After the deadline: Where do we put our energy now?

By Joe Taylor

Image Credit: https://www.ewn.co.za/2026/06/30/anti-illegal-immigration-march-gets-underway-in-johannesburg

The 30th of June deadline for illegal immigrants to leave South Africa has come and gone. For weeks, perhaps months, so much energy has been directed toward this date. Much of it was frightening: threats, intimidation, suspicion, and violence directed at foreign nationals. Some of the responses were deeply good: food and supplies delivered to people in holding spaces, prayer vigils, advocacy, and communities choosing compassion over cruelty.

Now we are left with the aftermath. Where do we go from here?

We must begin with lament. Families have been uprooted. People have been living in fear. Some have left behind homes, work, friendships, churches, and fragile hopes. Others remain, unsure of what tomorrow will bring. The words of the psalmist feel painfully close: “By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept” (Psalm 137:1). Before we rush to solutions, Christians must make space for grief.

But lament is not the same as paralysis. After we have wept, we must ask: where should our energy go now?

One of the great temptations in hard times is to “punch down.” When people are unemployed, afraid, and struggling to feed their families, anger looks for a target. Too often, that target becomes the person with even less power: the migrant, the refugee, the undocumented worker, the foreign shopkeeper, the person trying to survive on the margins.

But this is not the way of Jesus.

Jesus consistently directed his sharpest criticism not toward the vulnerable, but toward those who used power without mercy. He confronted religious hypocrisy (Matthew 23), challenged exploitative systems in the temple (Mark 11:15–17), and announced good news to the poor, release to captives, and freedom for the oppressed (Luke 4:18–19). He did not teach the desperate to turn on one another. He invited them into the Kingdom of God: a new community shaped by mercy, justice, and truth.

So perhaps the question is not only, “What should be done about immigration?” Perhaps the deeper Christian question is: Who benefits when the poor are persuaded to fight the poor?

When struggling South Africans are encouraged to blame foreign nationals for unemployment, poverty, crime, or failing services, attention is diverted from deeper injustices: corruption, inequality, poor governance, economic exclusion, and systems that protect the powerful while exhausting the vulnerable. In biblical language, these are the “rulers and the authorities” (Ephesians 6:12)—the forces that deform human life and turn neighbour against neighbour.

Pope Francis reminds us: “Migrants are not seen as entitled like others to participate in the life of society, and it is forgotten that they possess the same intrinsic dignity as any person.” The Gospel insists on the same truth. The stranger is not a threat to be crushed, but a neighbour to be loved (Leviticus 19:34; Matthew 25:35).

In the Ignatian tradition, we are invited to discern where the Spirit is leading us. The bad spirit often works through fear, resentment, and division. The Spirit of Christ moves us toward courage, compassion, and justice.

So where do we put our energy now?

We put it into rebuilding trust. Into protecting the vulnerable. Into demanding accountable leadership. Into resisting corruption and exploitation. Into creating communities where South African and foreign-born neighbours can work together for the common good.

The deadline has passed. The work of justice has not. Jesus still calls us away from punching down—and toward standing up.