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The US conversation on immigration has largely disappeared from the news as Americans have shifted their focus in 2020 to COVID-19 and, later, to widespread protests following a police killing in Minnesota. But the White House has continued enacting aggressive policies in the name of public safety, including effectively ending asylum at the US border and further restricting who can apply for a green card. Southwest border crossings have fallen dramatically from the beginning of the year.
Debate around immigration will surely heat up again as the November election nears. When it does, much of the rhetoric will revolve around various offshoots of the deeper questions: How does immigration benefit America? How do we ensure those who enter our country will contribute to it? Advocates on all sides will showcase exceptionally shining or delinquent examples and attempt to portray them as representative of the foreign-born as a whole.
Christianity Today asked a group of contributors how, if at all, the Bible should inform what a nation expects of immigrants. The answers mattered before COVID-19, and they matter now, when anti-immigrant sentiment is rising even though immigrants make up a large portion of the workers most exposed to the virus, such as cleaners and food industry employees.
—The Editors
