Since this service started, 60 immigrants have showed up at our southern border. By the end of this service, 190 more will have joined them. Roughly 250 people show up at our southern border every day in the hopes of either legally or illegally entering our country.
We have a big problem. According to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, we are “expected to reach the highest number of people apprehended at the U.S.-Mexico border in two decades” (Shabad, R., NBC News.com, March 16, 2021).
Two-hundred and fifty people an hour comes up to 6,000 people a day. That’s 1,700 more people than the entire city of Canton with a population of 4,227 (2019 Census). Think about that for a minute. The entire city of Canton plus a thousand more from, say, Waynesville, attempting to enter our country every day … every day, not year. Right now, the number is 170,000 people a month … that’s over two and half times the total population of Haywood County. At the current rate, over two million people a year will cross over our southern border seeking a home or work or refuge in our country.
Most alarming, says Mayorkas, is the sharp increase in “unaccompanied children.” “We are expelling most single adults and families,” says Mayorkas, but they are not turning back unaccompanied minors (Shabad, R., NBC News.com, March 16, 2021). Customs and Border Protection agencies report that they are seeing well over 500 unaccompanied children attempting to cross the border a day … up from an average of 313 per day just a month ago (Shabad, R., NBC News.com, March 16, 2021). Again, that’s “per day.” The Customs and Border Protection stations report that they currently have over 4,200 children in custody … almost three thousand of them are being held over the 72-hour legal time limit (Shabad, R., NBC News.com, March 16, 2021).
The Federal Emergency Management Agency … FEMA … is rushing to build what they call “decompression centers” in Dallas and Midland, Texas, in an attempt to help the Department of Health and Human Services, who have been tasked with the responsibility of taking care of all these children while they wait for a sponsor. “Part of the problem,” say Mayorkas, “is that the Department of Health and Human Services doesn’t have the capacity to take in the current number of children” (Shabad, R., NBC News.com, March 16, 2021).
As if this weren’t unprecedented enough, we also have COVID to deal with. According to Migrant Protection Protocols, all migrants must be tested before crossing the border. The crushing number of migrants showing up at the borders, however, has made testing almost impossible. The New York Post reported that the number of migrants testing positive for the coronavirus before being released into the U.S. by the Border Patrol is surging (Batalova, J. & Alperin, E. Spotlight. New York Post, July 10, 2018). In the town of Brownsville, Texas, for example, 185 migrants tested positive for COVID-19 last week at the city’s main bus station … up from 108 just the week before.
I don’t know if you heard what I just said … these were migrants about to board buses to destinations unknown. Felipe Romero, a spokesman for Brownsville, Texas, said that there is little that Brownsville can do to restrict the migrants from traveling beyond Texas other than advising them to follow the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention safety precautions and quarantine (Batalova, J. & Alperin, E. Spotlight. New York Post, July 10, 2018). My question is … quarantine themselves how and where?
According to the Center for Immigration Studies (March 31, 2021), migrants are either being flown or bused to various cities within the United States. Buses from border towns like Del Rio and Laredo, for example, send out a charter bus filled with migrants every day, seven days a week. “They often drop their Haitian, Venezuelan, and Cuban passengers in Florida and New Jersey. Those from Nicaragua and other Central American nations have been delivered to Tennessee, Massachusetts, Indiana, Michigan, North Carolina, Georgia, Kentucky, and to large cities in Texas such as Dallas and Houston” (Bensman, T. “Catch-and Bus: Thousands of Freed Border-Crossing Immigrants Are Dispersing Across America.” Center for Immigration Studies, March 31, 2021).
Here’s the thing that you need to keep in mind. All these figures represent migrants who have been apprehended or detained by the authorities … we have absolutely no idea how many slip across the border undetected and unscreened. As Newsweek pointed out, “There is currently no system in place to track if migrants have been tested after they leave [Non-Governmental Organization] shelters and [Custom and Border Protection] custody” (Newsweek, March 25, 2021). As Felipe Romero said, we can only hope that they follow CDC guidelines and quarantine themselves if they get sick.
Believe it or not, this is not a Republican or Democrat problem. This is not a conservative or liberal, progressive or libertarian problem … this is a “human” problem … and my goal today is to get you to stop thinking of this as a political issue and start looking at it from a Christian perspective … to see it through the eyes of God and then pray about it and ask Him what we can do as His children for His children. Believe it or not, the Bible not only has a lot to say about this issue but spells out some pretty clear guidelines on how we are to treat the sojourners in our land. It doesn’t tell us to lock our gates, nor does it say that we should leave our gates wide open and throw caution to the wind either. It doesn’t place the burden and responsibility for one group on the other but asks that immigrants and residents work together.
Speaking of “working together” … open your Bibles to Genesis 11 and read along with me.
[Read Genesis 11:1-9.]
I love languages and have always been fascinated by them. How did we get so many languages and why do they sound so different? I mean … English sounds nothing like Russian, Russian sounds nothing like Chinese, and Chinese sounds nothing like Hebrew or Arabic. According to daytranslations.com, there is no one clear answer to the exact number of languages that still exist but the latest estimate says that there are 7,106 “living” languages in the world. As daytranslations.com points out, this doesn’t include the hundreds, if not thousands, of languages that no long exist.
At one time, was there only one language? Makes sense, logically. At one time there had to be no language … then someone began developing a system of speech … and then from there … well … according to the Bible, it stated with a king named Nimrod who ruled over the city of Babel. Nimrod’s idea was to build a giant tower which would attract everyone to a central location. It was man’s first attempt at one-world government, devoid of God … a desire that many tyrants and political leaders still hope and work for. Had Nimrod succeeded and the whole world came to live in the shadow of his giant tower, his power would have been unlimited.
God saw where this was going and put a rather unique and fascinating stop to Nimrod’s plans. “Come, let us go down, and confuse their language there, so that they will not understand one another’s speech” (Genesis 11:7). They weren’t able to communicate with each other and so the whole project of building a tower to the heavens came to a crashing halt.
While God’s original ideal for humanity was for all of mankind to be one unified family speaking one common language throughout all the earth, the creation of many languages and nationalities and borders was God’s way of protecting us from the worst effects of Adam’s fall … the prideful craving for power. As the Apostle Paul understands it, God has “made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their pre-appointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him” (Acts 17:26-27). We are to seek God, to rely upon His power, and not to seek our own power so that we can use that power to rule or control the world. Pastor and theologian David Breese makes this following observation about “globalism”:
God has ordained individual nations and not a complex of nations. When men try in their own unregenerate power” … as Nimrod tried … to put together a complex of nations and make them cohere without God, then you have built into the complex the seeds of its own destruction” (Ankerberg, J., Weldon, J., Breese, D., & Hunt, D. “One World: Bible Prophecy and the New World Order.” Chicago: Moddy Press; 1991; p. 17).
Given the number of times that we have tried to create one-world governments … and given the fact that all of them have failed so far … gives me hope that the current attempt at globalism will ultimately fail … and for the same reasons that all the others have failed. As Dr. David Jeremiah points out: “The amassing of nations under a single human authority is not God’s will. To the contrary, it is the sure road to unprecedented tyranny” (Jeremiah, D., “Is This the End?” Nashville, TN; 2016; p. 45).
While we are a world made up of different countries, people travel. People move. Circumstances like war, poverty, famine, and natural disasters … sometimes force people to have to move and relocate to another country. Sometimes we just want adventure or a change of scenery or we have a wanderlust or just want to enjoy the many sights and tastes and sounds and people of the world … and so, God gave us specific rules to help us get along with one another despite our many differences.
For example, God charged the people of Israel to care for the strangers and sojourners or travelers among them, reminding them that they once were “strangers in the land of Egypt” (Exodus 23:9). Hospitality was more than polite kindness in ancient days … it was a matter of survival. Travel was difficult and dangerous. There weren’t any interstate highways lined with McDonalds and Days Inns. When a stranger showed up at your doorstep, you were expected to invite them in and take care of them. Guests were expected to be respectful of their host’s generosity and not over-stay their welcome or take advantage of their host.
God made it clear that He took hospitality and kindness towards strangers very seriously. He told the Israelites, for example, that they could live in the Promised Land so long as they “did not oppress the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and [did] not shed innocent blood in this place, or walk after other gods to [their] hurt” (Jeremiah 7:6). Ezekiel said that Jerusalem would fall because the “people of the land have used oppressions, committed robbery, and mistreated the poor and needy; and they have wrongly oppressed the stranger” (Ezekiel 22:29). The prophet Malachi said that Israel would be harshly judged because they deprived the foreigners among them of justice (Malachi 3:5) and Zechariah said that they would be taken captive and made to suffer because they failed to follow God’s command to “not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the foreigner or the poor” (Zechariah 7:10).
Jesus, the literal embodiment of God, demonstrated the love of God for all His children. When He asked a Samaritan woman for a drink of water, He offered her the gift of Himself, Living Water (John 4:1-26). When a Roman Centurion came to beg for his servant’s life, when a Canaanite woman pleaded with Jesus to heal her sick daughter, He didn’t turn them away because they weren’t “Jewish.” In His parable of the “Good Samaritan,” He did the unthinkable and made a Samaritan the hero of His story, stressing the necessity of meeting the needs of others no matter who they are or where you find them (Luke 10:25-37). Peter summed up Jesus’ attitude towards God’s children in this way: “In truth I perceive that God shows no partiality. But in every nation whoever fears Him and works righteousness is accepted by Him” (Acts 10:34-35).
The relationship between host and guest, between native and alien is a two-way street. As the host, the Israelites were expected to assimilate the stranger into their community. In exchange, sojourners … or “immigrants,” if you will … were expected to live according to the laws and customs of the Jews. “You shall therefore keep My Statutes and My judgments,” God commanded, “and shall not commit any … abominations, either any of your own nation or any stranger who dwells among you” (Leviticus 18:26). Like any Israelite who blasphemed the name of the Lord, for example, the blasphemer was to be stoned to death (Leviticus 24:16). Whether visitor or immigrant, everyone was expected to keep the Sabbath. These restrictions were strict but necessary in order to protect Israel from destructive outside influences … especially idolatry, which could lead to Israel’s alienation from God and to their ultimate disintegration as a people and a nation.
God’s message and expectation in the Bible is clear. Foreigners in Israel were expected to “earn their keep” … to contribute to the overall success of the nation. If they assimilated and contributed to the culture and economy of their host nation, they were welcome and allowed to fully participate in the life of their host country. If they refused to assimilate and insisted on clinging to their old laws, their old ways, beliefs, and customs, their activities had to be restricted for the preservation of the nation.
Let’s take a look at our situation today … first by looking at legal and then illegal immigration. In a report put out by the Migration Policy Institute, it stated that in 2018 there were 44 million immigrants living in the United States … making up 13.5 percent of the population. “With U.S. fertility rates at a historic low,” says the Migration Policy Institute, “the Census Bureau projects that net international migration will be the main driver behind U.S. population growth between 2027 and 2038” (Batalova, J. & Alperin, E. “Spolight.” Migration Policy Institute, July 10, 2018). In other words, the number of immigrants coming into our country will far outnumber the number of babies being born in the United States. “Rather than clustering overwhelmingly in a handful of states,” says the Migration Policy Institute, “immigrants [are settling] across the country.”
Not all of the people who immigrate to our country come from war-torn countries or to escape the conditions in their homeland. It seems that America is a great place to live and work and raise a family. Many are highly skilled or educated. They come here to learn and to be trained by our universities and schools and then realize that they can make a better living here … so they stay.
Here’s the problem. Businesses naturally gravitate toward workers who are willing to take lower wages, so they naturally tend to hire immigrants over natural citizens. According to the Labor Department, real wages have declined 50 percent because of the influx of cheap immigrant labor (Hanson, V.D. “Do We Want Mexifornia?” City Journal, Spring 2002.)
America was once a “melting pot” where new arrivals to our country “blended” into our culture and our communities. This blending of cultures, habits, and customs has created what I think has been one of the most unique experiences in the history of the world. I love the variety and skill of God’s craftsmanship. We’re not all the same size … we’re not all same color … we don’t all speak the same language … and that, to me, makes the world a very beautiful and exciting place. We have all kinds of music, all kinds of food, all kinds of cultures and histories and literature and ways of seeing and understanding the world and our life experiences … and all of it can be found right here in America … and even in Western North Carolina.
But that is starting to go away. As Dr. Jeremiah put it, “The melting pot is no longer melting” (Jeremiah, D. “Is This the End?” 2016. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Pub.; p. 39). New arrivals seek out enclaves of immigrants from their home country. On the surface, that makes sense. I’ve traveled to foreign countries and it feels good to get back to the Good Ol’ U.S. of A, where I know the language and know the customs and know how to navigate my way in the culture. If I were an immigrate, I’d probably seek out other Americans for support as I was attempting to learn a new language or transition to a new country or new culture … but it can also hold me back and keep me from fully assimilating into my new community.
In his book, “Clash of Civilizations” (2004; NY: Simon and Schuster; pp. 18-19), author Samuel Huntington noted that new arrivals today “are not assimilating at the same rate or with the same conviction … In fact, they seem reluctant to do so. … Evidence of this lack of assimilation … is found in declining levels of English language acquisition, less educational achievement, and poorer socioeconomic success.” In cities like Houston or Miami, for example, there are so many Spanish-speaking communities that new immigrants can get by without learning any English or only the bare minimum of English to get by. As a result, you have to know Spanish and English to get a job in most places in South Florida. The failure to learn English creates a domino effect that keeps the immigrant from becoming fully assimilated … hence leading to suspicion and on-going fear and misunderstanding between the two cultures.
Some groups not only refuse to assimilate but demand special concessions for their particular ethnic and religious customs. According to one news source: “Islamist groups are, as we speak, heard at work creating Muslim states-within-states in the U.S. Indeed,” the article goes on to say, “this process has been unfolding for a long time across the Western world … [resulting in] isolated Muslim enclaves in both rural and urban areas” (Swoyer, A. “Concerns of Muslim Immigration Surge in Western World Come into Focus”; Breitbart, May 7, 2015).
Assimilation is an essential component to successful and somewhat peaceful immigration. According to Pete Hoekstra, former House Intelligence Committee Chairman, quote:
“What we need to do is make sure everyone coming into the United States understands who we are and that we are founded on Judeo-Christian values, that there is one rule of law and that’s what’s on the books and it’s not Sharia and we need to make sure we don’t engage in the same kind of mistakes in Europe where they did not engage in assimilation” (In Swoyer, A., ““Concerns of Muslim Immigration Surge in Western World Come into Focus”; Breitbart, May 7, 2015).
You can go on-line and listen to Muslim immigrants who not only advocate for the over-throw of America but advocate for the practice of Sharia law in exclusion of American law in their communities.
I’ve already mentioned the problem of “illegal” immigration earlier in reference to the spread of COVID. Most of the people who come to our country are good, decent people looking for a fresh start and a new life … but not all. Based on a study of 55,322 migrants incarcerated in U.S. prisons, the Government Accounting Office, the U.S. Department of Justice, and the National Security Institute found that the total arrests for the inmates in this study was 459,614 … an average of eight arrests per person. Forty-five percent of the arrests were for drug related crimes or immigration offenses, 15% for property related crimes – burglary, larceny, motor vehicle theft, and property damage. About 12% were for violent crimes such as murder, robbery, assaults, and sex offenses. The remaining arrests were for fraud, forgery, counterfeiting, weapons violations, obstruction of justice, traffic violations, and DUIs (Kouri, J. “Illegal aliens linked to rise in crime statistics.” Renew America, June 22, 2006).
The rise in illegal immigration has put an increasing burden on hospitals … particularly emergency rooms … schools, police, and social and governmental programs such as Welfare and food stamps. The financial strain brought on by the cost of providing free social services to illegal immigrants has been tremendous and may soon reach the point where we can no longer provide the services and blessings that many of these immigrants come here to find.
Let me share what I think is truly the sin of illegal immigration … and it doesn’t have to do with the illegal immigrants themselves but with those who exploit them. You know, you can change the name from “illegal” to “undocumented” worker and it still doesn’t change the fact that these people have no legal rights … and there is an evil irony that you may not be aware of. Who do you think is behind all this “open borders” push today? Who stands to gain? Corporations do! They get cheap labor from people who have nowhere to go to get legal help to redress their abuse. I’ve lived in Texas and Miami and I’ve seen it up close and personal. Most of them have to work under the table. I’ve had friends who weren’t paid or were under paid … who are they going complain to? I’ve had friends who have had to work for peanuts … and if they complain, poof! Gone! Reported to ICE or some other immigration official and they find themselves back in Cuba or Honduras in no time … which is why it’s a whole lot better to go through the process and become an actual citizen of the United States with all the rights and privileges that come with citizenship.
I have a friend who works for the FBI and Homeland Security whose job it is to locate and close down sweat shops … that’s right … sweat shops … slave labor … right here in the United States. Companies and “agents” … a kind of corporate “coyote” … will recruit workers from a poor country, promising them free transportation, room and board, and more money than they could earn in their home country if they will come and work for certain companies. Once they get here, they have to pay for their transportation, they have to pay for their room … which they share with a half-a-dozen other illegals. They don’t know the language so they can’t go out and buy their own food, so the company provides it for them and charges them for it at an inflated price. Because they don’t speak English, they can’t run away. Where would they go? They can’t complain. If they do, either their employer or the government will have them deported. My friend with Homeland Security told me that this goes on in every major city in America. As soon as they bust up one sweat shop, the company goes and opens up a new sweat shop within days or weeks.
Another problem with illegal immigration is that it can be exploited by criminals as well. Most of the smugglers are literally “human traffickers” who work for the drug cartels. Most people can’t afford the price of a coyote so they pay for their trip … a very dangerous trip, I might add … by carrying the cartels’ drugs over the border. Children are a favorite target for drug smuggler because they are underage. If they get caught, they are sent back over the border but they don’t go to jail … which means that the cartels can keep using them over and over again. As we’ve all heard, they are sometimes sold into sexual slavery.
What is the solution? I’m sure no one in the government is interested in what I have to say on the subject. Personally, I would like to see the process reformed … better screening processes to eliminate the criminal element. I would like to get rid of the incentives like sanctuary cities that encourage people to come here and break our laws. I think that we could do a better job of assimilating people who want to become Americans by vetting them and reducing the number of immigrants coming into our country … not to be mean but to reduce the drain on the resources that we currently have. It would keep the job of assimilating them down to a manageable process … guaranteeing better outcomes for them and for us.
We started out as one people with one language and God intends for it to be that way again. Through His prophet Isaiah, God spoke of a time when Israelites and Arabs will co-exist in peace. “In that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria,” says God, “and the Assyrian will come into Egypt and the Egyptian into Assyria, and the Egyptians will serve with the Assyrians. In that day,” says the Lord, “Israel will be one of three with Egypt and Assyria – a blessing in the midst of the land, whom the Lord of hosts shall bless, saying, ‘Blessed is Egypt My people, and Assyria the work of My hands, and Israel My inheritance” (Isaiah 19:23-25).
What a day that will be, amen? When the deadly animosity that has existed between Israel and its Arab neighbors since the days of Isaac and Ishmael will no longer exist. As one author declared: “When the Middle Eastern Islamic nations claim brotherhood with their ancient enemy Israel, we can be sure that an era of brotherhood between all the nations has finally come to the earth” (Jeremiah, D. “Is This the End?” Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson; 2016; p. 51).
And you know why I know this true? Because God gave His apostle John a glimpse of what that would look like. There will come a day when all nations will be one … unified in the Presence of God. “The book of Revelation,” explains Dr. Joseph Castleberry, “envisions the endgame of the Biblical description of God’s mission. In John the Revelator’s vision of the end time,” says Castleberry, “[the Apostle John] describes a great heavenly multitude ‘that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb” (Revelation 7:9-10) praising Him with a loud voice (Castleberry, J. “The New Pilgrims: How Immigrants Are Renewing America’s Faith and Values.” Nashville, TN: Worthy Pub.; 2015; back cover). At the end of the day, says pastor and author Samuel Rodriguez, “immigration reform does not stem from the agenda of the donkey or the elephant rather, welcoming the stranger is a conviction that flows from the agenda of the Lamb” (quoted in: Daniel, M. & Carroll, R. “Christians at the Border.” Ada, MI: Brazos Press; 2013; p. xii).
This is good new for a world that is continually being torn apart by strife between nations and distrust of ethnic differences, amen? God created every person of every race in His own image and He loves each of us so dearly that He took on flesh and died for our sins and for the sins of the world so that whoever believes in Him … say it with me … will never perish but have life everlasting, amen?
I thought I’d close with this beautiful thought from pastor and theologian Russell More:
“This is not about ‘issues’ or ‘culture wars’ but about persons made in the image of God. Our churches must be the presence of Christ to all persons, regardless of country of origin or legal status. Our commitment to a multinational kingdom of God’s reconciliation in Christ must be evident in the verbal witness of our gospel and in the visible makeup of our congregations. … We might be natural-born Americans, but we’re all immigrants [on our way] to the kingdom of God” (www.russellmoore.com/2011/06/17/immigration-and-the-gospel/
