Viewing Immigration from the Low Places: Ministry Leader Speaks Out on Controversial Law
Political sound bites lose their power when you get to know immigrants through flesh-and-blood ministry.
6.18.12
What supporters of the law fail to realize is that drafting local legislation in order to solve national problems makes things worse. Everyone on all sides agrees: Our federal immigration policy is broken, obsolete, and badly needs reform. The following principles and action steps, I believe, will help us develop a healthier approach to our immigration challenges:
First Principles:
- Begin with an understanding that all people are created in the image of God and must be treated with dignity and respect.
- Accept that God's people are instructed to "love the stranger" in our midst whether they are documented or not, offering them his justice and mercy.
Action Steps:
- Ask both political parties to stop polarizing the immigration problem by distorting the issue for political gain.
- Develop a sensible way of protecting our borders. The vast majority of my friends support our country's right to protect and control our own borders. The concern is that we do sp humanely and justly.
- Provide a sensible, flexible way for both high- and low-skilled immigrants to work in the United States where today there are either no or woefully inadequate systems to meet industry demand.
- Provide a way for children who have come to America with their parents, through no choice of their own, who have grown up here and who have been educated here, to lawfully become citizens. Now an 11-year-old bipartisan idea in Congress, the Dream Act is simply proposing what is just for these children. They have grown up as American as anyone else living here. All they know of life exists here in the United States, not in another country.
- Amnesty will not work. Americans won't support it, and simply giving away citizenship is unacceptable. On the other hand, Americans and Christians in particular will not accept the mass deportation of 12 million people. It's ineffective and inhumane. We must provide a legal alternative to those living in the U.S. that both restores the rule of law and affirms the humanity of those involved.
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Brian Jorgensen
It's very difficult to accommodate the desires of a culture in a situation where laws are egregiously broken and anyone who questions such an absurdity is labeled a racist. Yet to be heard from our uninvited guests is an apology for breaking our laws. Contradictions abound e.g. how is it that the same people who disregard USA border customs will dutifully report the local Mexican council for obtaining proper paperwork when returning to Mexico? Mexico they respect, America is simply a useful resource deserving no further consideration.