Recently, I have seen lots of posts from people about immigration and how a Christian should think about immigration in America.  As I read many of these posts, I have felt a conflict and maybe even a contradiction within myself.  These feelings come up in relation to the deportation of immigrants who are here illegally (I understand this is a loaded word but all I mean by it is anyone who has crossed our borders in a way that is not approved of by our laws, even if our laws around this stuff kind of sucks).  Many of my Christian friends have highlighted the need and requirement from a Christian perspective to be compassionate and caring and helpful to all people in all circumstances.  I agree with this wholeheartedly and think compassion and care and protection of immigrants is a deeply biblical concept, as I will detail out a bit later.   

The conflict comes because I also have this deep intuition and feeling that countries should be allowed to deport people who are in their country illegally.  Countries are entitled to borders and are entitled to determine what the process is for someone to be lawfully allowed into the country.  As such, if someone enters the country in a way that is not in line with that process or breaks the rules for how someone is to enter into a country, then I think that country reserves the right to expel or deport that person from the country, even if that person is a productive member of society.   

The wrestle I have been having with myself is I don’t know how biblical my intuition and feeling is that countries have a right, and more explicitly a moral right, to deport and expel people solely because they didn’t enter the country the approved way.  So, I decided to see what the Bible has to say on this (more investigation and thinking is still required).  Let me just caution that this essay is more of me thinking through my thoughts and just trying to be extremely thorough and clear about what I believe and how it all works together.  I say that because my conclusions aren’t particularly new or creative, but I find it important to explain the rationale for my conclusions in as deep a way possible for an essay like this. 

Let me also preface that I’m only considering the question of deporting immigrants who are in the country illegally.  I’m not trying to comment on issues regarding refugees or asylum seekers (those who do it legally) or even the laws we have on immigration itself.  My focus really is trying to think through if there is biblical support for the idea of deportation, and specifically, deporting of immigrants solely on the basis on if they entered the country legally or not. 

I also want to point out that when it comes to immigration, this needs to be considered on two levels.  On one level, we need to consider how human beings are supposed to be treated, just solely on the basis of being a human, regardless of their immigration/citizen status.  Then the next consideration is how do we treat people in relation to their immigration/citizen status.  I think this is an important way to think about this topic because I don’t think we have the same level of duty to care for people depending on their different immigration/citizen status.  Now, obviously there is a baseline level of duty of care for people based off them being human.  Then above and beyond that we have different obligations on how we are to treat people in relation to their immigration/citizen status. 

Now before we get into things, let me just say upfront that the Bible tells us to love everybody, no matter what.  So, when I talk about treating people differently based on immigration/citizen status or that we have a different level of duty to care for people depending on their immigration/citizen status, at no point am I suggesting that we can choose to act unlovingly to people.  Part of what I’m trying to get us to consider is that what it means to love someone and just our practical ability to love people is necessarily connected to what sort of relationship we have with people.   

I want to mention this because later I will consider what it means to love people within the reality that sometimes people have conflicting and maybe even contradictory concerns and interests.  How do you love multiple people as yourself at once, when their needs and desires are in opposition?  I say this now because I don’t want there to be a distraction that it feels like I’m suggesting that we don’t have to love our neighbor (aka everyone) as ourselves.  That’s not what I mean when I talk about having a different level of duty to care for people in relation to their immigration/citizen status. 

With some of those introductory remarks out of the way, which I said we will consider again later, let’s get into actually looking at what the Bible says in relation to how we are to treat immigrants who are in a country illegally.  As I said earlier, I think it is an undeniable fact that the Bible is concerned about how foreigners are treated.  There’s a myriad of verses that point this out.   

Deuteronomy 27:19 says “Cursed is anyone who withholds justice from the foreigner, the fatherless or the widow.”  Then all the people shall say, “Amen!”.   

Exodus 22:21 says “Do not mistreat or oppress a foreigner, for you were foreigners in Egypt.”  

Leviticus 19:33-34 says, “ ‘When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them.  The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the LORD your God” 

Leviticus 24:22 says, “You are to have the same law for the foreigner and the native-born. I am the LORD your God.’ ” 

This list could go on and on.  I think it’s clear that God cares about how foreigners are treated, and that God demands that they be treated justly and with care.  A question we must ask is, “Is deportation mistreating someone if they are in your country illegally?”  Unfortunately, there isn’t much in the Bible about how you justly deport immigrants and specifically, immigrants who are in your country illegally.  Let’s take a look at some reasons for why this would be the case. 

One reason is that ancient Israel and the surrounding people groups and nations didn’t operate as countries in the way that we think of today, at least as far as immigration and citizenship is concerned.  There obviously was a sense of borders and forms of governments, but they didn’t have such formalized ways of adding new people into their societies on a national level (that likely was handled more locally in cities and towns and villages).  In fact, the concept of nationality and nation states with hard defined and unchanging borders is a newer phenomenon that would be a bit unrecognizable to ancient understandings of societies. 

Ancient nations would patrol their borders as we do today, but not really for the sake of immigration but for military reasons (these two have some amount of connection though).  This is important because if nations (and thus ancient Israel) weren’t monitoring the inflow of immigrants for the sake of controlling and managing immigration, then the Bible would be less likely to contain laws about how to handle an immigrant who are coming into the nation illegally.  It’s almost as if the idea of an “illegal immigrant” wouldn’t have made much sense in ancient Israel since there weren’t any laws around what the process of coming into Israel should be, and then what you need to do to become a citizen.   

This doesn’t mean that ancient Israelites didn’t have a sense of what it meant to be an Israelite or a citizen of the nation of Israel.  There were all sorts of laws and rules about how to be Jewish or what it means to be a Hebrew, but this was more in a religious, ritualistic and cultural way, not so much in a civic or political sense.  The political and religious spheres of life used to be much more related though, and so one’s civic and religious life were thoroughly connected.  So much so that one’s citizenship likely was connected to one’s religious life.  The lack of specific concepts, ideas, and laws around citizenship or immigration in the Bible creates some challenge for discovering a biblical perspective on these topics.  This lack of specificity also leads into the next reason why the Bible doesn’t comment straight forwardly on illegal immigration.   

There are multiple Hebrew words with definitions and connotations related to migration and migrants. If you pay attention to many translations of the Bible, the word “immigrant” hardly ever appears, but rather we see words like foreigner, stranger, and sojourner.  This is important because an immigrant, who essentially is a person who comes to a foreign country with the purpose of living there permanently, is not always the exact same thing as a foreigner or stranger or sojourner.   

In Hebrew, the word closest to an immigrant would probably be ger.  Ger typically gets translated as stranger or sojourner.  The other Hebrew words that get used in a way related to an immigrant are nekhar and nakhriy.  These two words typically get translated as foreigner.  As I stated, there’s no direct translation to the English word immigrant.  Of the translations typically used, sojourner is probably the closest to an immigrant.  All the words could possibly be talking about a person who is coming to Israel to live there permanently, but sojourner (which typically refers to someone residing in a place for a temporary amount of time while traveling) would probably be the closest to an immigrant.  This means ger would be the Hebrew word closest to immigrant.  

This is the reason why I chose the passages above.  All of them use the Hebrew word ger when talking about how the foreigner should be treated.  As such, I think these passages speak with a strong voice that God wants immigrants to be cared for, treated justly and with dignity.  Unfortunately, these verses don’t say anything about what justice is owed to an immigrant who has entered a country illegally, which would be committing an act of injustice.   

In fact, I don’t think the Bible considers the concept of someone illegally entering a nation.  This could either be because, as I said, the Biblical conception of a nation didn’t accommodate the idea of illegal immigration.  It could also be because the Bible doesn’t think the way someone has entered a nation has any bearing on how they are to be treated or what justice is owed to them. 

All the Bible seems to comment on is how do you treat a foreigner once they are residing in your land.  This is relevant because when the Bible says not to oppress the foreigner and to give the foreigner justice, that means something different if you are talking about how to treat an immigrant or if you are talking about how to treat someone who just happens to be in your community for a bit of time but doesn’t plan to live with you permanently.  Presumably, this is why there are different words in Hebrew for foreigner, different words to communicate the subtlety of how long someone is residing in a nation and the reasons for it.   

This doesn’t mean that whether someone will be with you long-term or not, you get to treat them worse or more harshly or with cruelty, but rather that a community’s duty to someone who will be with you temporarily and who will be with you permanently are different.  This is partly what I was getting at earlier when I was talking about treating people differently based on their immigration/citizen status and how depending on our relationship with someone, it impacts what level of duty of care we are to have towards them.   

I say this because whether someone is with you temporarily or permanently, this will affect the sort of commitment and interest one will have in that community flourishing.  So, communities need to be wise about how they distribute and use resources on people.  If someone isn’t going to be in the community long-term, then there might be some wisdom in not giving that person too much access to long-term resources.   

I want to give an example that I hope will highlight what I mean here and hopefully will align with our moral intuitions.  This isn’t a perfect example, but I think it might get my point across.  When you let someone into your house, the things they have access to are in proportion to how vested they are in the continued existence of your home.  If someone is just coming over to hang out for an evening, you might tell them that they can eat and drink whatever they like and sit wherever they like, and you might even give them authority to choose what’s on the T.V.  You might not give them permission to start moving your furniture and decorations around though.  However, if they will be living with you for an extended period, you might decide to give them their own room and give them permission to do whatever they want in that room, so they feel comfortable.   

I want to look at the story of Ruth for a moment which I think speaks to this principle.  To summarize, Ruth is a Moabite who returns back to Israel with her mother-in-law who has now lost her husband, her two sons (one of which was Ruth’s husband) and is utterly destitute.  Ruth’s mother-in-law, Naomi, urged Ruth to stay with the Moabite people because Naomi could no longer care for her, but Ruth insisted on staying with Naomi.  Ruth declared that she would totally reorient her life around Naomi, such that Naomi’s people would become Ruth’s people and Naomi’s God would become Ruth’s God.   

When they return to Israel, Ruth and Naomi go to one of Naomi’s relatives, Boaz, to seek assistance.  Boaz agrees to let Ruth glean the edges of his field so Ruth and Naomi can have something to eat.  After some time, Boaz tells Ruth that he doesn’t want her or Naomi to glean from any other field but to stay at his field and he will help provide for them.  Here’s what happens next in Ruth 2:10-12: 

10 At this, she bowed down with her face to the ground. She asked him, “Why have I found such favor in your eyes that you notice me—a foreigner?” 11 Boaz replied, “I’ve been told all about what you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband—how you left your father and mother and your homeland and came to live with a people you did not know before. 12 May the Lord repay you for what you have done. May you be richly rewarded by the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge.” 

The point I’m making here is that Boaz recognized that Ruth wasn’t just a “foreigner” but was someone who was committed to the well-being of the community.  In response, Boaz felt it only right that he himself, as a part of the community, should help take care of her.  If Ruth was only just a traveler or wasn’t living in a way that showed she was committed to the community, I wonder if Boaz would have been so generous to her. Boaz also points out that Ruth has sought refuge in God and his people, and that God would honor that.  This is a point I want to come back to later. 

So when we look at Biblical passages that talk about giving justice to the foreigner and loving the sojourner and the foreigner, we need to have a good understanding on if that passage is talking about a foreigner in the way that we talk about immigrants or if it’s talking about a foreigner in the way we may think of a tourist or a long-term traveler.  This will give us more context around what it would mean to care for or love the foreigner.  I think it is less troubling (morally, emotionally, psychologically, spiritually) to kick a guest out of your house who was only meant to be there for an evening, than it is to kick a guest out who is planning to live with you.   

To summarize before continuing forward, I think there is ample evidence and reason to think that from the passages we have seen in the Old Testament, God cares deeply about how Israelites treat foreigners.  One of the main reasons God gives is because the Israelites used to be foreigners at one time, and so he wants to make sure they empathize with people in that sort of position.  When we try to then take that principle of caring for the foreigner and apply it to our own time, I think it might not be as straight forward as it may seem.   

One reason we have seen why this is the case is because the words foreigner, sojourner, and stranger don’t always mean the same thing as immigrant.  So, when we read Bible verses about how you are to treat a foreigner, a sojourner, or the stranger, we would do well to look back at the original Hebrew to figure out if the text is talking about someone that is akin to an immigrant today, or if it means something more like a traveler or tourist etc. As I mentioned earlier, I think a community’s duty to care for an “outsider” is connected to how committed the “outsider” is to the community.   

In the instances that the foreigner, sojourner, or stranger is not as committed to a community to the extent that an immigrant is, then the community doesn’t have as strong of a duty to provide the sort of care that you would provide to an immigrant.  This is important because in the context of illegal immigration, the community doesn’t get to vet the immigrant on what their commitment level is to the community they are entering.  Also, if we are to figure out how we should deal with immigrants who are here illegally, we need to have a firm understanding of how God asks us to treat those who are immigrants, not just a traveler or a tourist or a visitor, and then we can start to think about how we are to treat an immigrant who is here illegally.   

Another reason why it can be a bit tricky to apply some of these Old Testament passages to the issue of immigration today is the Bible doesn’t have the same conception of a nation, an immigrant, a citizen, or immigration like we have today.  I say tricky, but not impossible.  I think the idea of deporting someone from ancient Israel because someone entered their territory in an unapproved way would have been a strange concept to ancient Jews, but not entirely inconceivable.  Especially if you start to consider how a foreigner might impact the identity and unity of the community. 

I now want to consider some ideas and verses in the Bible that I think might give some biblical support to the idea of deporting immigrants who are in the country illegally.  As I said earlier, the Bible doesn’t give us direct instructions on how to handle an immigrant who is in a country illegally.  These passages might give us some principles on how to think about how we should handle illegal immigration, but they aren’t clear proofs on what precisely we should do.  

The first point I want to make is that I believe the Bible and thus Christianity, values order and rules and the following of rules, especially in the legal realm.  The classic verse that I think supports this is Romans 13:1-7 which encourages Christians to respect the legal laws and authorities of the Roman empire.  This verse is tricky because the context around this verse is that Paul was likely writing this because there were a lot of concerns about Christians who weren’t participating in Roman civil and religious rituals.   

Christians were beginning to live radically different social lives than the rest of the Roman people, and they believed that there was a different and greater king than Caesar, namely Jesus.  So, the concern was that Christians were going to be attacked and persecuted because of this.  Many non-Christians felt that the Christians were causing social chaos and degrading the social and societal fabric.  So, Paul urging Christians to follow the laws was kind of like Paul’s version of a PR campaign for Christians, and a way for Christians to show Roman society that they aren’t scary people who are trying to destroy and take down their communities and the Roman empire.   

Another thing that I think is tricky about this verse is that it can be used to justify corrupt and unjust laws and governments.  This verse, if used inappropriately, could support arguments that it was wrong for people to rebel and fight against slavery and Jim Crow laws, laws that denied women full rights, laws that allowed for child labor and the Japanese internment, and the list can go on and on.  So, it’s not the case that Christians should follow the laws of a government, just purely because it is a law.  If a law conflicts with God’s law, then we must follow God’s law over the human law.  Our allegiance is to God before it is to our government or nation.   

As such, many who defy our immigration laws, specifically those around deportation and ICE and things like that, say that they aren’t in violation of Romans 13:1-7 because the laws they are rebelling against are unjust (just like Jim Crow laws were unjust) and are in violation of God’s character.  With that said, if it can be shown that deportation is not in conflict with God’s character but is something that could be acceptable depending on the context, then deportation is something that could be defended biblically.  Let me make sure I’m being clear here, the question I’m trying to figure out is, “Is there biblical support for deportation of immigrants who are in a country illegally, regardless of whether they are a benefit or detriment to a community?” 

Well, as far as I can tell, there aren’t many examples of deportation from Israel per se in the Bible, but there are examples in the Old Testament (and I would even be willing to suggest enduring themes) where scripture supports non-Jewish people being separated from the Jewish people.  Let’s take a look at a couple of these passages and see what we should get from them.  The first one I want to look at is Deuteronomy 7:1-7. 

In Deuteronomy 7, the Jewish people have been freed from slavery in Egypt and are making their way to the promised land.  While on their way, God gives them instructions about what to do when they get there.  The Jewish people (more accurately the Hebrew people at this time but I’ll keep saying Jewish to not cause confusion) are told to drive the people out of the land they are going to enter.  They are not to let any of them stay, or to intermarry with them or form any sort of relationship with them in any way.  God tells the Jews to totally destroy the people who are in the land before them and make no treaty with them and show them no mercy.  They then are supposed to destroy all the religious structures of the people before them. 

Admittedly this is a very challenging passage for Christians, and it brings up lots of questions about God, and we can’t address them all here.  The trouble with this passage is that, depending on how you interpret this passage, this will have some significant impacts on what lessons you get from it.  In particular, it will impact whether you think this passage has anything at all to say about how to order/structure a society or if this passage has any bearing on immigration at all.   

I think the two primary ways people approach this passage is to either take it as historical in some form (even if highly exaggerated and dramatized), or as metaphorical/allegorical.  The metaphorical/allegorical reading would lead you to not think that the Jewish people were literally conquering a land, but rather the promised land is a metaphor for a spiritual home with God.  So, driving out these people from the lands isn’t literally war with other humans, but rather these people groups represent sin and problems in our life that prevent us from being in our spiritual home with God, and so our task is to remove all those things out of the promised land.  To me, this metaphorical/allegorical reading doesn’t really have much to say, if anything at all about how best to organize a society or how you should think about immigrants.   

The other interpretative lens people use is a more historical reading.  A more historical reading holds to this passage being historical in some sense, and that the Jewish people really were commanded by God to take a piece of land (which the Jews referred to as the promised land) and to drive out all the people who were living there upon their arrival.  It’s too much here to detail out fully which type of reading or interpretation we should prefer, but I will posit that we should accept the historical reading (even if exaggerated or hyped up).  Here’s a couple reasons why.   

I think the genre of Deuteronomy feels like it’s meant to be a bit more historical, as compared to other parts in the Bible.  For example, some of the stories in Genesis don’t have as much of a historical feel, but they have a more legendary/mythological feel.  Whereas the content of Deuteronomy does give more of a narrative feel, a sense that the Deuteronomy story at the very least comes from some real historical facts.  Also, if we take a more historical perspective, we can also keep the metaphorical reading as well.  The historical reading doesn’t negate the metaphorical reading but allows us to use the insights from a metaphorical reading as well.   

When I say historical, this isn’t me saying that everything in Deuteronomy or even just in this one passage is historical in the sense that everything literally happened in the way it is described.  When I say historical, what I mean is that something like this likely happened, and when this story got recorded in the Bible, it’s possible that some additional elements were added to the story to dramatize things or to highlight certain parts of the story.  Like I said, giving a full defense of picking a historically minded interpretative lens is beyond the scope of this essay, and so I understand if someone is unconvinced of the short argument I have given, not to mention the way the historical reading brings up other questions and concerns about God’s character that the metaphorical reading is able to avoid. 

If we view this passage as based off a real event in history, then the question is, “Why did God tell the Jewish people to drive out all the people on the land that were there before them.”  Is it because God was a xenophobe and wanted to keep the Jewish bloodline and ethnicity pure?  I find that highly unlikely because the Jewish people who are going to the promised land are already a “mixed multitude” as mentioned in Exodus.  There are already other ethnicities besides those who come from Abraham’s bloodline who are a part of God’s holy nation that he is creating through the books of Exodus, Deuteronomy, Numbers, and Leviticus.  Also, Moses, who is leading God’s people, has a Midian wife and thus has a son who is half Jewish (technically Hebrew) and half Midian. 

Well then, what could be a reason for these intense and extreme instructions from God?  I think one likely and simple reason is that God knew the importance of shared values and beliefs for any community to be strong, unified, and enduring.  If the Jewish people were to have mixed in with all the other tribes, it is likely that the Jewish people would have been influenced by the other tribes’ beliefs and religions.  The concern God has is that if the Jewish people got influenced by other religions, they would not maintain a shared culture or faith anymore. Then the Jewish people would not have stayed together, and God’s holy nation of Israel would have dissolved.   

Now I think a fair response is to say that God is overreacting.  The first objection would be to say that preserving Israel as God’s holy nation does not justify the conquering and expulsion of the native people (the Canaanites) from the “promised land”.  Some would call this nothing short of genocide.  That is a totally legitimate objection.  The Bible does give a rationale for this command.  God claims it because the Canaanites are so sinful, that the Jewish people are to reposes the land from them.  To some this may feel like an insufficient response, but I’m not going to go much further in defending this command from God in Deuteronomy.  Responding to this objection would go far beyond the scope of this essay and ultimately lead us deep into discussions that don’t have any bearing on our question about biblical support for deportation.   

Let’s just grant for argument’s sake that preserving God’s holy nation justifies the command he gives in this passage.  One may still feel like God is overreacting.  The objection would be that even if preserving God’s holy nation justifies removing the Canaanites, God is being paranoid that they would actually cause such division among the Jewish people.  God should trust that the Jewish people could coexist with people who had different religious beliefs than the Jewish people, without the Jewish people abandoning their faith in God.  Some might say that this insecurity from God might indicate that God’s instructions for how to live can’t be that good if they have to be enforced by expelling an entire people group from their land.   

I think this is also a fair objection, and it touches on the way I think this passage gives us a framework on how to think about deportation.  Again, I think this passage tells us about the importance of having a strong and cohesive shared culture in a society and that you may need to remove people who are going to break down that cohesion too much.  I think this objection of “God overreacting” challenges this sort of understanding.  It urges us to think that if you need to protect your culture so badly that it causes you to expel people from living with you, then either you are valuing your culture too much, or you need a new culture that can endure and adapt to contact with other cultures. 

Something we need to keep in mind though is that the very thing God seems to worry about, actually ends up happening.  Later on in the Bible, the nation of Israel begins to adopt too much from the other cultures and religions around them and they end up falling away from God.  This leads to calamity and destruction to the Jewish culture and the Jewish people themselves.  So, is God being too extreme and overprotective and overreacting? Maybe, maybe not.  However, if you still feel like this command in Deut. 7 is still too heavy handed, at the very least, this command communicates the importance and necessity of any group to maintain and protect their culture if they want to continue as a group. 

The next passage I want to look at is Ezra 10:1-5.  In the book of Ezra, the Jewish people have just been freed from captivity in Babylon and have come back to Israel to rebuild the holy city of Jerusalem.  After being back in Israel for some time, and after rebuilding efforts have begun, we learn that some of the Jewish people have been creating families with non-Jewish people around them.  In response to this, Ezra the priest and a group of Jewish people begin to mourn and weep because they believe they have broken God’s commandment, potentially the very one we just looked at, Deut. 7:1-7.  As such, the people suggest to Ezra that the foreign women and their children need to be sent away, and they ask Ezra to lead this.   

Now, I must state that this passage is deeply challenging because not only are foreign people being kicked out of Israel (even though their law tells them to love the foreigner as they love themselves), but these foreigners are their very own wives and children.  Again, there’s a variety of interpretive frameworks we could use, but I again like to hold to the historical lens (again even if exaggerated) because it also allows for us to use the metaphorical/allegorical one as well.  I understand that this passage brings up a whole host of other moral considerations and concerns beyond just its implications on immigration, but again that’s beyond the scope of this essay and so that’s the reason I won’t be addressing them. 

If this is historically based in some way, then we again have to ask, why would God’s people do something so extreme and cruel as to exile or deport their own wives and children.  Is it because they are xenophobic and think non-Jewish people have less value than them and thus, they get to treat them however they want?  I think not.  I think again, it comes down to this deep intuition that a people or a community won’t survive if too many people who aren’t committed to the values and beliefs and culture of that people group are allowed to enter into that people group.   

I think it must be stated that this doesn’t mean we just go around kicking everyone out who we think is a problem.  I’m not taking this passage as total justification and even moral prescription that we need to eliminate and separate any and all people who might have different beliefs or values or culture than the dominant group.  What we do get from it though is that we need to take seriously the reality that the cohesion of any group of any size relies on the group having some amount of shared fundamental beliefs and values.  As such, the group does need to be cognizant and wise about how they accept and integrate people into their group who may or may not share their values and beliefs.  

I also want to point out that both these passages (Deut. 7 and Ezra 10) come within the context of a time when Israel is quite vulnerable and in the beginning stages of building their nation.  Deuteronomy comes at a time before Israel as a nation exists and the Ezra passage comes at a time when the Jewish people are rebuilding their capital city and nation after utter destruction.  We need to keep this in mind because I think these passages have more relevance in a context where a group of people is beginning to form and may be less applicable to a context where a group is already firmly established.  As we think about this in relation to immigration in America, America is firmly established as a nation and so we should be careful about how much we think the learnings from these passages can appropriately apply to the current context of American immigration. 

So, how might these passages inform us about how to approach immigration in America today?  Especially since, strictly speaking, neither of these passages deal with immigration. Well, if we take seriously what I think the message of these passages is, “a people or a community won’t survive if too many people who aren’t committed to the values and beliefs and culture of that people group are allowed to enter into that people group”, it gives support to the idea that a nation needs to control the flow of immigration into its borders.   

This control allows a nation to review each potential immigrant and see if they are a good fit for the country and will help uphold the country’s most fundamental and sacred values.  Let me also add here that along with a variety of Bible verses indicating that foreigners need to be treated justly, there also are numerous bible verses like Numbers 15:16, Leviticus 18:26, Exodus 12:19, Exodus 24:16 and Leviticus 24:22, suggesting that foreigners must also follow the Biblical laws (with some ritual and dietary exceptions).  These laws were there to ensure that even foreigners were maintaining and upholding the values and beliefs of Israel.   

The issue with illegal immigration is that it doesn’t give a country the ability to review potential immigrants to see if these incoming people are committed to upholding and maintaining the culture and values of the nation they are entering.  Again, these two passages we have looked at don’t talk about what you do if someone has entered your borders in an approved way, but they do indicate that if you have people in your nation or your group who are not committed to the values and continuation of the group or nation, then there is reason to remove them.  As for immigrants who enter a country illegally, you don’t know if they are committed to the values of the nation, and so I think this at the very least points in the direction of giving a country the right to remove that person, for the sake of maintaining a cohesive and shared value system. 

Let me just make one final point.  I know I have only shared two passages, but I do think we do see a theme in the Old Testament of Jewish people being skeptical, concerned, and sometimes downright fearful of foreigners and outsiders.  Now this is for a variety of reasons and doesn’t mean that ancient Israelites were always justified in feeling this way.  However, I think it does give us reason to think that there are justified reasons for being weary of unknown people entering in your community.  If someone does enter a community without its consent or not by the approved processes that the community has established, the community does have some justification to expel that person solely for the reason that this person entered the community in an unauthorized manner. 

In the beginning of this essay, I mentioned that discussions around deportation of immigrants who have entered a country illegally happen on two levels.  There’s the level of basic humanity, how are we to treat someone solely because they are human?  The next level is immigration status, how are we to treat someone who has entered our country illegally?  Up until this moment, besides the Romans passage, I have only looked at Old Testament passages.  Given that the Old Testament is largely centered around the idea of God creating his own holy nation, much of this essay has been more focused on thinking about how you treat someone in relation to their immigration status.  

As a Christian, I couldn’t possibly talk about a Christian perspective on deportation without looking at the New Testament.  The challenge here is that the New Testament says even less about immigration than the Old Testament, since the New Testament isn’t even concerned about God’s people as a nation with borders like the Old Testament.  As we turn to the New Testament to see what it might say in relation to immigration, the next part of this essay will be focused more on thinking about how we treat someone just because they are a human with the image of God on them. 

I want to start by addressing a common comment I hear from people about Jesus being an immigrant.  If our definition of an immigrant is someone who is seeking to live permanently in a foreign land, then technically speaking, Jesus is not an immigrant.  Jesus was more of a refugee or asylum seeker fleeing danger as a baby because of King Herod’s attempt to kill all Jewish males under 2 years old.  I think I get the point people are making though when they say Jesus was an immigrant.  Jesus was a foreigner in a foreign land at one time and so we should think about how we would want to treat Jesus if he was a migrant to the US, and then we should treat all migrants that way.  This pairs well with Jesus’ teaching when he says that the way we treat the least of these is the way we treat him, since he identifies with the most vulnerable and powerless.   

Along with this teaching, I think the two other most common things people will point to when advocating against deportation is the idea of loving your neighbor and the radical inclusive message of Jesus.  The teaching of loving your neighbor comes originally from Leviticus 19:18 in the Old Testament.  Jesus highlights the importance of this command in Mark 12:30-31 and then demonstrates it in a dramatic way in the parable of the Good Samaritan.  In this parable, Jesus makes the point that when God commands us to love our neighbor, he really is commanding us to love everybody, and not just those who are a part of our tribe or our group or nation.  Along with that, Jesus’ teachings and the rest of the New Testament relentlessly states that God wants all people to be in a relationship with him and that His followers are to love and care for all people.   

With this established, can it be possible for us to love our neighbor if we also deport our neighbor?  My gut reaction is to say no, that kicking someone out of your community is anything but loving.  It ends the relationship and severs any opportunity for you to learn more about that person and to continue to serve and sacrifice for them in the way Jesus served and sacrificed for us.  I mean doesn’t the Bible tell us that perfect love casts out all fear?!  How could you perfectly love someone if they had to contend with the real fear that you might kick them out of your group, that you would deport them from your country?  If you remove someone from your community and then send them back to the place they fled which might be dangerous and unstable and void of opportunity for an improved life, how could that possibly be loving? 

Well, I think we need to recognize that the New Testament does give some rationale and justification for separating someone from your community in 1 Corinthians 5.  Paul essentially says to expel wicked people from the community.  So, even within the context of a radically inclusive vision of God’s people, God’s overwhelming grace and in the face of the inexhaustible love of God, the New Testament does also make provision for removing someone from the community.  The rationale and justification for this though is based on an egregious and unacceptable moral failing of the person being removed.  Let’s not forget the story of Ananias and Sapphira where it appears that the Holy Spirit took their lives because they tried to lie to the Christian community about their offering. 

There’s also another aspect we need to consider.  When we are told to love our neighbor, that means to love everyone.  So, what happens when the interests of two people in our community are opposed to one another?  What happens when other people in our community are uncomfortable with people entering our community who did not do it through our approved process?  What if people who are already members of the group are concerned that an uncontrolled addition of new members to the group will threaten the integrity of the group? Are we loving those people if we just tell them to suck it up and deal with it because we want to be kind to the new members of our group, even if they entered illegitimately?  Sometimes loving your neighbor is hard when that means essentially picking a side and privileging the concerns of one person over another. 

If you remember, I mentioned earlier that Jesus tells us that he identifies with “the least of these” so much, that he says whatever you do to them, you do to Him.  So, if you are considering whose interest to privilege when two people are at odds, it seems like we would have reason to think that we should choose the side of the more vulnerable person, since it seems like that’s the side Jesus would choose.  Does this just give vulnerable and oppressed people a trump card to demand whatever they want, and as Christians we must agree to it? 

Well, the Old Testament has something to say about this.  Leviticus 19:15, says, “You shall not render an unjust judgment; you shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great: with justice you shall judge your neighbor.”  So, I don’t think we are to just do whatever the wishes are of vulnerable and oppressed people, solely because they have less power.  I think there is something to the idea of giving their wishes more consideration, but they shouldn’t be treated as just a veto in any situation where their interests conflict with the interests of others. 

Now the consideration we must make is how do we determine whose interest to support as it concerns illegal immigration.  Do we privilege the wishes of a migrant who desires to stay in the United States, who did get here illegally, but is more vulnerable and powerless than a citizen, and so they would fit easily into the category of the “least of these”?  Or, do we privilege the interest of the citizen who is concerned about people entering our country by unapproved processes?   

This question of who we privilege is important because depending on who we privilege will determine who we place a greater “burden of proof” on.  Here’s what I mean.  If we privilege the concerns of the citizen, then it is on the immigrant to provide a justification for why they should be admitted into the country.  This gives the citizen a lot of power over what happens to the vulnerable but hopeful immigrant.  If we privilege the concerns of the vulnerable immigrant, then it would be on the citizen to give a justification for not admitting the immigrant into the country.  This gives the vulnerable immigrant more power to enter the country. 

I’ve been dancing around giving a straight answer to this question because like I said in the beginning, I have fundamentally opposed intuitions.  Even after my investigation of the Bible I’m still torn on whether there’s biblical support for deportations.  I think some of the Old Testament passages provide some logic for deportations, which again I think is talking more on the level of how you treat people in relation to their citizen status.  The Old Testament also contains verses and stories that I think challenge the idea of deportation. Then we come to the New Testament which I think complicates things further.  The New Testament seems to talk more on the level of how you treat someone solely just because they are human.  From the New Testament material we have considered, I don’t see much support for deportations.   

I almost think the Christian should provide a way for someone to be integrated into the country or community, even if they initially entered it against the rules or the laws.  The tricky thing about this is that we need to be careful about the incentives we set up.  You might encourage people to illegitimately enter your group if you automatically provide a way for them to be a part of the group.  This then runs right into my other intuition, that people get to decide how and when and why people enter their community.  If people enter illegitimately, then you should have the right to remove them. 

When people come into the country illegally, we don’t get the option to properly vet these people and see if they will be a good fit in our country, a.k.a. if they have a commitment to our values and beliefs and culture. I’ll acknowledge that I am assuming that country borders are morally and ethically defensible and as such, countries should get to determine the process by which someone crosses their border.  With any people group, they should get to decide the process by which a person enters into their community.   

This idea that people get to decide who enters their community needs to be tested to see if it has a biblical basis.  If it does, then I think we are able to see a way through the impasse on who do we defer to when it comes to illegal immigration.  Do we defer to the wishes of the hopeful but vulnerable and desperate immigrant, or do we defer to the citizen? 

Is it a biblical idea that you get to decide who gets to be a part of your community?  Ultimately, I think God is the one who should make the decisions for us on who we should surround ourselves with, but that doesn’t take away the fact that God has given us agency to decide who we surround ourselves with.  In light of that, I want to explore the idea of how much space does the Bible give us to choose our communities based on our own preferences. 

I think this will depend on what kind of community you’re talking about.  When it comes to things like your friendships, I think there is solid basis that you should have pretty strong control over who you have as your friends.  In fact, the Bible is clear that you should be very picky about who you choose to have as friends.  

1 Corinthians 15:33 Do not be deceived: “Bad company ruins good morals.” 

Proverbs 13:20 Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm. 

Proverbs 22:24-25 Make no friendship with a man given to anger, nor go with a wrathful man, lest you learn his ways and entangle yourself in a snare. 

How about family? The truth is the only person you get to choose in relation to your family is your spouse.  You don’t get to choose your parents, or your siblings.  In some sense, you don’t even get to choose your children, although you have some control over how many children you have.  Okay, well what about your neighbors or the people in your neighborhood? 

When it comes to your neighbors or neighborhood, you don’t get to choose them.  Since you don’t own the property of all the other homes, you don’t get to choose who gets to move into the homes or onto the land.  I suppose in some way you get to choose your neighbors or neighborhood in the sense that you get to decide where you move.  Now, I don’t think any one individual gets to decide who moves into a neighborhood, but I do think there’s something to be said about a neighborhood being able to collectively decide who comes into the neighborhood.  

This last point is a bit tricky because once upon a time, people didn’t want black people to live in their neighborhoods.  So, do I think they had the right to exclude people from their neighborhood based on skin color? Technically, legally they were allowed to do that at the time.  Nowadays, we have laws against this and so you don’t have the right to exclude someone from your neighborhood based on skin color.   

I do think that ultimately a neighborhood should be able to come together and decide who gets to be in their neighborhood.  That being said, people can use this right in an inappropriate way.  So, yes people have “the right” to exclude black people from their neighborhood but using their right that way would be immoral and wrong, even if they have “the right” to do it. I think this concept then can be extended beyond a neighborhood to a community of any size, like a country.   

I must admit that I have found it challenging to find a Bible verse or story that could help clarify whether it is a biblical principle that people have a right to choose who is a part of their community.  However, I do find myself thinking that the Bible might actually hold that idea as a presupposition and just assumes that people have this right.  I say this because the Bible talks a lot about what a community looks like and how God’s community should be clear about the expectations of any and all members who are in God’s community.  To me, I get the impression that the Bible assumes that people have the right to decide who’s in their community or not, and then the Bible gives instructions on how to welcome people into the community. 

At this point, we need to consider a couple things.  First, what is a right?  Second, why think that people have a right to decide who’s in their community?  Especially if the Bible doesn’t explicitly declare this or argue for this.  I need to give a defense on why the Bible would use this as a presupposition.  Let’s look at the idea of what a right is first. 

Defining what a right is, is a deep philosophical concept and what I will say now will be very brief, but I hope it will clarify what I mean when I talk about a right.  I think when someone has a right, they are entitled to something and deserving of it.  They therefore have a claim on other people to ensure that they have access to what they are entitled to.  So, if I have a right to something, I have power and authority on how you act and behave in accordance with that which I have a right over.  For example, if I have a right to not be physically assaulted, then I get to tell you that there are certain behaviors you are not allowed to do if they entail me being physically assaulted. 

I want to be clear that I believe a right also gives someone entitlement to use force if and when necessary to protect their right.  So, if the only way to prevent you from causing me to be physically assaulted is for me to exert force over you in some way, then I believe that I’m entitled to do that.  The thing that stops me from legitimately using force to protect my right is if in doing this, I then am interfering with a right that you have.  

So, why think that people, on the level of a group or a neighborhood or a community or even a nation, have the right to decide who gets to join them?  Well, I think we have a right to association.  Humans have the right to decide who they will associate with or who they will not associate with.  As fully developed free agents in the world, adult humans are entitled to their agency and should be presumed to have freedom unless there is a reason why they shouldn’t have that freedom.   

In creating humans, God gave us the capacity for free will, since love requires freedom.  This is a large reason why I think humans have a right to decide who they associate with or not.  I know there’s so much to be said about free will, but I’m not going to go down that rabbit hole.  I also think that biologically speaking, human beings function better and at our fullest capacity when we are allowed to make our own decisions, rather than being forced into choosing certain things. 

We also need to consider that humans are highly social creatures.  Who we surround ourselves with is not just going to impact who we are and our experience in the world, but it will also communicate to the rest of the world what kind of people we are and what sort of values we have.  Being able to freely associate with people is not just something humans need on an individual level, but also something we need at a communal level so that humans can learn about the values of each other. 

So, the right to freedom of association is built upon these three ideas.  God created us with free will, and as free agents in this world, we should get to decide who we associate with and not be forced into associations. Next, biologically speaking, humans do not flourish when they are not allowed to be free.  The body incurs damage being under too much stress and people experience significant stress when they are not allowed to be free.  Not to mention the mental distress someone experiences when they are not allowed to be free.  Lastly, being social creatures, who humans associate with will impact the way people are shaped, and it serves as a way for groups to signal their values to each other. 

If we have the right to freedom of association, do we then have the right to choose not to associate with people who have immigrated to our country illegally?  I think the answer is yes.  Do we then have the right to deport those people?  Well, I think if as a country, we have decided that there is a certain process that someone has to follow in order to be a part of our group, a part of our country, when someone doesn’t follow that process then yes I believe on the basis of freedom of association (not to mention other things like the integrity of our laws) we have the right to deport someone from our country.   

With this principle of freedom of association established, I will reiterate that I don’t think the Bible clearly defends or even articulates this principle, but rather I think the Bible assumes this principle as a part of human nature.  The Bible then gives its instructions on human relationships with this principle as foundational.  So, if we use this principle in defense of deportations, I think strictly speaking we aren’t using a biblical principle, since nowhere does the Bible establish this principle as a part of its morality.  That being said, I think we would be thinking consistently with the Bible as I believe the Bible uses the principle of freedom of association as an assumed principle in its moral laws. 

For the sake of being thorough, let me point out that there is obvious tension with the idea that the Bible assumes the right to association, while it simultaneously allows for slavery, particularly in the Old Testament. I don’t want to get to far distracted on a discussion on biblical slavery and the morality and rationale for it. I do want to acknowledge that the permission of slavery seems to be at odds with my argument that the Bible assumes the right to association. Slaves don’t get to choose who they do or do not associate with. If the Bible allows a social practice that denies people the right to freedom of association, then how can I claim that the Biblical laws are created with this right as an assumption?

Truthfully, I don’t have a nice and quick answer to this problem. What I will say is I believe the Bible and the Biblical narrative contains the elements of the dignity of human freedom so strongly that it undermines any notion that the Bible actually supports slavery in any true or deep sense. As such, even if the Bible permitted slavery, it was never something that was truly aligned with the heart of God or the moral foundations of the Bible. So, although the permission of slavery is at odds with the right to freedom of association, I think we see that the right to freedom of association is more enduring in Biblical thought and again is something that is consistent with a Biblical perspective, while slavery is something that ultimately is inconsistent with a Biblical perspective.

Now, if you think my acceptance of the right for countries to deport people who are there illegally is me saying that yes, there is no moral problem with mass deportations out of the U.S. because we have a right to deport people based off the right of free association, then you’re getting a bit ahead of yourself.  I need to complicate this because as a Christian, the Bible tells me that I need to be willing to lay down my rights and not always exercise them.  So, even if we do have the right to deport people, maybe it’s not always the right thing to do because maybe we need to be willing to not exercise that right we possess. 

There’s a book in the New Testament called Philemon.  In this book, Paul is urging Philemon to release a slave he has, Onesimus, from slavery.  Now, I want to be careful with what implications I think this book has for us today, but I think one of them is the idea that exercising your right isn’t always the right thing to do.  Paul makes it clear to Philemon that Paul believes the right thing for Philemon to do is to let Onesimus go free.  Now, Philemon as the slave owner has the right (a legal right at least) to keep Onesimus as a slave, but Paul is saying that exercising that right isn’t the right thing to do. 

The other thing I think we get from this passage is the value God has for letting people make free choices without coercion.  We see this when Paul says in verses 8-9, “For this reason, though I am more than bold enough in Christ to command you to do the right thing, 9 yet I would rather appeal to you on the basis of love—and I, Paul, do this as an old man and now also as a prisoner of Christ Jesus.”  We also see this when Paul writes just after this in verse 14, “but I preferred to do nothing without your consent in order that your good deed might be voluntary and not something forced.”   

I bring this book up because I think it supports this complicated picture I’m trying to paint here.  The Bible gives us reason to think that God wants humans to be free to make their own decisions.  It is good and right to protect this right for people.  However, the right way to use that freedom is for it to be directed at God’s purposes, not our own.   

Truthfully, that’s what this whole essay has been about.  Trying to figure out if Christians should exercise our right to deport someone, solely because they have entered our country illegally.  To complicate things further is that we Americans aren’t the only ones who have rights.  Immigrants also have rights, even if they came here illegally.  They may not have all our legal rights, but they still have rights just by being human.  Rights like their own right to free association and the freedom to not associate with the country they were born into or to not associate with the neighborhood they were born into.  How about the right to not be forced to be in dangerous or destructive environments? 

This leads us back to having to weigh different rights and determine who’s is primary.  Does someone’s right to not be forced to be in dangerous or destructive environments give them a right to then enter my community, even against my will and violate my right to free association?  This person entering my community may be a good and wholesome person, but I don’t know that before they enter.  I do have a legitimate reason to resist someone being forced into my community without the ability to vet them.  This dilemma is why we had that discussion on who’s interest do we privilege, the vulnerable foreigner, or the established citizen.   

So, after all of this, where do I land?  Well, I think biblically speaking, I believe there is honest and true support for and against deportation.  I also think there is honest and true support for and against deportation if we take a more philosophical perspective and consider rights theory (which is essential to American political and legal life and which I believe comes from a biblical worldview).   I think this means that you can reasonably and ethically be on either side of this issue.  And to be clear, I’m talking about the deportation of people who have entered our country by unapproved means, even if that’s the only illegal or bad thing they have done. 

I think this also means that if someone is on the other side of this issue, this doesn’t mean that they are mean or bad or not truly Christian.  I think there are non-Christian ways to be on either side of this issue, but I think there are truly Christian ways to be on both sides of this issue.  The deep tension I feel on this issue makes me feel that sometimes it would be the Christian thing to deport someone, and sometimes it would not be the Christian thing to deport someone.  We reserve the right to deport someone, but we should approach illegal immigration with a heart of ‘how can we include as many people as possible?’. 

This doesn’t mean that we forsake our laws or the wishes of our citizens in order to give people entry into our country, but that instead of looking for ways to deport people, we look for ways to make them citizens.  Let me be clear, this does not mean that we have to give a majority or even a large percentage of people who have entered our country illegally a pathway to citizenship.  That may be the end result of approaching immigration this way, but it doesn’t necessitate that we have to.  I think this approach would make sure we honor the dignity and humanity and experience of each person who has migrated illegally, even if the end result is that they get deported. 

I will just say that I’m not sure if I think mass deportation can be defended from a Christian perspective. My skepticism is that practically speaking, mass deportation won’t allow us to adequately respect the humanity of each deportee.  I think it also doesn’t give us the ability to extend real grace and look for ways to incorporate some, or many, or most of the people who have come here illegally.  As Christians, we cannot deny that many of the immigrants who are here illegally are the epitome of the “least of these”.  This doesn’t mean that we have to accept all of these vulnerable immigrants, but if we take Jesus seriously that he identifies with the vulnerable, then I think we should have a higher urgency to welcome them among us. 

Again, I’m not talking about criminal or violent or dangerous immigrants who have caused problems back in the communities they have left and are working to bring that chaos with them here.  I think we have solid ground for deporting people who fit that mold.  However, I would accept the claim that most of the immigrants coming here illegally are generally good people.  For those people, I think there should be more care and consideration about whether we feel the need to deport them, and if so, the manner in which we deport them.  

Now, let me state that I think our country has had an unacceptable and quite frankly dangerously high number of immigrants coming here illegally in the last few years and so I don’t think that just because they are nice and good people, we don’t have any right or reason to deport them.  I do believe we were in an illegal immigration crisis and that a crisis may require a more urgent and potentially stricter response than in normal times.  This touches on the controversy around due process in the current deportation campaign. 

Without going too much on a tangent here, let me just say that anyone facing deportation should be entitled to due process.  They should have an opportunity to plead their case in court, if for no other reason than the fact that we want to make sure that we don’t deport anyone who is in our country legally.  That being said, if someone is in our country illegally, I think there could be some logic to thinking that someone here illegally is not entitled to the exact same standard of due process as someone who is in our country legally.   

This doesn’t mean that someone here illegally gets treated poorly or inhumanely or without dignity.  Everyone is entitled to be treated as an image bearer of God.  Yet, I believe there’s justifiable reason to say that people who are legally in our country are due a higher level of due process than someone who is in our country illegally.  I think a simple reason would be that we want to incentivize legal entry over illegal entry.  Also, part of what it means to be a nation, or a country is to prioritize the people who are citizens or legal members.  I think much of the logic I discussed earlier in this paper around our commitment to people who are committed to the continued existence of our group can be applied to why you would give citizens and legal members of a country a higher level of due process than someone who is in the country illegally. 

I also think in our current climate, there are practical considerations that can give some justification for this as well.  Given the amount of people who have come here illegally, the amount of time it will take to do all those court cases will be astronomical.  It would be impossible to complete all of those hearings if we decide that people who have come here illegally have the same level of due process as people who are here legally. Again, to say that we could give ‘less’ due process to someone who’s here illegally doesn’t mean no due process.  Unfortunately, I’m not a lawyer or legal scholar and so I don’t really have any sense of what this could or should look like, but I find it a credible perspective.   

We saw in the New Testament that order, and legal order is a value of Christians.  Again, I’m saying that with all the caveats possible, but if our country has a legal means for admitting people into the country, then if someone is violating that, there is a legitimate Christian rationale for wanting to protect the integrity of our laws and to decide to enforce our laws by deporting those who have broken those laws.  I think there is biblical justification for deportations in that there is good reason for a group to want to maintain its integrity and unauthorized entry into the group threatens that group, given that the new members may not share the loyalties and values and beliefs of the group.  We saw this in our look at the Old Testament. It should also be said that if we desire people to enter our country by the legal process, then if we deport someone, we should do it in a legal way.  There is no honor in illegally and unjustly deporting someone. 

What should our immigration laws and policies be then?  Well, I don’t know.  I don’t want our immigration enforcement to be driven on fear and intimidation.  We have to acknowledge though that from the perspective of an immigrant who might be deported, the U.S. enforcing its immigration laws will inevitably cause fear and intimidation.  I love the idea of a pathway to citizenship, but I don’t know how to do something like that which doesn’t incentivize illegal immigration.  I want to give grace to people who are here, but don’t want to encourage more people to come here illegally. 

I also feel like I must comment on another issue regarding our immigration practices right now.  Currently, there is talk and action around revoking temporary protected status, refugee status, asylum status, and even denaturalization.  To add to this, once these statuses are revoked, those refugees will then be considered illegal immigrants if they stay in the country and will face deportation and all that comes with the deportation.  I must admit, I’m really not a fan of this practice.   

I think once we have legally approved someone entry into our country, to then go back on our word and revoke that approval and then to call them illegal immigrants is a deeply inappropriate and unjust way to treat refugees.  I understand that there are some complications and nuance to what is going on with the revoking of these statuses. The gist of the argument is that previous administrations were inappropriately approving and monitoring temporary protected statuses, refugee statuses, and asylum statuses.  In response, the current administration is just fixing a problem that previous administrations have caused. 

I must admit, I am sympathetic to that type of argument.  An argument that essentially claims that the current actions may look cruel and mean, but they are necessary to fix a problem that was caused by someone else.  Thus, our frustration and moral condemnation shouldn’t land on the people fixing the problem, but on the people that caused the problem.  I have two problems with how this type of argument is being deployed around immigration. 

My first problem is that I don’t truly know if the problem the current administration claims we have is truly a problem, and I also don’t have a good way of verifying who is responsible for the problem.  Given that we had such a massive illegal immigration issue and given that our immigration process has had problems for a while, I’m inclined to think that our TPS, refugee, and asylum processes have also been corrupted and misused.  Even with that bias, I’m skeptical that the current administration’s actions are proportional to the problem.   

The second problem I have is that just because you are fixing a problem someone else caused, this doesn’t give you the moral permission to fix it anyway you choose.  Even if you are fixing a problem someone else caused, you still are responsible for how you fix that problem and are liable to the resulting moral judgements of your actions.  It can be the case that to fix a problem you have to make some very hard decisions, decisions that may be harmful and borderline cruel.  However, that doesn’t mean that you are indifferent to the suffering you may cause, and it doesn’t give you permission to make the decisions with the most cruelty and harm. 

I believe that the current administration has acted on this issue in a way that has been too callused and insufficiently attentive to acting justly towards those whose TPS, refugee, and asylum status they are reviewing and or revoking.  The speed in which they are making decisions and the little amount of time they are giving to people to adjust and respond to the decisions being made make me feel like this current administration is not respecting the full dignity of these immigrants. I will just add that I have similar feelings about the way this administration has been handling the deportation of immigrants who are here illegally, or who they claim are here illegally. 

Truthfully, if we are going to administer consequences to people who are in our country illegally because we are a country of laws, then we also should administer consequences to people who are wrongfully and/or illegally detaining people as well. There has been too much evidence and too many stories of wrongful and illegal detentions during this current administration. Again, I’m sympathetic to the argument that there are a crisis level number of people here illegally and so we need to be quick and swift in processing and potentially deporting them. However, if this is leading to people being wrongfully and illegally detained and deported, then we must adjust what we are doing or how we are doing or immigration enforcement. It is intolerable to have legal residents wrongfully or illegally detained or deported.

Let me just finish with saying, yes, I know America was founded by immigrants and settlers who forcibly took land from Native Americans.  That doesn’t mean that now, Americans have no right to decide who comes into our land, even if it is “stolen”.  The problem is that all land is stolen at some point or another.  No indigenous people currently own their land.  

I’m not even talking about colonialism at this moment either.  Before colonialism, there were always people warring over lands and conquering other people and acquiring their land.  I think much of what American colonists did was wrong and evil and they mistreated Native Americans in unimaginable ways.  However, I find it hard to say they did anything different than what Native American tribes (or any other people group that lived next to each other for the entirety of history until like the last 80 years or so) had done to one another before the colonists.  I don’t mean the specifics of colonialism and the mistreatment but just the reality that Native American people also fought over land and would conquer each other and take possession of the land, or in other words, steal it.   

I don’t say this to try to defend American colonists but just to point out that even if we accepted that the colonists stole the land from particular Native American tribes, well they had done it to each other before we arrived.  So, why should the Native Americans who had possession over the land at the time of our arrival have a privileged claim to it?  Shouldn’t we be saying that they needed to return it to the people they stole it from, and then on and on down the line until we find the very first people who owned the land?  I think either everyone has a right to live wherever they want, no one has a right to live anywhere, or we agree to the current distribution of land and decide that moving forward, there must be a just and ethical process for how land gets transferred from one owner to the next. 

I included this last little note because I’ve heard people talk about how wrong it is for America, a nation of immigrants who stole the land from the indigenous population, to then turn around and be strict on immigration.  I think that argument is rhetorically interesting and persuasive on an emotional level. However, I’m not convinced that it has much intellectual substance to it.  Especially since the evils were done so long ago and are so far removed from the current people living. The idea that we could argue that since our ancestors 400 years ago did something immoral, this means that now today we don’t really have a right or claim to this land is too much of a stretch to me. 

Now that you have reached the end, let me reiterate that I don’t think I have a new or particularly novel opinion on immigration.  To be quite frank, I suspect that I hold a pretty normal and widespread opinion and view on immigration.  We want immigrants to come to our nation.  We want to be a place for the vulnerable to come and find hope and opportunity.  We just want all this to happen in an orderly fashion and in a legal way.  And when someone comes here illegally, we understand that there probably is a tragic reason why they have made this decision.  We want to extend as much grace as possible but at some point, we have to draw a line and enforce our borders, and we shouldn’t feel guilty about this.  When we have to deport people, we want to do it efficiently and humanely. 

Even though I don’t believe I’m providing any new perspective on immigration, what I hope I have done is provide a thorough and painstakingly in-depth rationale for my perspective.  I hope that even if you don’t agree with my perspective, that you can respect my reasoning and how my faith informs and impacts my reasoning.  I pray that I was fair with the biblical content we looked at, even if I didn’t look at every possible biblical passage or story that might relate to immigration.  In the end, I pray I provided an authentic Christian perspective on immigration that is in line with God’s command for us to love God and love neighbor.