The Unasked Immigration Question

Unless you've been living under a rock, you've no doubt heard the debate over immigration heat up again in the past 2 weeks. This time the catalyst has been thousands of children crossing the border into the U.S. There have been protests and fierce arguments on both sides, but overall I continue to be disappointed by the Christian response on this issue.

Christians are talking about this issue as much as other people, and yet rarely do I hear the key question Christians should be asking: "How can we LOVE these illegal immigrants?"

Oh sure, I hear plenty of raving about how we need to tighten border security or else gangs, terrorists, and chupacabras will enter our great nation and ruin us all. I hear laments about how unchecked immigration will harm our economy and take away jobs from "deserving" Americans. I hear complaints about how these immigrants benefit from our tax dollars while we only benefit from their dirty, sweaty, cheap labor.

But I don't hear much about love.

Even worse, much of what I hear is flat out racist. In reading a recent article about those protesting against admitting the illegal children, I was struck by how their comments made these children sound like objects or property rather than people. One protester complained that we have no place to "store" illegal immigrants. Apparently we don't "house" or "shelter" immigrants, we "store" them, like a can of soup.

Or take the article I read tonight where a certain commentator ranted about how "This country belongs to us; it doesn’t belong to you ["every foreigner outside this country"]. It doesn’t belong to the 7 billion other people all over the world [emphasis mine]." I read that and didn't even know what to say, although perhaps this picture begins to get at my thoughts:

In the end, I fear few Christians are approaching this issue from the perspective of their faith. I've talked about before how many Christians claim to want a "biblical worldview," but suddenly stop thinking biblically or Christianly on certain political issues. They think the Bible and/or God doesn't have much to say so they rely on purely secular or Constitutional arguments instead (gun control, anyone?). But the reality is we must train ourselves to think in a Christian way on EVERY issue. Some issues just require more thought and work than others.

Sadly, immigration appears to be one such issue. And so, I challenge Christians to at least ask one small question which will get them closer to a Christian response on immigration: "How can I/we love illegal immigrants?"

For starters, if we ask this question it should immediately eliminate any and all racist, dehumanizing, and fear-mongering language from our speech. We cannot talk about immigrants as objects or as less than human.

Second we had better make sure the policies we advocate for treat immigrants humanly and fairly as well. I am not saying we don't need better border control (in general I am in favor of better managed borders.) However, I do seriously question the way we treat illegal aliens once they have already made it through our porous border. Sometimes it seems like we are mad they outsmarted us so we go out of our way to punish them and make their lives miserable (welcome to America). I have personally seen several individuals have their families torn apart because of the way we treat illegals who have already entered our country.

At this point, some of my more conservative readers may be thinking I am just advocating a wish-washy, fluffy idea of "just love them, man." Let me assure that is not at all what I mean by "love." When I say "love" I don't have a romantic or emotional idea in mind; I have a Christian idea in mind. And the Christian picture of love is self-sacrifice. Christian love says, "I want to see the best for you even if it costs me." Christian love says, "I would rather lay down my rights for the sake of the other than selfishly fight for and demand my own rights at your expense." Of course, Christ's view of love runs directly against the line of "this country belongs to US; it doesn't belong to you!" The opposite of love is selfishness.

I don't know what all a Christ-like immigration policy might look like, but I do know this--it will cost us. If we truly say we love immigrants, it means we will think twice before denying them a better life in our country (probably the reason why your own ancestors came to this country). It means we won't just make decisions about this topic from a distance, but will hold our tongue until we've actually seen and met the people involved. We can't have an opinion on the topic and sit passively at home. It means we will take efforts to clearly communicate to these people that they are important and valuable even if we decide to send them back to their home country. And it means we recognize the only real resource we may be running short of in this country is love for others.

So if you dislike the notion of amnesty, if you want to see closed borders, fine. But do me a favor if you are a Christian--don't dehumanize, don't put your rights above theirs, and ask yourself how you will choose to directly and sacrificially love immigrants. If you can't answer this key question about how your policies, words, and actions will show love, then please don't speak at all.