There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
-Galatians 3:28

With the budget impasse in Washington still topping headlines, immigration has once again become the topic du jour, and I’m frankly sick of hearing about it. This stupid border wall has been an embarrassment from the word go, but Donald Trump and his army of semi-literate racist/nativist goons aren’t going to budge on it.

I’d talk about how Trump promised that Mexico was going to pay for the wall, but did any of us really believe that? I could spend time explaining why people motivated enough to walk 3000 miles through jungles, deserts, and equatorial heat aren’t going to let a wall stop them, but idiots aren’t reading this article.

Instead, let’s invest our time talking about real world solutions in a world populated with ladders, ropes, and tunnels. Whether or not racist/nativist border hawks like it, these people are coming here. The realists reading this will accept this fact. The snowflakes are melting down into idiotic hysterics. Forget them, and ask yourselves this.

Did criminalizing drugs stop drugs? No.

Did criminalizing alcohol stop alcohol? No.

Did criminalizing prostitution stop prostitution? No.

Did criminalizing undocumented immigration stop illegal immigration? No.

Am I saying open the gates and let just everyone in (screech the bigots)? That’s a false dilemma fallacy. Reality? If someone wants to come to the United States, we have them sit down, file an application, charge them a reasonable fee for processing, and admit all who are good and decent, making it as easy to come here to live and work as it is to visit.

I’m personally of the opinion that immigrants absolutely should not become eligible for citizenship under normal circumstances. My present thinking is that only the second or third generation should be eligible for citizenship, specifically, that only the children or grandchildren of immigrants should be eligible for citizenship.

The bigots protest, “Why should we let these people in? They don’t have any right to come here!” Arguable, but that bigots have no natural right to stop them is a certainty. People have a human right to come and go anywhere they want, so long as they cause no harm. If immigrants come in peace, then no one has cause to stop them.

Now, finally to the point, if we are indeed a Christian nation as many of the racist/nativist bigots claim, there does exist a Biblical duty to let them in. In Matthew 25, Jesus Christ clearly commands us to serve the hungry and the thirsty, invite in the stranger, clothe the destitute, treat the sick, and show mercy to the imprisoned.

Matthew 25:45-46 summarizes our duty thus: “…Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these you did not do for me. Then they will go away to eternal punishment…” And Matthew 7:2 states clearly, “For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.“

For those border hawks that still assert that the immigrant doesn’t “deserve” to come into the United States, consider this: no man or woman, living or dead, “deserves” to get into heaven. When your time comes to stand at Heaven’s border, what case will you have for Jesus Christ, after having turned away your brethren in life?

I don’t foresee that conversation going well for you. Either or, we can and must show compassion without giving away the proverbial farm. If the concern really is how much our government spends, then we can have that discussion without punishing immigrants who are, by definition, innocent of our political failures.

After all, our budgetary crisis will remain regardless of whether or not we turn these people away, but turning them away would definitely make us evil jerks. So I really have to ask, is it really so hard for American “Christians” to do what is just?

Get over it, nativists.

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Liberty is For The Win!