(ANALYSIS) Richard Ostling via Religion Unplugged
The Religion Guy’s answer: Many Bible readings during Christmas services will recount that the infant Jesus escaped murder at the hands of paranoid King Herod because Egypt provided safe refuge to the fleeing Holy Family (per Matthew 2:13-15).
Given Christianity’s historic concern for exiles and immigrants, how do believers view Donald Trump’s pledge to immediately launch “the largest domestic deportation operation in American history,” no matter what the “price tag.”
Trump’s “border czar” Tom Homan says the incoming administration will first expel immigrants who pose threats to national security, are convicted criminals, or have already been set for deportation by federal courts. Beyond that are countless millions of “illegal” (conservative lingo) or “undocumented” (liberal lingo) U.S. residents subject to deportation as lawbreakers who entered the U.S. without authorization. Problems escalated under President Biden’s policies, a major factor in Trump’s win.
The political dynamics have shifted, and one remarkable sign of this was a June CBS poll in which a 53% majority of U.S. Hispanics now favor mass deportation, with 47% opposed. (Black respondents were 47% in favor, whites 67%). An April Axios poll found 45% of Hispanics backed such a program.
The practicalities
There’s intense debate over practicalities in Trump’s plan regarding the money required and whether Congress will appropriate it, how to track down persons living here illegally, conflict with Democratic “sanctuary” states and cities, the need for massive increases in immigration judges and detention housing, whether home nations will accept deported citizens, and related logistics.
Beyond calculations on what’s feasible or wise or popular, Christians are pondering what’s moral and immoral. People escaping violence or oppression, or who can’t obtain jobs that support their families, naturally rouse human sympathy. The clergy can quote numerous Bible verses on charity toward wayfarers. The United Methodist Church typifies feelings among “mainline” and liberal Protestants in advocating “legal status for all undocumented migrants currently in the United States, as well as for those arriving in the future.”
Fewer religious pronouncements emphasize enforcement of borders and immigration laws. But proponents believe it’s perfectly ethical to undergird the necessities of law and order, national sovereignty, and national security. The sad reality is that hard choices are inevitable when masses of people who’d like to move into the United States cannot possibly be absorbed.
Without specifying how to balance these competing interests, Catholicism’s Second Vatican Council in 1965 taught that duties to foster the “universal common good” of humanity include “to attend to the hardships of refugees scattered throughout the world, or to assist migrants and their families.”
In a September visit, Pope Francis characteristically praised Luxembourg for providing “a friendly home for those who knock at your door seeking help and hospitality.”
The 19th century
U.S. Catholicism, of course, has defended immigrants since they began expanding church rolls in the 19th Century (with significant support for “full” protection of immigrant rights from Republican Party founders under Lincoln). Similarly with Judaism and, in recent times, Islam.
Military Archbishop Timothy Broglio, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, won applause from the national hierarchy’s meeting the week after the election when he affirmed the church’s commitment “to see Christ in those who are most in need, to defend and lift up the poor, and to encourage immigration reform, while we continue to care for those in need who cross our borders.”
The chair of the bishops’ migration committee, El Paso’s Mark Seitz, told reporters that if mass deportation occurs, “this is going to be a test for our nation.” Cardinal Roger Mahony, the retired Los Angeles archbishop, is especially outspoken. He told cruxnow.com last month that “the pending ominous initiative to round up and deport some 11 million undocumented immigrants across the country is a chilling and frightening reality” that would cause “devastating repercussions” and “family disruptions.”
There’s even some pushback from conservative “evangelical” Protestants, a group that voted overwhelmingly for Trump. The presidents of the National Association of Evangelicals and the World Relief agency joined 200 pastors and leaders in an October 1 letter to candidates Trump, Vance, Harris and Walz, that said the “media caricatures” of evangelical thinking are “dramatically inaccurate.”
Broad evangelical support?
The letter said “the vast majority” of evangelicals “are neither anti-immigrant nor advocates for open borders.”
Most notably, it stated this: “While those convicted of serious violent offenses should face deportation, any initiative to deport all unauthorized immigrants – the vast majority of whom have lived within the United States for at least a decade and have not been convicted of any serious crime – would result in family separation at an unconscionable scale.” (An estimated 4 to 5 million U.S. citizens are children with an unauthorized parent and at risk of deportation).
In a January poll of evangelicals by the Southern Baptist Convention’s Lifeway Research, respondents expressed support for the following: 91% for policies that respect each person’s “God-given dignity,” 71% for the nation’s “moral responsibility to accept refugees,” 91% to “guarantee secure national borders,” 91% for laws to “protect the unity of the immediate family,” and 55% believing they have a responsibility to assist immigrants even if here illegally.
Though 80% viewed legal immigration as helpful to the country, 33% thought immigrants were an economic drain and 37% saw a threat to law and order.
Mark Tooley is a key leader of evangelicals within the “mainline” denominations as president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy, and an exponent of “Christian realism” in public policy as editor of its Providence magazine. Writing for World magazine Nov. 14, he reviewed the practical and political problems and then concluded the following about morality.
An unclear Bible
Obviously, “no clear biblical teaching” tells us what to do in the current situation, but Christians must “very carefully” consider what constitutes “wise statecraft.” “Most illegal immigrants are not rapacious criminals but ordinary people seeking to advance economically.” If they’ve “lived here peaceably for years, their deportation might be legal, but would it be just?
Or, if these persons are productive and aspire to be loyal American citizens, does it even make sense?”
He says Christians must also consider the “likely unintended consequences” from mass deportation, such as eroded public support when the “agonizing scenes and costs” and economic disruption escalate or children are separated from their parents. Also there are the “genuine asylum seekers” to be considered.
Most religious and secular voices say this whole complex situation will remain unstable, unfair and inhumane until both parties agree on new bipartisan laws. But what are the odds of that happening?
This piece has been republished courtesy of Patheos.
Richard N. Ostling was a longtime religion writer with The Associated Press and with Time magazine, where he produced 23 cover stories, as well as a Time senior correspondent providing field reportage for dozens of major articles. He has interviewed such personalities as Billy Graham, the Dalai Lama, Mother Teresa and Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI); ranking rabbis and Muslim leaders; and authorities on other faiths; as well as numerous ordinary believers. He writes a bi-weekly column for Religion Unplugged.
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