Immigration and the Bible

The Family Research Council recently hosted a panel in Washington called "Faith, Culture, and Law in the Immigration Debate." Rev. Samuel Rodriguez of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference participated. Speaking as a "Hispanic-American evangelical," he called for both the "rule of law" and the application of "our Judeo-Christian value system" to the immigration debate. He said:

"There is a biblical mandate on how to treat the immigrant and the alien--Deuteronomy chapter 10 (Love the alien, therefore, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt. [Deuteronomy 10:19]); the Leviticus 19 principle (When an alien sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. You shall treat the alien who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God. [Leviticus 19:33-34]). Also the Good Samaritan passage in Luke. Who is your neighbor? . . . To us in the Hispanic evangelical church it is a matter of family values. We are Hispanic. We are Hispanic American evangelicals. And because of that we are concerned about the families, the possible disenfranchisement of 12 million families."

He went on to conclude that if the Sensenbrenner (R-WI) bill is passed, it will lead to a choice for these families in which most will likely be split up so that American-born children can stay and enjoy the prosperity of America, while foreign-born parents are forced to return to the drugs and squalor of Mexico. The force of the appeal was that Christians can't possibly want to break up these families. (No. We don't at all want to break up these families, and we aren't. They are breaking themselves up!)
The application of these "alien and stranger" passages to the immigration debate is a classic example of equivocation. It takes a term, alien, that is referring to a vastly different political reality in the ancient Near East and applies it directly to today's situation simply because the same word is being used. (By this logic one can argue that we should all buy Hondas because the disciples were "all in one accord." [Luke:1:14] That's an extreme example, but it makes the point.) Today's reality of autonomous nation-states with various immigration laws which are internationally recognized and (ideally) honored by other nations is itself completely alien to the biblical context. In the ancient Near East the wandering alien was at the mercy of whomever's land he found himself upon, but he had not violated the borders or sovereignty of any nation by his "immigration." People were free to travel from place to place and there were no Motel 6's to leave the light on for them. The biblical laws were designed to account for this reality and called God's people to deal kindly and fairly with those who came through the land, for they too had been aliens in Egypt.
To apply these passages directly to the problem of illegal immigration is quite a stretch. I think the situation would be different if those coming to this country were fleeing political tyranny. But at most today's illegal immigrants might claim they are fleeing "economic tyranny" (caused by their pathetic political system), but they are not under imminent threat to their lives or freedom. And so, they can follow our laws to come here. "Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer. Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God's wrath but also for the sake of conscience" [Romans 13:1-5]. That is the "rule of law" to which Rev. Rodriguez paid lip service above. The only biblical exception to this is if the laws of the governing authorities are in violation of God's law. So the argument must be made that our immigration laws are somehow immoral. You can see an attempt at that here, and in the picture below from the Maoist Internationalist Movement, but I'm not buying it.