I really wanted to highlight how often we develop ideas that are driven by politics, economics, or some other motivation. I believe strongly that our ideas should be motivated by and rooted in Scripture. I felt that illegal immigration was such a divisive and controversial topic that the subject provided a great opportunity to explore how we often arrive at opinions that are not rooted in God’s word.

Thanks again for the comment. Know that my prayers are with you and with your church family, particularly in light of recent events.

It is really privileged for me to write to your ministry and I pray may Lord bless you abundantly. I am Majida Saleem from Pakistan. Five years before I accepted Jesus Christ as my personal Savior and I trust in Him as my rock and try to walk in Him, as the Word of God says don’t be lazy in struggle.

As I was visiting your site i am able to translate the good stuff of you into my native language Punjabi and national language Urdu. There are two purposes to request you the first one are to know the Word of God more deeply and second one to be supportive my family to run.

I hope you will consider me regarding this request.

In Jesus,
Majida Saleem
Pakistan

Thanks for your thoughtfulness on these issues. I agree, it is often easy to get caught in the cloud of politics versus understanding what God is doing and aligning ourselves with Him. I’ve personally seen great strides here in the Deep South with another ethnic issue: the deep divide and mistrust between blacks and whites. We are seeing precedent-breaking racial reconciliation and relationship-building between black and white communities (something that is still very new to many communities in the South). I believe the black/white divide is a dress rehearsal in preparation for the immigration issues that we will be dealing with over the next few decades.

God Bless,
Andy

Thanks for taking the time to weigh in on this article. Thanks too for keeping the tone civil. I’ve received some rather nasty comments on this particular post from people claiming to be Christians.

One common theme I have noted is that people seem to think I am advocating or condoning illegal border crossings and that I am opposed to immigration laws. Perhaps I was not clear enough when I wrote this piece and I should have better stated my position. I was trying to avoid expressing my personal, political opinion on the matter. My focus was rather on how we as Christians respond to people who have made a mistake already in the past (in this case coming to another country illegally).

I also was writing from the perspective of a northerner living in an area with limited illegal immigrant activity. The illegal immigrants I have encountered all work very hard and do not collect welfare or any social assistance.

Let me clarify my position on some matter surrounding illegal immigration.

I do not advocate illegal immigration.
I supp0rt immigration laws and their enforcement.
I do not condone (for moral, economic and social reasons) any policy that allows anyone (legal or illegal) to collect social benefits without working and contributing.
The fact that some local governments provide medical, educational, and other financial assistance to people who are illegally in the country is simply ridiculous.

My opinion on the matter? Immigration reform should have happened many years ago. We are attempting to put band-aids on major hemorrhages with most immigration policies. The only reasonable and responsible solution I see is a several-stage policy. First, border security must be addressed in a real and serious way (this includes airports, seaports and land borders). Second, after the borders are secured, we need to implement a general amnesty program. The aim of this program would be to provide an opportunity for those who have come here illegally to become legal. Immigration officials could then verify identity and screen out criminals and potential terrorists. Those who wish to remain in the country should be given an opportunity to become taxpaying citizens. Those who do not take advantage of the amnesty program to become legal, or those who subsequently enter the country illegally, should be arrested, prosecuted for illegal border crossing, and subsequently deported. Following the amnesty period laws regarding the hiring or employment of illegal immigrants should also be enforced.

The bottom line is that any attempt to deport all illegal immigrants today is a joke. There are far too many people here illegally and our borders still are not secured. Until we can stop people from coming in illegally it is rather pointless to spend a small fortune locating and deporting them. Further, this is America, and unless we want to become a police state with soldiers checking citizen IDs at every street corner we could not locate most of those who are here illegally anyway. Police officers need probable cause to stop and interrogate someone.

I believe my suggestion of a general amnesty program followed by rigorous enforcement is in keeping with your concerns about “sin no more.” I do not advocate keeping people in an illegal status.

For the record, I live in a state where our newly-elected governor just issued a directive to county motor vehicle offices requiring them to issue driver licenses to illegal immigrants. That scares me! This kind of foolishness does nothing to help the problem.

I also was an EMT who did a rotation at Ground Zero in NYC on September 15-16, 2001. I saw things I will never forget. The level of destruction defied anything that was on television. Pictures did not start to capture the feeling of the place. I don’t talk about this often, but it underscores my point: Terrorism scares me.

I have a wife and I have four children. I am very concerned for their safety and well-being. Therefore, I am very interested in our nation taking all necessary security measures to reduce dangerous people entering our national borders. I support immigration laws and I support immigration reform.

I like your suggestion of counseling illegal immigrants to return home and even helping to facilitate their return. However, to have a conversation like that requires that we first know them. My objection is not to seeing many, if not most, of those here illegally returning to their home. My objection is to the comments I hear from Christians that often amounts to blatant hatred toward illegal immigrants. I also think that if churches and Christians were loving toward these people we would have an opportunity to see some of them return home as Christians - thus becoming newly-converted missionaries to their own people! That is my point about God bringing the world to us.

Immigration reform? Absolutely.
Borders security? Absolutely.
Lovingly helping illegal immigrants return home safely? Absolutely.
Justifying our hatred and insulting comments because they came here illegally? Never. We had better not dare if we claim to be Christians. We will answer to God for that.

There is not one verse in the Word of God that advocates law breaking. Jesus did not condone the woman caught in adultery. He made his Christian point to the wanna-be rock throwers, reminding them that they were unrighteous hypocrites to be so enraged with the sins of the woman while neglecting the log of sins in their own eyes, but did He tell the woman…what you did is OK, my friends (disciples and followers) will take care of your every need…He never said anything like that…He said to her GO AND SIN NO MORE.

Go and sin no more. What a great line. He restored the woman her self-esteem by telling her He forgave her, but he reminded her that the CHRISTIAN person is a person who is LAW ABIDING. God put laws in place for a reason, GOD established governments and allowed goverments to establish laws to govern the people for a REASON.

When did law breaking stop being a sin? Perhaps the righteous and Christian thing to do would be to say to an illegal alien…I will help you find the financial means to return to your home country where you can make application to LEGITIMATELY return to the United States through the proper and appropriate LEGAL means of our Immigration laws. Why not offer the person financial help with that long and arduous process…instead you say…OK you’re here (alien)…so let’s make the most of it by rewarding you for your law breaking behavior.

I’m really disturbed by the bleeding heart Christians condoning alien law breaking as a legitimate means of showing Christian love toward foreigners.

Do you advocate to your children, nieces, nephews, grandchildren, whatever, that law breaking is appropriate behavior. What kind of citizenship qualities does that advance? Our immigration laws are designed to protect American society from exactly what is happening to it…the negative impact of unregulated immigration.

If you feel the laws are inappropriate there is a legitimate way to address that problem as well…its called American Political System. You have a right to vote and to select representatives in your government to lead the country in a particular direction.

I think you have substituted the word EXPEDIENT for the word CHRISTIAN LOVE in your discussion. So why do you think that every “needy” illegal alien should receive some type of long term benefit here in America?

I can’t, for the life of me, figure out what kind of Christian principle that kind of attitude is advancing. Do you really think GOD is happy that people are ignoring our Immigration laws and Christians are helping them.

I could understand it if these people were facing some type of persecution, death, torture, and
Certainly there are many needy aliens who need protection and shelter in a great place like America, but that is what the refugee and asylum procedures are designed to sort out.

There is NO SUCHthing in our laws to cover the category for ECONOMIC REFUGEE. That is not a ground for asylum consideration.

If you really want to be a help, from a Christian perspective why don’t you volunteer to support an illegal financially in his/her home country with economic assistance that would enable him to earn a living or create a business or purchase land for a farm. Or why don’t you provide the illegal person with the financial means to return home and the financial help to legitimately file for legitimate immigrant benefits to return.

Why does everything you embrace in your piece have to do with turning a blind eye to the law breaking that is the underlying cause of the issue.

I didn’t see once iota of concern in your piece for the PRESERVATION of our Immigration Laws against this kind of law breaker. If you can show me in the BIBLE where JESUS tells people its OK to break the laws of the governments HE placed in authority over us than I might change my view on this, but advocating a position that favors law breaking does not sound CHRISTIAN to me what so ever.