Overview
In this era of great bipartisan divide, the Democrats and Republicans would most likely not be able to agree on where to have a holiday celebration and what to have on the menu. In the Culture War many prognosticators have attempted to articulate what the Messiah would say on any number of Culture War topics including immigration. Journalists and politicians frequently try to prognosticate by attributing their own views to Jesus.
I have accumulated an assortment of peculiar interests over my lifetime – powerlifting, Latin music, private placement life insurance, foreign language (Spanish and Portuguese) and the Jewish roots of Christianity. It should not have been a surprise to me ending with immigration law as a second practice area. My Dad is a German immigrant who came to the U.S. in 1953 as an eighteen-year-old. My maternal grandparents were both Italian immigrants who came to the U.S. in the 1920’s. I grew up in the Panama Canal Zone. I was a Spanish and Portuguese major at West Point. I lived in Miami, the capital city of Latin America, for almost ten years.
The President’s call for immigration reform is controversial to say the least. Personally, I believe we need border security and better systems to know who is in the Country. With the global threat, the potential threat of danger is omnipresent. It is no longer “good guys” on one side of the line and “bad guys” on the other. I appreciate the concept of a merit-based immigration system but that is not our immigration history. If that were the case, I would submit that very few of our immigration forefathers would have been able to accumulate enough points including the President’s great grandfather who got his start in the U.S. as a barber. Like many immigrants, he started from humble beginnings and made something of his life in America in the real estate business.
I once had the opportunity to attend a small book fair in New York City. On one side of the small room was Ann Coulter selling her anti-immigrant best seller Adios America. On the other side of the room was Professor Barry Latzer from John Jay College, the Harvard of criminal justice studies, who was selling The Rise and Violent Crime in America. When I asked Professor Latzer his opinion regarding serious crime and immigrants, he stated that the statistics did not support the claims that illegal or legal immigrants account for most of the serious crime in America. Nevertheless, when an illegal immigrant commits a crime, it is a national story for a 24-hour period. If you asked the Center of Immigration Studies, it would probably claim that every evil in American Society is perpetrated by illegal immigrants. In fact, they might argue that the Country is better off without any immigrants!
This article attempts to overlay the U.S.’s Judeo-Christian history as a backdrop for reminding us of our immigrant history and religious roots. Our immigration history is filled with discrimination against virtually every immigrant group had one time or another. There was plenty of hypocrisy to go around. None of this treatment is consistent with the Gospel. Christianity owes an eternal debt to Judaism because without Judaism, Christianity would be non-existent! However, religious pronouncement is not an area that I am qualified to offer much insight.
In immigration law I have had the opportunity to represent undocumented immigrants in dire legal circumstances. I have learned many lessons on faith and humility from these clients. When I started practicing immigration law, a colleague referred to immigration court as “traffic court with death penalty consequences.” I have never forgotten that characterization and find it to be a completely accurate.
The Bible has everything to say about we live our lives including how to treat the “foreigner” among us. Separation of Church and State is a good thing, but our faith guides us on how we should live our lives. I was recently disappointed to see a comment from Franklin Graham that immigration is not a Biblical issue. Really? Unfortunately, the public perception of evangelical Christianity is strictly limited to the political right and not the political left which have a more humanitarian view of immigrants. Certain denominations have been very active in the church sanctuary movement such as the United Methodist and Lutheran denominations.
This article summarizes some of the commentaries that I have seen from Professor Joel Biden of the Yale Divinity School and others on the Biblical imperative (Old and New Testament) to treat the foreigner/immigrant well. It is not intended to be a great scholarly work. I would have to be a scholar to accomplish that and I am not a scholar. Nevertheless, the article offers a perspective and response the to the title of the Chuck Colson book, “How Now Shall We Live?” We live in perilous times. Border security is a real issue and needs to be addressed sooner rather than later. Nevertheless, this country has gone through other periods of war and national security while at the same time immigrants from Europe and the World poured into the Country.
The Judeo-Christians Roots of the United States
In case there is any confusion over our Judeo-Christian roots? Hebrew was once considered as a possible choice for the official language of the United States! How did that almost happen? The Puritans identified strongly with the Israelites who escaped Pharaoh’s oppression. William Branford taught himself Hebrew so that he could read the Bible in its original language.
The Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island became the first Jewish Synagogue and settlement in 1763. Clement Moore, a Hebrew scholar, created the first American Hebrew Dictionary in 1809. Ezra Stiles, a Congregational pastor and Hebrew student, in Newport, was close friends of the Rabbi in Newport who helped him with his Hebrew. Reverend Stiles eventually became the President of Yale and made the study of Hebrew a mandatory course requirement. Harvard, Columbia and William and Mary all taught Hebrew in the early 18th century. Nevertheless, it was Reverend Stiles who gets credit for the official proposal to make Hebrew the official language of the United States. And of course, all the anti-English sentiment during this period did not hurt the cause either.
Biblical Imperatives on Immigration
The number of people on the Planet that are followers of the Abrahamic faiths- Judaism, Christianity and Islam- is approximately ten billion. The Old and New Testaments have no fewer than sixty scriptures dealing with the treatment of refugees and foreigners.
Abraham was the World’s first immigrant.
Genesis 12:1-3:
The LORD said to Abram, “Go forth from your native land and from your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and curse him that curses you; and all the families of the earth shall bless themselves by you.”
Abraham is also the model for hospitality in the treatment of the foreigner. Prior to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham received a visit from three guests (angels).
Genesis 18:2–5:
Looking up, he saw three men standing near him. As soon as he saw them, he ran from the entrance of the tent to greet them and, bowing to the ground, he said, “My lords, if it please you, do not go on past your servant. Let a little water be brought; bathe your feet and recline under the tree. And let me fetch a morsel of bread that you may refresh yourselves; then go on—seeing that you have come your servant’s way.”
The entire Book of Ruth is the story of an immigrant who comes to work in the fields, is taken in, treated well, intermarries, and becomes not only part of Israelite society, and becomes the ancestor of David, and therefore also Jesus. Query: In Modern times, would Ruth have been removable and require an unlawful presence waiver?
Many Old Testament scriptures poignantly remind the Israelites to treat the “foreigner” as themselves because they were once strangers themselves and mistreated by Pharaoh.
A. Exodus 22:20: - You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.
B. Exodus 23:9: You shall not oppress a stranger, for you know the feelings of a stranger, having yourselves been strangers in the land of Egypt.
C. Leviticus 19:33–34: When a stranger resides with you in your land, you shall not wrong him. The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as one of your citizens; you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.
D. Numbers 15:14–16: And when, throughout the ages, a stranger who has taken up residence with you, or one who lives among you, would present an offering by fire of pleasing odor to the LORD—as you do, so shall it be done by the rest of the congregation. There shall be one law for you and for the resident stranger; it shall be a law for all time throughout the ages.
You and the stranger shall be alike before the LORD; the same ritual and the same rule shall apply to you and to the stranger who resides among you. You and the stranger shall be alike before the Lord.
E. Deuteronomy 10:16–19: Cut away, therefore, the thickening about your hearts and stiffen your necks no more. For the LORD your God is God supreme and Lord supreme, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who shows no favor and takes no bribe, but upholds the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and befriends the stranger, providing him with food and clothing. You too must befriend the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.
F. Deuteronomy 24:14: You shall not abuse a needy or destitute laborer, whether a fellow countryman or a stranger in one of the communities of your land.
G. Deuteronomy 24:17: You shall not subvert the rights of the stranger or the fatherless.
H. Isiah 16:3–4: Give advice, offer counsel. At high noon make your shadow like night: conceal the outcasts, betray not the fugitives. Let Moab’s outcasts find asylum in you; be a shelter for them against the despoiler.
The New Testament is equally as direct in the mandate for fair treatment of the foreigner. In Matthew 2:13-14, Jesus like Abraham was an immigrant and refugee in Egypt fleeing political persecution - Now after they had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.” Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt.
Query: Would Joseph and Mary be subject to extra-vetting if they were coming to the U.S.
Matthew 25:31-46 states that our righteousness before God will be determined by how we treat the least among us, i.e. how we welcome and care for the stranger.
Matthew 25:31-46
“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left. Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’
Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’ Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?’
Then he will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
God is welcoming to those who despite being strangers seek a homeland, a better country.
Hebrews 11:13-16
All of these died in faith without having received the promises, but from a distance they saw and greeted them. They confessed that they were strangers and foreigners on the earth, for people who speak in this way make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of the land that they had left behind, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God; indeed, he has prepared a city for them.
Summary
Despite our religious and immigration traditions throughout American history, we quickly forget like the Israelites, that our ancestors were once strangers in the land. Under proposed policy recommendations, most of our relatives would have lacked the merit to score any meaningful points and would still be in the Old country. Under proposed Green Card rules, old-timers would not even have gotten a Green Card under current regulations. Many Italian Americans would still be in Palermo and Irish Americans in Dublin. The great irony of the “Bible Belt,” the Old South, is that it is the least inviting to immigrants.
On Judgement Day whether you are a “believer” or not, we are all going to have to answer for all our actions. Many of the Administration’s objectives are not mutually exclusive towards reconciling current law with the Biblical mandate. It seems to me that we can secure our borders while providing safe harbor and protection for the politically and religiously oppressed. President Reagan’s reference to America as the “City on the Hill” from Matthew 5:14, from the Sermon on the Mount, was used by the Pilgrim leader John Winthrop as a model of Christian charity. This model imbues the spirit of the Old and New Testament and its commandment to treat the stranger or foreigner among us as we would “treat” each other, as citizens.
