The Immigrants

99% of American citizens are immigrants or descendants of immigrants

It's a complex issue, a hot button topic, and there is no black and white answer. I can't speak very well into the complexities of immigration and my husband and I can't even have a conversation about it without getting a bit heated with one another. It's an issue that people think you can stand firmly one side or the other, ignoring the middle. You can't because there is a middle. I think it might be the people who brave the middle that will be the ones to bring reform, if it can happen. 

In 1886 France gifted America with Lady Liberty. Officially her name is "The Statue of Liberty Enlightening the World" and she is a symbol of freedom and democracy. France was recognizing the hospitality and friendship of the United States toward the rest of the world. In 1903 Emma Lazarus wrote what are now the words that we imagine Lady Liberty is saying, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” And the world took America at its word. Risking all, they crossed lands and seas to enter the land of the free and the home of the brave. They were the brave. Those that entered the land of freedom didn't get a free handout or any kind of special assistance. They worked for a new life, they worked to show how grateful they were for freedom. They built lives and businesses and became part of the melting pot history of the United States. Their children received education and chances they never may have received in their home countries. They were the brave and now they were also the free. 

Throughout the years since America opened its proverbial arms to those from other lands there has been an ebb and flow of debate, decisions, closed borders, wide open borders, entitlement, unity, and division. Our nation has made some significant mistakes regarding immigration in our history. Some of those mistakes were due to world events that forced people to flee from their native countries, some of those mistakes were due to lack of policy, some have been due to our political parties and their inability to get along for the greater good of the people.  So whatever the reasons, we are at a point today where immigration causes deep anger and hurt on both sides of the issue.  But there is a middle.  There is, on most issues, almost always a middle.  

Last November President Obama simultaneously ticked off and delighted the residents, legal and nonlegal, of this nation with his address about immigration reform and his plans. I listened to it and sat for a minute and then listened to it again, noticing that I was nodding along. There's this idea that if *you* disagree with one policy of an elected official then you disagree with every policy, even healthy eating I guess.* That's preposterous right? Well sure, when it is pointed out to *you* that way!  But too often we surround ourselves with enough like-minded people that it never gets pointed out to us in that way.  So I started thinking about immigration and the issues that it has brought up. And more importantly I started praying about it and asking God to challenge me in the opinions I may be holding that didn't line up with his word about immigrants. I found out that perhaps God agrees with it as well. GASP. Yes, God. Now I'm just crazy talkin'...or am I?

I'm not crazy talking to consider God in all of this but I find that many American believers think it is crazy to consider God. Yep, let me say that again. Many American Christians think it is crazy to consider God in this issue. I've noticed something about the Church in America today (yes it's a generalization, I do know there are exceptions) and what I have noticed is the lack of compassion for others, the quick condemnation and judgment that is passed, the false idea that Jesus is a white republican gun-toting homophobic dude. I'm disturbed by these behaviors and I want to distance myself as far as possible from them. They don't represent the God I have studied and gotten to know in scripture and in personal relationship with him. 

It looks like we have forgotten God and his perspective in light of our favorite candidate and their platform that we think looks enough like things God talks about in the Bible.  And that leads us to an "absence of serious, theologically-probing, mutually-respectful conversation about immigration and illegal immigration in the Christian community....Conversation about immigration among Christians has mostly resembled what we see in the secular arena, with people talking mainly to those with whom they agree and blasting away at those with whom they disagree." (Mark D Roberts)**

But more and more disciples of Christ are realizing that perhaps God should be consulted. A pastor in the Pacific Northwest said this in his most recent publication, "....consider the issue of immigration and immigration reform.  In the United States, and even in the church in America, there has been persistent opposition to any legal reforms that would facilitate the process by which currently undocumented immigrants could attain citizenship or legal status.  This is despite the fact that nearly all of us are descendants of immigrants and that throughout Scripture God explicitly demonstrates that immigrants have a special place in His heart and economy.***  The arguments generally given against such reforms all revolve around the question, 'How will this affect me or my bottom line?' and the conclusion that they (immigrants) will somehow inconvenience me." (The Grand Paradox, Wytsma, pages 51-52) 

It's a complex issue that does have a middle. The middle is where God is waiting for us to get to. I grew up being taught that God doesn't live in the middle, he's very clearly on the right or he very clearly takes the narrow way.  The older I get and the more I live with God and study him the more I think that perhaps we look at life and its issues in the wrong ways. What if what we considered the broad path is not? What if it's actually the narrow path God has pointed to? What if? I'm not saying it is but I am saying we can't dismiss it as a possibility. And what that really means is we can't dismiss the possibility that we have been wrong in how we approach issues of concern in our world today, especially if we say we are disciples of Christ. We must consider his instructions and methods regardless of the politics and their pull.

How does God see the immigrant? The same way he sees you and me. Have we forgotten that all are made in the image of Christ?  All. How does God treat the immigrant? The same way he treats you and I. Have we forgotten that all are under his care and protection? All.

The immigration issue in America is not without its obvious, and not so obvious, problems. I'm not suggesting we fling our borders wide open and just let masses come in. I am suggesting that we ask God for his ideas and we meet with him in the middle. Some mistakes that have been made need to be corrected. Some extremes that have been adopted need to be scaled down and a return to a more reasonable policy needs to happen. We have residents of this country who did it the way people did who entered through Ellis Island and are offended that some might seem to be getting a free ride from our government. We also have residents in this country who are moral, hard working, and contributors to this nation but are doing so without legal papers because the red tape and paperwork is so daunting and expensive. And of course we have those who aren't moral or hard working, who have come in with their drugs and their guns and motives to harm. The immigration system is broken. It's dilapidated and weak, it is a money making scheme for already wealthy people, it has led to cracks and holes wide enough for human trafficking to sneak through. The problems are complex, the damage significant. It will take hard work, hard decisions, choosing to understand the complexities, and some compromise to fix what is so broken. The answer is not to just deport them all and wipe our hands of it. These are people with children, and in some cases grandchildren, who have built a life here in America, who were so desperate for a chance at freedom that they had to make a choice to disregard and break laws in order to stay.  These are people who get America and its value more than Americans do. Some of these people have nobody in their home country, they know virtually nothing about their home country, and some don't even know the language spoken in their home country. To deport them would be equal to sending them on a rocket ship to the moon and dropping them off.

Don't think that I haven't forgotten the most used plea for understanding. Put yourself in the shoes of an immigrant. Walk in their footsteps for a day or two and you'll quickly understand why it's so hard to become a citizen, get a green card, keep a work visa, and live undocumented. You will understand how much money it takes and the sacrifices you would be willing to make in order to see it happen. You will get a feeling for the need to stay and work towards being free rather than return to a regime or a government system that oppresses its people. You will then understand the desperation that leads to taking the risk to remain undocumented in hopes that someday you can make it right.  You might gain understanding of a university educated person having to clean toilets here in America because they have been told their education doesn't count here. They are willing to clean the toilets and go to school and get their education all over again just to stay. That's how much staying in America means to them.

What does God think, what does he say about immigration? First and foremost he says to take care of them. To clothe them and feed them as we are commanded to do with the widow and the orphan. He then goes on to tell us to make a way for them, remembering that we too have been immigrants - strangers in strange lands. God is a God of order and he can bring order to the chaos that is called immigration in America.





*The short story is that a few years ago my hub and I were watching a show in which Michelle Obama was advocating for kids getting healthier by eating healthier. My hub was rather dismissive of her desires and initiatives. Why? Simply because the name and administration Obama was associated. Um. 
** Illegal Immigration: Seeking a Christian Perspective  This post by Mark Roberts is lengthy but worth every word.  I found it to be an excellent resource. 
***Exodus 22:21, Leviticus 19:33-34, Deuteronomy 10:17-19

Resources I checked out, perhaps you will too:
Biblical References To Immigrants And Refugees
The United Church of Christ: Faith And Immigration
Immigration Concerns: The System is Broken
The Facts on Immigration Today
5 Facts About Illegal Immigration in the U.S.
A detailed look at immigration in the U.S. from the colonial period to the present
Top Ten U.S. Immigration Facts
Immigration Myths and Facts
All you wanted to know, and more, about immigration in the U.S. 
Why do people cross the border illegally? It's not what you think
Like the Emancipation Proclamation, Obama's order forces democracy
Why Don't They Just Get in Line? 
What Would It Cost to Deport 11.3 Million Unauthorized Immigrants?