On immigration issues, we honestly find the current moment frightening: immigration raids conducted by unidentified masked agents, and for-profit detention centers with immigrants housed in deplorable conditions with little care for their rights or due process. It is all too reminiscent of the darkest days in Europe during the rise of fascism.

In such turbulent times, you and your colleagues are challenged to decide difficult questions that arise based upon our nation’s founding documents, existing laws, and the legal precedent of past decisions. Even so, the courts can be as divided as our nation. How can we build bipartisan consensus and move forward?

While few of us have served as judges, most of us have served as jurors. It is a marvel of democracy that we turn to our peers for just decisions. And in doing so, judges instruct jurors in applicable law but also point out that good decisions draw upon their life experience and common sense in evaluating the case before them.

You have recently heard a case on the issue of birthright citizenship. Other cases relating to immigration will soon demand your attention given the near collapse of the immigration legal system. A narrow and isolated focus on arcane legal issues alone does not meet the crisis of our times.

We ask you to approach these decisions carefully, mindful of our nation’s founding values, your own family’s life experience and heritage, and common-sense approaches to finding common ground. We ask that your decisions draw upon the deepest wells of wisdom and help to unite rather than divide us.

We accompany this letter with a highly recommended book about the American experience of immigration. It is written by Zeke Hernandez, a Uruguayan immigrant, now a professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. We were all energized by his presentation to our community last year. “The Truth about Immigration” is a compelling, nonpartisan, thoughtful, evidence-based examination of the contributions of immigrants to our nation’s success.

(Indivisible at Cathedral Village is mailing the book to each member of the Supreme Court, each with the signatures of dozens of Cathedral Village residents.)

John Cunningham, project organizer

The Rev. Richard R. Fernandez, coordinator

Cathedral Village Indivisible Chapter