It is neither un-Christian nor un-American

to ask that our laws be enforced

As Christians, we often get stuck in the emotion of our hearts when trying to deal with issues, and lose the reason God provided when he gave us a brain. Acting out of emotion alone can be dangerous and costly, since emotion allows little consideration for others outside our current visibility, and how our impulsive actions may affect them. Such seems to be the case for many in dealing with illegal immigration, and it is important that we put the issue into proper context.

First, compassion seems to be the emotion we are dealing with, so let’s look at who is the most deserving of our compassion and some of the things that Scripture tells us:

1. In the United States alone, nearly 35-million Americans live in poverty. They need training and jobs and transportation to get there. Where has our outcry been for those who we call our own? If it is compassion we want to show, why not focus on those Americans we have been overlooking all of these years in our own communities. They too would like to have a better life.

2. Millions of Americans have no personal or family health insurance. If it is compassion we want to show, why not focus on how we can assist those families and their children, more particularly, children with disabilities.

4. Millions of aging Americans cannot afford groceries and are forced to eat dog food. Where are our ministries to these people, if it is compassion that we want to show? How many of you want to explain to a senior who is dependent on an already lacking Social Security check, that the church took a stand to legalize 20-million illegal aliens and that is why his benefits have been reduced or dried up. Everyone of the millions of anchor babies born here will be able to bring in an unlimited number of family members who will qualify for Social Security devastating an already deplete system. We must connect the dots.

5. Millions of working Americans can’t afford to put their children in college, some take out loans college loans that they can never pay back, yet illegal aliens are afforded the attention of our legislative bodies and get reduced rate tuition – where is our compassion for struggling American kids?

6. Many working class Americans struggle: They have health insurance, but can’t afford the co-payments; are always playing catch up on house payments, utilities, automobile payments, children’s medical, dental, and educational needs, and so on. - if it is compassion that we want to show, how is it compassionate to increase their tax burden by adopting a policy to support illegal aliens who are already huge contributors to that tax burden.

7. Are you aware that Illegal immigrants cost the American taxpayer at least $10 billion more than they contribute to the economy according to the Center for Immigration Studies?

Where is our compassion for the Americans who struggle to make ends meet and risk the health of family members because they can’t afford to go to the doctor, when people here illegally are welcomed at community hospitals and their bills picked up by the very tax dollars taken from the pockets of those people who can’t afford to go to the doctor. How about the ones who opt to die rather than turn everything they own over to the government for medical care? Where is our compassion for doing something to help their circumstances and lives.

8. If it is a matter of compassion, what about the people who cannot leave their countries and come here? Do we just help those who break our laws? Is that what Christianity has become – is that what compassion has been reduced to? Just for law breakers?

9. There is a very dark side to illegal immigration. People from Third World Countries mostly do not share our values. For many, women and children are lesser human beings, and women are a servant class – not equal to men, and many have no compunction about children being sold into all sorts of slavery to support the rest of the family – they are simply disposable. Are those the values our compassion wants to infiltrate American life and values? Many of the illegal men marry disadvantaged American girls as a pathway to citizenship. What does our compassion say to those girls when they are beaten and abused and eventually left by their husbands? What does our compassion say to the children of those marriages?

10. Most of the people crossing our border illegally are not gentle, kind people looking for a better life - some are - but we have no way of distinguishing between the good and the bad and licensing the good only, unless they go through immigration. The organization it took to have the street demonstrations we recently witnessed, should be a lesson to us all. These people were organized and they are on a mission. They are all not just here seeking a better life. As the numbers of illegals increase, so do the numbers of violent crimes. What does our compassion say to these victims, particularly the children who, as it has been pointed out, are not cherished in many countries as we cherish our children. According to Rep. Steve King of Iowa, in the past 5 years there have been 960,000 sexual abuse attacks by illegal aliens, 35% of which were against children 1-13 years of age, the average being 6 years old, 47% of which were Hispanic? Many of these children were brutally murdered. If we support amnesty, we are supporting opening our borders to some of the most violent criminals in the world and turning them loose to prey on a Christian society that doesn’t even always lock their doors. Is that responsible compassion? Is that what you really think the God of Mercy and Grace wants the Church to do? Not my God!

Christians must start thinking. We simply can no longer afford shallow feel-good theology. We must protect our children and the innocent here among us with our compassion.

13. Are you aware that American workers are being fired, so that illegal immigrants can be hired for less money? Is that where we want to put our Christian compassion? Assisting in getting our own American’s fired from their jobs? What do we say to our children when they can’t get a job making a livable wage because there are too many people here illegally depressing wages?

14. Are you aware that the Federal Bureau of Prisons estimates that fully one-third of current prison populations are comprised of non-citizen illegals aliens, and that is the greatest source of recruiting for Islamic Imams. Christians must not contribute with their misplaced shallow compassion to the spread of Islam.

15. Illegal immigrants are not all law-abiding citizens as the media, greedy employers, and this employer-friendly government would have us believe. A growing majority are a part of the movement by the Hispanic groups like MEChA, LULAC, and LARAZA who are interested in one thing - “reconquista” of the United States, and they are becoming increasingly militant. In other words, they are reclaiming the Southern part of the United States for Mexico – they have named it Aztlan, and California has, for all practical purposes, fallen, and Texas is weakening.

16. By supporting people here illegally, what are we as Christians saying to the people who came here legally, and what kind of model is that for our children? It is hypocritical to teach that we should be obedient and follow God’s law while the Church stands with people who deliberately break the law and then demand to be rewarded. Ex. 23:9 extorting us to love the aliens among us, was not referring to people who break the law. When people break the law, they are no longer aliens, they are criminals. Aliens are people who come into a land legally and not to take advantage of the citizenry. One of the most significant approaches we must utilize in understanding and applying Scripture is that there is a hierarchy within scriptural mandates. That is, there are times when one principle will take precedence over another. Scripture often provides counterbalancing principles that delimit the first principle, i.e. we are to obey the government, but when the government makes laws that violate scriptural principles, we have a responsibility to disobey; we are called to a life of work and sacrifice, yet Scripture conveys that there is a point when rest and recreation takes precedence.

We do have a responsibility to the alien, but only as long as they are fulfilling their responsibility to us while they are here.

Ex. 23:9 regarding the stranger assumes that the person’s alien status is the only variable. To mistreat him because he comes from a different country or has a different color skin is wrong. The insertion of additional variables, changes the equation. If the stranger is breaking the law then that would have to be factored in to how he should be treated. Or what if instead of one stranger, it were 20-million – that would be an added consideration as would it be if those strangers formed extensive organizations that promoted the idea that portions of this country belonged to them and they had every intention of taking them over, and they made other threats to the citizens of that country. The application of the mandate to love the stranger would change – we have seen how God dealt with such people in both the old and New Testaments. .

To frame the argument somewhat differently, what if loving the stranger would mean that we were not loving our children, but rather creating a political and cultural disaster that could make our children’s future very difficult if not problematic? Does the scriptural mandate to love the stranger take precedent over loving our children, especially if the strangers are intentionally planning to take actions that will harm our children?

Candidly, the theology of liberal-leaning evangelicals tends to be quite shallow. We have exposed this tendency over and over in their bid to recognize homosexuality as an alternate lifestyle, abortion as a woman’s right to choose, and other Orwellian policies. This one is no different. The mandate is to love aliens who come legally to visit or work or become citizens, and it has no application to criminals or people coming here to take advantage of the system, invade, or take jobs away from Americans..

Supporting illegal immigration is NOT Christian, and I say again, we cannot afford shallow contradictory theology. When Jesus was handed a coin with Ceasar’s head on it, he said to “Render unto Ceasar what is Ceasar’s, and render unto God what is God’s.” Jesus was telling us that we had to respect the authority of government officials, as well as render unto the government what belongs to the government. We are to pay taxes and respect the laws of this country and that is at the core of this debate – anything against the laws of this country should be a non issue, unless, as stated above, it is against the laws of God, and clearly illegal immigration is what is against the laws of both man and God, not those seeking enforcement of immigration laws. We simply cannot create anymore double standards in this country by saying that we will convict some people of their crimes but not others? This is the only way we can keep order and preserve our sovereignty. We must not teach our children that it is okay to break the law if what YOU think you are doing is ok.

We have a duty to our fellow countrymen. In the “Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons” a while back, it was reported that 84 California hospitals were closing because of the burden of illegal immigrants. It goes on to talk about the infectious diseases that had been irradicated in the US that are now on the rise again – what does our compassion say to victims of those diseases? How do we respond when our misplaced compassion contributes to an epidemic or pandemic? We are to protect our country and our people from all sorts of harm that threaten a society through invasion just as Hezekiah built fortification around Jerusalem in 2 Kings 18, and organized his fighting forces for defensive action, we are to do the same. The Lord delivered him for his wholehearted faithfulness, just as He will deliver our nation if we are faithful to our laws which are based on Scripture because we are a nation “Under God.” When almost a million people a year are entering a country, they are not just an alien, they are invaders who threaten to destroy the country just as Sennacherib threatened to destroy Hezekiah.

The rules of war and/or attack are just different: a failing education system, anchor babies, overcrowded prisons, stressed infrastructure and natural resources - the stats are horrible, the damages real, and indicative of what illegal immigration is doing to our country and tax system. Where is our compassion for Americans and our nation – we are not of unlimited resources, and no matter what people call it, America is under attack.

In Matthew 15, Jesus criticized the Pharisees for tithing and not caring for their parents FIRST. They weren’t taking care of their own families. The principle is to take care of your own first. It’s time for us to care for our own family, our own citizens, our own country first. When we spend money on illegal immigrants, we are neglecting our own people. And so many of these people are not immigrants, they are invaders, they are not here to assimilate, learn the language or become American citizens under our flag. As Christians, we are obligated to stand up for what is right and just, not aid and abet criminals and call wrong right. Those who do not break our laws and come into this country legally are the aliens to whom our God of order is referring in His Scripture.

I hear it said over and over that people are coming here illegally because they want a better life. If that is true, why not come here legally? There are millions in our country who would like to have a better life, but there is no one to help them get a job or make more money. People coming here illegally are coming here for greed not need. They are not happy with the wages offered in their own country, so they come here and undercut the American worker. Is that a proper place for our compassion?

We are to pay our taxes and respect the laws of this country – “render unto” Ceasar - they do neither.

God is a God of Order. We teach that to our Congregations. From the foundations of the earth, he brought order. Our society is based on Godly order and so are our laws. We are “one nation, under God.” We are also E. Pluribus Unum –“from many one” - look at the change in your pocket or folding money. When there is chaos, we have stepped away from God, and folks we have chaos in our nation - are we going to bring it into our churches. In our hearts we know the truth, and we know it is wrong to break the law. If we adopt a policy contrary to the laws of this land, we are contributing to and exacerbating the chaos, and I do not think that will make God smile. Such a policy would also encourage multiculturalism, a failed ideology that ultimately leads to war and death and tyrants as evidenced by France, Germany, and others in our history. Our laws are based on God’s Word, some of them are taken right out of the Ten Commandments. To take a position contrary to the law on this issue is to take a position contrary to God and I must strongly oppose such a stand. I simply cannot call wrong right!

God gave us a heart to live by and a brain to guide us. When we use one without the other, we are ignoring God’s tool given to us to find balance and reason. If it is a matter of compassion, I say we should be responsible with our compassion not emotional, and help people where they are, in their own country, which would include those who cannot leave to seek a better life, not just a few who have no regard for law and order and who have no problem taking advantage of the hand outs provided from the sweat off someone else’s brow. If we are going to set policy, it should be to uphold God’s law that requires us to take care of our own first, and if we are looking to extend our compassion, let’s make sure that we extend it responsibly so as to take care of those who are most deserving of it – first is our own, and next is the ones who can’t leave their country, and then the millions who have less income than those seeking to cross our borders illegally.

There are obviously many who do not want to think about the dark side of illegal immigration and the terrible things that it is bringing into our country. They are filled with positive feel-good rhetoric about the contributions of illegal aliens and their quest to seek a better life, completely dismissing the tragic truths and realities. There is nothing wrong with positive thinking as long as it is tempered with reality. Without that tempering, nothing is done to protect the innocent from the opportunists, the predators, the greedy, the lustful, and all of the rest of the ungodly who prey on humanity. Under-enforcement of our immigrations laws has filled our country with some of the most blood-thirsty gangs this country has ever seen with members from violent Third World countries, and subjected a nation of people churched and conditioned for centuries into a genteel society whose lives evolve around God, family and work, and who cannot even comprehend the dangers these growing numbers of gangs and predators present to their safety and well-being, much less how to defend themselves when they intrude in their lives.

Our borders must be closed, and people here illegally identified and deported.

Sue Richardson

Irving, Tx