Immigrant Thoughts

Last April, the Trump administration announced a zero tolerance policy towards people who cross the border without the required permission. The policy meant that children would be separated from their parents on the grounds that the parents were “illegal immigrants” and therefore guilty of a crime. The policy lasted for two months, and it has resulted in significant human suffering.

We moved to Canada in 1997, and I have also been an immigrant in Zambia and Zimbabwe. I am the grandson of a man who immigrated to the USA, legally through the proper channels. I venture the following thoughts as an American, a Christian, and an immigrant myself. I divide these brief reflections into two parts: basic facts on which we can agree, and further observations that seem self-evident to me, although some of my friends do not agree.

Basic Facts

1. The process by which people move to the United States is difficult and needs reforming. Having experienced the Canadian system, I would advocate reforms along the lines of the point system that works quite well in Canada. Whatever else should be done, immigration reform should be a priority for the political left and right in the United States.

2. Separating families damages people greatly. The harm done to young children by taking them from their parents is difficult to calculate, but clearly it is immense. Even if one sees it as necessary, one must acknowledge the harm done to the people involved.

3. The USA and Canada do not have a severe problem with refugees. Europe has a problem with refugees far in excess of anything faced in North America. That is not surprising, given the physical location of Europe with respect to the Mediterranean Sea, and given the lack of border controls within the European Union. An internet search gives 46,700 refugees coming to Canada in 2016, and 84,989 to the USA in 2016. Wikipedia gives a figure of just under 1.3 million asylum seekers in Europe in 2015. We do not have a problem; Europe has a problem.

Paradoxically, the USA has responded with open official hostility to the relatively low number of refugee claimants, while Europe has responded with a greater degree of openness. Angela Merkel has appealed directly to Germany’s legacy as a Christian nation, while many committed Christians have agreed openly with Trump’s actions against “illegal immigrants”.

Some Further Observations

This last paragraph above moves us into the realm of interpretation. The three statements I make should be relatively easy for us to agree on, whatever we think should be done with undocumented immigrants. Here some further thoughts with which I view these basic facts.

1. As Americans, we assume that all people are equal. Our Declaration of Independence begins, “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and happiness.”

I once hear someone review American history as a reflection on this declaration. At first, we assumed “all men” meant those eligible to vote. We fought the War of the States partly in order to affirm that “all men” included “black men”. Then we struggled with including women, during the suffragette movement, and we concluded that “all men” means “all men and women”. Now we are struggling with the idea that some (including Trump) hold – that “all men” means all Americans and only Americans.

Clearly, in 1776 “all men” meant anyone who comes here. There were no Americans to serve as a restrictive category. All men meant all people, American or English, If we take the document seriously, “all men” today must include all people, wherever they live and wherever they come from. We cannot restrict what we call “human rights” to Americans only; immigrants – legal and illegal – are included in the statement, “all men are created equal”.

2. A basic question in the current discussion is how we view immigrants generally. Are they good people, people whom we welcome gladly? Are they competitors, whose presence may make life harder for us? Are they freeloaders, who use our resources and give nothing back? Are they an economic asset, whose presence leads to greater economic and political health?

I believe that they are an asset, almost from the moment they arrive. I have seen many immigrants here in Manitoba, and I know that they work harder than most people. Many of them have experienced real loss, and they work hard to avoid the kind of poverty that some of them have escaped from. Further, the Prairie Provinces in Canada would shrink indefinitely without immigration. With immigration (both by way of immigrants and of refugees), we are growing and prospering.

3. More importantly, the Scriptures are clear about how we are to respond to the outsider. Jesus regularly refers to Samaritans – the outsiders of his day – as people worth emulating. Both Old and New Testaments lift up the virtue of hospitality. The NT letters describe care for brothers and sisters in the church as of first importance, but they also add the benefit of caring for strangers, calling them “angels unawares”. Jesus makes the centrality of radical hospitality clear in the parable of the sheep and the goats (Matthew 25).

In short, for us as Christians, regardless of the position of our government, we are required as God’s people to welcome strangers and immigrants. We welcome them, and we seek to help them, sacrificially if necessary. Failure to do so is grounds to be put out of God’s kingdom.

4. For many people, immigration is primarily a political issue. Democrats say that Republicans oppose immigration because so many immigrants are Brown instead of White. Republicans say that they just want people to follow the rules. I see a small amount of truth in most objections to people crossing the border illegally, but usually not enough to base our whole immigration policy on.

For example, we hear that many immigrants from South America are criminals or part of a drug cartel. I am reasonably sure that there are some who are bad actors; I am happy when the immigration officials identify them and remove them. But we cannot make policy on the assumption that most immigrants are bad actors. The bad actors are more likely to come in some other way than walking across the dessert. Most people who risk their lives in this way are desperate to escape the bad actors and will richly reward the country that helps them do so.

5. I am a conservative. Many people think that liberals are for immigration and conservatives are against. That makes little sense to me. Many immigrants share the social and cultural values of conservatives. I find myself at home among them. Not only do they benefit our economy, but they also tend to help us retain important social values of our own. The political calculation that leads Republicans to oppose immigration is, I believe, significantly flawed.

6. The ins and outs of immigration policy are complex and frustrating. I doubt that most of us can contribute helpfully to making that policy. I prefer not to respond politically to immigrants, but rather to respond ethically, on the basis of my Christian faith. As a follower of Christ, I welcome immigrants and refugees. I begin with an open stance of hospitality, not with a politically calculated stance.

Political calculations will steal your soul. In my own view, many who call themselves Christians have sold their soul to political calculations, closing their hearts and their hands to people made in God’s image. We may or may not pay a political price for doing so. We will certainly have to answer to God for closing our hearts to the strangers in our midst.