The Salvation Army’s War on Christmas
And Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.” Mark 10:14. What would Jesus say about denying toys to children? Would he check for “legal” status before welcoming them into his arms?
Folks, meet the real “War on Christmas“:
Did you hear about how the Salvation Army is denying toys to children if their parents are not “legal”? Regardless of how you feel about the humanitarian crisis of our current immigration system, it is absolutely astonishing that an organization like the Salvation Army that claims to do charity is betraying the spirit of Christmas by punishing innocent kids.
I heard about this story first a couple of weeks ago on the Mike Malloy Radio Show on my drive home from work. So as soon as I got home I looked the story up online because I was livid with anger. I found that ThinkProgress had reported on it earlier on this post about what was going on in Texas. However, ThinkProgress also reported on an update that this Texan Salvation Army had reversed its policy due to the bad publicity that it had received:
The Houston Chronicle is now reporting that the charities will not be using immigration status to deny gifts to the children of undocumented immigrants. The charities explained that while they do request identification, it is only to prevent fraud and if parents could not provide such identification, they would not be turned away.
“Fair enough”, I thought, perhaps this was an isolated incident and the Salvation Army’s intentions were not truly as evil as they first appeared and the whole thing was a cultural misunderstanding. I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.
Oh how wrong I was!
Surprise, surprise, it turns out the Texas incident was not an isolated one but rather part of a disturbing pattern. I just got tipped off by a member of the Project Economic Refugee community to this story in Tennessee involving the Salvation Army’s Angel Tree program:
Nashville charities reject immigrants’ kids
If you’d like to contact the Tennessee Salvation Army to complain about this, here’s the link to several offices in that city.
Do you know if your local Salvation Army is doing the same thing? Here’s a list of contact information for several national offices.
Update: I just got the following note from a professor in Tulsa, OK:
We had a sort of similar challenge 3 years ago in the Tulsa Salvation Army. They would not give gifts to those children who were undocumented. Some parents had both, born here and undocumented. Only those who were born here could receive gifts.
It has been fixed, many Latino leaders sent letters requesting that ALL children receive gifts. It took a long time, but I am so glad it got fixed.
So, this is definitely not the first time the Salvation Army has pulled something like this.
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I read the article on Alternet and contacted the Salvation Army in Des Plaines, IL. Here are their comments:
Hi Mr Nolan,
I am sorry that I have not replied sooner.
In short: No, this is not true.
Some locations have been asking for social security numbers (Or some OTHER form of Identification–most places will accept foreign consular ID’s) from one family member–they have been doing this for years to prevent fraud, and it has nothing to do with immigration.
We are looking at our policies on this in order to come up with a way that will help us prevent fraud, but not intimidate undocumented people. Our policy is to help everyone, without discrimination, with as few questions asked as possible.
It is very sad that some people will jump on the slightest bit of misinformation and turn it into something like “The Salvation Army’s War on Christmas.” Most of the articles like this I have been seen have been produced to further some political agenda or another, and the authors will not correct them even when presented with documented fact.
I hope that this information is helpful,
Jeff
Office of Public and Corporate Relations
The Salvation Army USA Central Territory
Community Relations and Development Department
10 W Algonquin Road, Des Plaines, IL 60018
USCMediaRelations@usc.salvationarmy.org
mmm interesting that they actually wrote back to you; as I mentioned in my post, I’ve been going back and forth on this. Even if the Salvation Army, as a whole, is NOT discriminating against Latinos or other immigrants in a deliberate manner, it is nevertheless taking place, whether intentional or not. The fact that the discrimination took place not just in one place but in multiple places across the nation was troubling, to say the least. I am actually VERY pleased that the Salvation Army got word of what their policies’ (unintended or not) consequences are, thanks to the efforts of the Project Economic Refugee community. That is exactly the point of advocacy and of being a watchdog group: bring to light what is going on so that it can improved, fixed, or recognized. For far too long this kind of thing has been taking place, and the fact that it continues to occur to this day is simply unacceptable.
Anyway, Salvation Army is correct: they SHOULD find a better policy or method (and a better way to implement it) that will help them prevent fraud, while at the same time ensuring that they will not discriminate against certain kinds of kids because they come from unfortunate family circumstances. Furthermore, this new policy should apply nationwide, to prevent the occasional center that would be too quick to discriminate.
Thank you for reporting back on what they responded!
Bless you for all the work that you do!
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