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More on illegal immigration

Here is an article I found by the Acton Institute. It makes great points. Points such as:

1. It's the duty of Christians to be charitable to all who are in need, including illegal immigrants.
2. It is wrong for the church or the Christian to advocate the breaking of the laws of the land. We are expected to obey the laws of the land, including the laws of immigration.
3. The rule of law should be upheld by the church, because it is the rule of law that guarantees our religious liberty.
4. Supporting legal immigration gives moral support to all the immigrants who made the hard choice to arrive in America legally.

Read the below article. It will provoke critical thinking on this political and moral issue in America.

…[I]llegal immigration raises two separate matters of conscience, which pro-sanctuary Christians blur and equate. The first is the question of immediate need and the Christian duty to extend compassion. The second is the long-term issue of how best to preserve the common good.

To deal with the first: Scripturally speaking, it seems clear that giving immediate, material assistance to anyone in need is always right, whether to an enemy soldier bleeding alone in a ditch or to the child of an illegal immigrant family in one’s church with an urgent medical need. If an individual feels compelled to assist an illegal immigrant in some tangible way, his conscience should be free to do so. Political circumstances should not condition acts of mercy or evangelization for us any more than they did for Christ, who associated with Samaritans, tax collectors, and the so-called dregs of society. It is part of Christian duty to minister to others, no matter what they have done or how they arrived on one’s doorstep.

With that said, it seems inadvisable to the church, as a societal institution, to disobey the law to protect illegal immigrants from deportation. Christ expected his followers to treat criminals in prison the way they would treat him, but he said nothing about busting them out of prison. The church has a tremendous interest, morally and practically, in preserving the rule of law. From a moral perspective, Scripture teaches that we are to submit to the governing authorities appointed by God. Churches especially ought to honor conscientious immigrants who follow the laws of the land and not undermine their difficult and virtuous choices by systematically condoning illegal behavior. And practically, American churches ought to venerate and cherish the law because it is the guarantor of their religious freedom.
While there is room to debate how well the U.S. has protected its borders, we should acknowledge both its right to do so and the complexity of our national security situation. We need to have patience with the present laws even as we seek to improve them through due process. It is also important to remember that law is not meant to abolish suffering, but only to prevent injustice.

C.S. Lewis wrote in The Abolition of Man that “a hard heart is no infallible protection against a soft head,” but a soft heart does not guarantee right thinking, either. Disregarding the rule of law to “help” illegal immigrants is a paradoxical way of hurting them. The rule of law is the sustainer of the free and prosperous society that draws immigrants to the States. It is something immigrants’ own countries often cannot guarantee them, and it is what makes ours look so appealing. And if we shirk the rule of law — if laws of entry can be applied to some immigrants but not to others — we are cheating all immigrants out of the kind of society they are seeking in the first place.