Now that Renee Good and Alex Pretti were killed by masked, untrained, roided-up federal agents on a quest to get their quota of “dangerous criminals” off our streets without due process, it seems the issue is finally on everyone’s radar. If it’s not yet on yours, I urge you to get it there by doing your own dueling-video assessment and come to your own critical thinking conclusions. (That’s the kind of thought where you come to the facts before coming to a conclusion.)
In the meantime, I wanted to zoom out a minute and look at the issue that has driven the chaos to this point.
Someone recently wrote about the “complicated and nuanced” difficulties of finding a solution to the dysfunctional U.S. immigration policy. Complicated and nuanced? You don’t say! But using those as an excuse to mistreat immigrants? Not complicated at all! The author listed five categories of people coming to our country (there are probably more). Two of which include bad actors, people crossing our borders illegally in order to make trouble here. The other three groups are people (mostly women children) who are fleeing famine or oppression or persecution or war.
According to ICE’s own documentation of the total they’ve drug off the street in handcuffs, detained, and/or deported so far, bad actors comprise 5%. That means that 95 out of 100 of those they’ve arrested were either here legally or have no criminal record to their name in our country. So, then because we don’t want the bad ones (which is why we have police and a legal system to lawfully arrest people, especially the worst criminals), we penalize the rest of them and sentence some to die when returning to life threatening circumstances from which they fled in the first place.
I wonder if many people who claim to follow Jesus and actually read the Bible are aware that Scripture says much more about loving neighbors and welcoming strangers than obeying the laws of a secular nation. (I wrote a six-part treatment of Romans 13:1-7 from my perspective that you can find on my blog. The first part is here.). There’s no debate that the politics of immigration policy and particular solutions is very complicated and nuanced. But the biblical and ethical foundation for loving and welcoming suffering souls from other countries is not!
BEFORE ANYONE ACCUSES ME OF ADVOCATING “OPEN BORDERS,” DON’T. I’M NOT, AND NEVER HAVE. Nations require borders. Removing them is not the solution to a difficult and complex problem.
Terrified of losing their jobs and allergic to compromising with the other party, our lawmakers haven’t stepped up in decades to figure it out. I admit I don’t know how to fix it, but I am absolutely certain that what our present administration is doing is the anti-fix, and dare I say is “anti-christ.” What ICE agents are doing kicking down doors and roaming about on our streets scooping up whoever suits them is inhumane, demonic, and evil.
These are not tribal talking points, but what I sincerely believe are Spirit-led, biblically informed convictions. As an independent voter I belong only to the party of Jesus. I don’t claim his endorsement on this issue, I’m just doing my best to align my convictions with my best efforts to correctly follow his Word and feel his heart toward asylum seekers and immigrants.
Complicated and nuanced is not an excuse. World evangelization is complicated, but we keep at it. Why everyone we pray for isn’t healed is nuanced, but still we pray with faith.
Loving neighbors, according to Jesus, is our second highest priority, not to mention our greatest privilege while on earth. How can we, based on personal preference or allegiance to party platform stop short of that?
“The wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. Peacemakers who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness.” (James 3:17-18)
barney wiget 