Immigration Reform

“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Most countries around the world are struggling with issue of dispossessed refuges - resaulting from war, famine, climate change, or poverty.  Every parent is looking to give their children a better shot at life than they have had.  My country is struggling with this same issue.  Over the last month, the national news media has focused on the 50,000 children coming across the Texas and Arizona borders from Central America.  This has provoked further discussion about the growing problems of immigration control and what has been a major discussion about the problem of illegal immigrants.  I am somewhat amused that the focus has always been on Central America when we have huge populations of Asians, Africans, Haitians, Cubans, Middle Easterners, and others coming into our country illegally the same way.  However, I want to state right out the gate that I believe we do have a problem controlling our borders.  This problem needs to be fixed. However, before we just make rash decisions and have knee jerk reactions, we need to examine what our calling as a nation is and then work together to follow that purpose assigned by God to us in our time and in our generation. 

Our nation was built on immigration.  People who had fled other lands because of extreme persecution built it.  English Puritans, Quakers, Anabaptists, Presbyterians, Irish Catholics, French Huguenots, and others all fled Western Europe seeking relief from the tyranny of violence, persecution and intolerance they faced and came to shores of North America seeking refuge, religious freedom and recipical liberty.  Those movements of immigration were illegal entries and violations from a Native American perspective based on the Roman Catholic Church’s edict known as “The Doctrine Of Discovery.”  But the European immigrants didn’t care if they were violating and stealing the land of the American people.  As far as they were concerned America’s resources were available to enrich their lives.  These European refugees also didn’t think it was a problem to import African people to provide them a labor force to support their aristocratic European lifestyles. This is the history that no one wants to talk about.  But it’s this history that should provide a foundation for all our discussion on our country’s immigration policy before we undertake immigration reform.  What do we do about the stranger seeking refuge in our land?  For people of biblical faith, the scripture is clear: "Love your neighbor as yourself" (Leviticus 19:18). The question is, "Who is my neighbor?"

The answer is found a few verses later. "The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt; I am the Lord your God.” The command to love the "stranger," however, is not open ended. The Hebrew language of the Old Testament uses three words to describe strangers, aliens, or immigrants. Two words basically mean the same thing: nekhar and zar refer to foreigners whose allegiance remained with their native country. These people were denied the benefits of citizenship in Israel, and are not in view in Leviticus 19:34. On the other hand, the Hebrew word ger, often translated "sojourner" or "stranger," as in Leviticus 19:34, is a person who had immigrated to Israel legally with the intention of becoming a citizen. Israel was to treat these immigrants as if "native" born, granting them benefits of citizenship, including the right to glean fields (Leviticus 19:10; Deuteronomy 24:19–22), to receive a portion of the special tithe collected every three years for the poor (14:28–29; 26:12–13), to be paid in a timely manner (24:15), allowed to rest on the Sabbath (5:14), and to receive fair treatment in legal cases, without discrimination (1:16–17) or being taken advantage of (24:17–18; 27:19). But when applying biblical truth to immigration reform today we need to keep in mind that America is not Israel.  America, as we know it today, was birthed by a God-given vision given to William Penn.  He is the architect of the “Holy Experiment,” which has been translated now into the American Experiment and experience for more than 333 years.  But we need to be careful to how we interpret scripture, history and our current cultural perspectives in light of our current immigration crisis.  Israel’s history is littered with “Doctrine Of Discovery” like history, William Penn was granted a charter on the basis of the “Doctrine Of Discovery” and owned African Slaves.

Likewise, our own family heritages emerge from our own American Immigrant histories – good and bad.  I guess what I’m trying to say is, “we need to be thoughtful about our immigration reform.  On the one hand there are those who argue that illegal immigrants take away American jobs, tax our health care and educational systems. On the other hand, our current millennial generation is NOT going to pick our vegetables, construct our brick laid houses, cut our grass or cook our Chinese or Mexican food?  So who’s doing the work they don’t want to do?  Illegal Immigrants… that’s who!  And that maybe this is the root of our immigration problem.  But hasn’t that been the role of all immigrants when they came to America over the last 238 years?  As a part of our journey forward as Christians, I hope we see the opportunities God is giving us.  I believe that the major reason God brings the immigrants to this land is to present the nations represented with the Gospel.  There is no other nation where the Gospel can be heard without the threat of being beheaded, persecuted, or protected as a believer than what America offers as an opportunity to the illegal immigrant.  The system is broken but the calling remains sure… American is called to be a City of Refuge – and a land of opportunity.