The WWJD Argument for Immigration
Reform
The other
day I was in a business meeting where the moderator of the discussion tried to
relate to or impress someone on the other end of a phone conference by
mentioning an article on immigration he liked. Then he made it a point to say
that there were some “Tea Party people” in the room that needed to read it. I
guess I wasn’t paying that much attention. I didn’t realize I had just been
condescendingly insulted by a holier than thou “What would Jesus do?” attack.
Upon getting
back to my desk I found an email from the moderator. It was the article that myself
and a couple of other “Tea Party people” needed to read and learn from. It was
entitled, “The Time for Immigration Reform is Now” http://www.relevantmagazine.com/current/nation/time-immigration-reform-now
and it is chock full of PC friendly buzz words and catch phrases and appeals to
authority all aimed at ignoring completely that the US has had immigration laws
in place for a very long time that already invites foreigners to become Americans
lawfully. It also completely ignores that our immigration laws are supposed to guard
against admitting criminals, those with disease, the general degradation of our
society, and people who never wanted to become Americans in the first place. Worse,
it couples a dishonest political policy with misapplied quotes from scripture
for justification and self sanctification. The bottom line of the article is,
if you are a Christian, you should agree with them because God loves
immigrants, He put the president in office, and they even used bible verses to
tie it all together and make it sound like God’s divine will.
The
immigration system is not broken. It is not outdated. It is not unjust or
uncompassionate. The problem is that millions of people (including the federal
government) have ignored and defied the law for so long that there are a
government-estimated 12-20 million illegal aliens in the country who never went
through the process of naturalization. This lawlessness has eroded our standard
of living, endangered our citizens to violence and disease, and contributed to political
and professional corruption as politicians and businessmen via for votes and
new employees from a lawless group of people who are not even supposed to be
here to vote or draw a paycheck in the first place. This whole mess is a result
of the just and compassionate law not being followed in the first place.
We use to
have a name for the place where foreigners could go to become citizens. It was
called Immigration and Naturalizations Services. Today the place where that
happens has been combined with Customs and is called Immigration and Customs
Enforcement. We removed the word “naturalization” from the title and dropped
the “enforcement”. Is it any wonder there are millions of illegal aliens who
don’t respect the law, don’t speak our language, and don’t even want to be
Americans?
So, what
would Jesus do? It’s a great question and one we should all reflect on when
making important decisions of moral and spiritual significance. Very often
Christians rightly site the teachings and actions of Jesus as reason and recipe
for how we should treat other people. In Luke 6, Jesus told us to treat other
people the way we want to be treated ourselves. It doesn’t get any more simple
and straight forward than that. If everybody lived like that the world would be
a lot better place to live.
In that
world without sin there would be no need for border security guards or fences. There
would be no need for locks on doors, or walls and gates around communities. In
a perfect world, there would be no need for laws to protect the innocent from
the criminal. Trouble is we don’t live in that perfect world. Until Jesus
returns to set things right, there will always be a need for basic law and
order in any society.
What would
Jesus do? Jesus forgave people. Don’t stop reading there though. He also told
them to “go and sin no more”. Forgiveness comes through repentance. Show me the
illegal alien who wants to become an American citizen by going through the naturalization
process and I will show you the correct application of Romans 13 that was misapplied
in that article the meeting moderator emailed me. That illegal alien who genuinely wants to
become a legitimate American should also be willing to get in line behind those
honorable law abiding people who are already walking the “path to citizenship”
that already exists.
What would
Jesus do? Jesus rebuked the priests of his day who improperly used the law that
was meant to free people to enslave them. Not unlike the politicians of today who
call for reform of the very laws that they themselves have purposefully ignored
to enable the creation of millions of illegal aliens who are held within view,
but just out of reach of the American dream because they were never required to
naturalize to our society.
Illegal
aliens who are not criminals (other than defying our immigration laws), or diseased,
and do not want to remake America in the image of their home country should be (already
are) offered the same process of naturalization that other honest people have
already undergone. This is not uncompassionate. It is not an undue burden. This
is just and fair to those others who have done everything they were supposed to
in the first place. If you want to become an American, become an American. If
you don’t, leave.
