An authoritarian ruler seeks to consolidate his own power by stirring up fear about an immigrant population.

“These people are not like us,” he declares. “They are a potential fifth column, likely to join with our enemies and destroy us from within!” “We can keep ourselves safe only by controlling and oppressing them.”

On Wednesday night, Jews sat down to the Passover seder and retold the ancient story of how our ancestors, once welcomed into Egypt as refugees from famine, were enslaved by a Pharaoh fearful of losing power, and ultimately liberated through divine and human actions.

The Passover story has been retold in Jewish homes for millennia. This year, the ancient story tragically sounds like today’s news.

Now, the Supreme Court is considering overturning a core principle that once allowed those fleeing violence and oppression, my own great grandparents included, to find refuge in the United States.

President Donald Trump built his election campaign around stirring up fear of immigrants, refugees, and asylum-seekers, and, over the past year, has ramped up detentions and deportations, canceled temporary protected status for nationals of multiple countries, flooded major American cities with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, and flouted US policy and international law by deporting people to third countries.

All these actions have been undertaken with intense cruelty. Families have been divided; mothers tackled in airports, on the streets, and in their homes; and people sent to prisons and to nations where they have no connections.

Now, the Supreme Court is considering overturning a core principle that once allowed those fleeing violence and oppression, my own great grandparents included, to find refuge in the United States.

The justices are deliberating on Noem vs. Al Otro Lado, which will determine the constitutionality of the US government’s policy of physically blocking asylum-seekers from presenting themselves at ports of entry along the Mexican border. Longstanding US law requires the government to allow asylum-seekers to request asylum at ports of entry, and to give these claims a fair hearing.

Instead, the US has been preventing asylum-seekers from even making a claim and instead forcing them back to Mexico, where they are often stranded without shelter, adequate food, or protection from violence.

All of the current Supreme Court justices identify as either Christian, mostly Catholic, or Jewish. We hope they look to our shared scripture as they consider their rulings.

The Torah commands the retelling of the story of slavery and liberation, and also specifies what lessons should be learned from this........

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