm Jesus Christ. And somebody, a psychiatrist, came in and said, is it true that all prayers get answered? And he said, yes. And he paused and he said, sometimes the answer is no. And that is, that's profound because we expect all of our prayers to be answered with a yes. Your prayers for time to get your clients' work done and all that. But that's not our call. That's where faith comes in. That's exactly right. Well, thanks for having me on. Thanks for taking on a delicate topic that, like I say, shouldn't be as delicate as it is these days.

52:56 We'll talk again about history. We'll do it again. That's right. Thanks. Sounds good, my friend. Thank you. Bless you. Bye-bye. Bless you. Thanks for listening to the Wayne Watson Podcast, where stories of faith, purpose, and everyday life meet and continue to uplift hearts around the world. Be sure to follow, leave us a review, and share this episode with a friend. To learn more about Wayne's music, ministry, and upcoming projects, visit waynewatson.com. Every journey of faith begins with a story, and every heart finds its rhythm in the Lord. Until next time, go well, and may you keep walking in step with his song flowing through you.