2 After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi[a] from the east came to Jerusalem 2 and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.”
3 When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. 4 When he had called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Messiah was to be born. 5 “In Bethlehem in Judea,” they replied, “for this is what the prophet has written:
6 “‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for out of you will come a ruler
who will shepherd my people Israel.’[b]”
7 Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. 8 He sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and search carefully for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him.”
9 After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. 10 When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. 11 On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.
12 And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route.
The Escape to Egypt
13 When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Get up,” he said, “take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.”
14 So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, 15 where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: “Out of Egypt I called my son.”[c]
16 When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi. 17 Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled:
18 “A voice is heard in Ramah,
weeping and great mourning,
Rachel weeping for her children
and refusing to be comforted,
because they are no more.”[d]
The Return to Nazareth
to Joseph in Egypt 20 and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who were trying to take the child’s life are dead.”
21 So he got up, took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel. 22 But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning in Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. Having been warned in a dream, he withdrew to the district of Galilee, 23 and he went and lived in a town called Nazareth. So was fulfilled what was said through the prophets, that he would be called a Nazarene.
NEW TESTIMONY
MATTHEW 2, 1 T/M 21
Matthew 2 NIV – The Magi Visit the Messiah – After – Bible Gateway
[2]
Ahead of the European Parliament’s final vote on the European Union (EU) Pact on Migration and Asylum on 10 April, Amnesty International warns that these reforms will put people at heightened risk of human rights violations.
“It is clearer than ever that this EU Pact on Migration and Asylum will set back European asylum law for decades to come, lead to greater suffering, and put more people at risk of human rights violations at every step of their journeys,” said Eve Geddie, Amnesty International’s Head of the European Institutions Office and Director of Advocacy.
“Since these reforms were first proposed in 2020, every step of the negotiations has further worsened the final outcome – weakening protections and access to asylum for people on the move, expanding detention and containment at borders, and further shifting responsibilities to countries outside of Europe. The Pact will do nothing to improve Europe’s response to people in need of protection.
“The European Parliament should be setting a higher standard for a humane and sustainable common asylum policy. However, this package of proposals shamefully risks subjecting more people, including families with children, to de facto detention at EU borders; denying them a fair and full assessment of their protection needs. The proposal will also open the door to new emergency measures that will put countless people at risk of pushbacks, arbitrary detention, and destitution at European borders.
“These proposals come hand in hand with mounting efforts to shift responsibility for refugee protection and border control to countries outside of the EU – such as recent deals with Tunisia, Egypt, and Mauritania, or attempts to externalize the processing of asylum claims to Albania. These practices risk trapping people in states where their human rights will be in danger, render the EU complicit in the abuses that may follow, and compromises Europe’s ability to uphold human rights beyond the bloc.”
Background
The final vote in the European Parliament on several regulations that comprise the Migration and Asylum Pact is due to take place on Wednesday 10 April at 17:00 CET. The proposals will be formally adopted after the European Council endorses them, before June 2024. The new legislation is expected to come into force and be fully operational two years later, by June 2026.
END
[3]
”1At that time the Emperor Augustus ordered a census to be taken throughout the Roman Empire. 2When this first census took place, Quirinius was the governor of Syria. 3Everyone, then, went to register himself, each to his own town.
4Joseph went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to the town of Bethlehem in Judea, the birthplace of King David. Joseph went there because he was a descendant of David. 5He went to register with Mary, who was promised in marriage to him. She was pregnant, 6and while they were in Bethlehem, the time came for her to have her baby. 7She gave birth to her first son, wrapped him in strips of cloth and laid him in a manger — there was no room for them to stay in the inn.”
NEW TESTIMONY
SEE NOTE 1
[5]
The outgoing Dutch cabinet’s pledge to introduce tougher immigration laws look set to be passed by parliament after the Christian Democrats (CDA) dropped their objections to an amendment that would criminalise illegal residency.
The CDA initially supported the emergency measures bill, which would also shorten the term for residency permits from five years to three, make family reunions more difficult and create a two-tier system for refugee status.
But in June the far-right PVV party managed to secure a majority for an amendment that would make it a crime to help failed asylum seekers who refused to leave the country.
The CDA said the plan would criminalise acts of charity or compassion such as giving a hungry refugee a bowl of soup, and dropped their support for the whole bill.
The other Christian parties, the ChristenUnie and the orthodox Protestant SGP, also criticised the measure. The CDA’s support is needed to pass the bill through the lower house, while the SGP have a pivotal position in the senate.
But on Monday, CDA MP Bart van den Brink told a committee hearing that his party was prepared to back the bill after foreign affairs minister, David van Weel, reassured MPs that people who helped refugees would not face prosecution.
Revolving door
Van den Brink said Van Weel’s efforts had fixed “a lot of problems with implementation”. “This is a form of criminalisation that the CDA has supported for a long time: before the elections, during the elections and afterwards,” he added.
The CU, as well as the progressive-liberal D66, had called for the idea of criminalising illegal residency to be scrapped altogether.
Local authorities, police and the immigration service IND have warned of a revolving door effect if asylum seekers are jailed for refusing to leave and face being arrested again on their release.
D66 MP Jan Paternotte said the revised bill risked creating extra work for the immigration service, comparing it to “a dog chasing its own tail and ending up biting it.”
D66 are in negotiations to form a new government with the CDA and the right-wing liberal VVD, but Van Weel, a VVD minister, wants to pass the legislation before the new cabinet takes office to avoid a “big problem”.
Other left-wing opposition parties also criticised the bill. GroenLinks-PvdA MP Lisa Westerveld said it was “falling apart at the seams” and was being rushed through parliament.
Christine Teunissen of the animal rights party PvdD was concerned that refugees would refuse medical treatment if they risked being arrested.
The far-right PVV had also threatened to vote against the law if its proposals were watered down, but MP Marine Vondeling said in Monday she was prepared to accept the compromise. “We’re not going to block criminalisation,” she said.
ChristenUnie MP Don Ceder said Van Weel had failed to explain to MPs how the law would have any practical benefits or address issues such as the impact on prison capacity. Parliament was still unable to “judge the actual effectiveness” of the plans, he said.
END
LUXEMBOURG — Europe’s new migration rules hit early turbulence Tuesday, with countries split over who should shoulder how much responsibility.
Migration and home affairs ministers met in Luxembourg to hash out the technicalities of a new proposal on so-called return hubs and cross-border deportation powers. But on the sidelines, the political implications of who has the capacity to accept more asylum-seekers dominated.
The European Commission was due to say on Wednesday which countries are struggling with migration and what help they should receive, though that’s now delayed.
As set out in the new EU law governing asylum and migration — agreed in 2023, with an implementation deadline of June next year — the Commission will say which countries are under “migratory pressure.” The other governments can then choose to either accept migrants from those countries or support them with funding and staff.
But countries seem far more willing to part with cash than open their doors.
Belgian Migration Minister Anneleen Van Bossuyt said on the sidelines of the meeting it will give financial contributions, as its system for accepting asylum seekers is “full.” Finnish Interior Minister Mari Rantanen, of the far-right Finns Party, said her country will “obviously” not take migrants from other EU member countries.
Government policy in the Netherlands is to pay rather than receive people. Sweden’s Migration Minister Johan Forssell strongly hinted his country is not keen to take in any more migrants, with Forssell complaining it has already received “so many” asylum-seekers in the last decade.
Comments like those foreshadow an obvious problem: That every country will be willing to spend cash, but not take in migrants. In that scenario, a complex system of “offsets” could kick in — and they would instead handle some asylum claims for the countries that need help, rather than receiving people who’ve been relocated.
The track record of Italy and Greece — likely to be designated as recipients of that support — has not helped matters. Last year, the two countries handled only a tiny percentage of the migration cases they were supposed to as set out by the so-called Dublin rules, which stipulate which country should handle asylum applications (typically the applicant’s country of entry to the EU).
Governments were also unable to agree on a system of mandatory recognition of asylum decisions taken in other EU countries, Danish Migration Minister Rasmus Stoklund, who’s currently leading discussions, said in Luxembourg. Denmark proposed a change to the Commission’s original draft, but national governments remain “too divided,” he said.
Magnus Brunner, the EU commissioner for migration, said there is “a lot of cooperation” and desire among countries to reform the system. He added that “time is of the essence” — an unsurprising comment in light of a call last year by EU leaders for “determined action” on deportations and a June deadline looming.
Failure could also come with grave political costs for the EU’s center ground.
A situation where member countries refuse to implement the rules they agreed in the EU’s flagship migration pact would “fundamentally undermine the credibility of the common European asylum system,” said Alberto-Horst Neidhardt, senior policy analyst at the European Policy Centre.
“If that happens, as an immediate result, you would have internal border controls reinstated across the Schengen area, you would have systematic pushbacks at the external borders … the systemic implications of this would certainly threaten the Union and … there would be certainly a political spiral because the far right would claim vindication,” Neidhardt said.
That’s a worst-case scenario, but this is a “very different political context” than in 2015, when the EU faced its last migration crisis, he said. “National governments are much more self-interested.”
END