Christians ask: Can you love thy neighbor but deport him, too?

KHOU television station ^ | Apr 28 2006 | Todd Gillman

[george wythe]

Does a focus on family values demand a tight border to protect Americans from outsiders, or an open-door policy to ensure opportunity to the poor of other nations? It is more important to welcome the stranger or to respect the rule of law?

At a forum Thursday hosted by the conservative Christian group Family Research Council, conservative and liberal religious leaders lobbed Bible verses, unable to agree on what Jesus would do about the nation's nearly 12 million illegal immigrants.

Immigrant advocates warned that a crackdown would harm families and violate Scripture. And a lawmaker leading the charge for tougher enforcement decried the impulse to direct "compassion" at foreigners while ignoring the plight of low-income Americans.

[MozarkDawg]

Why do Christians have a problem with this? Why is the idea of following the law such a difficult concept to accept, particularly when we are ADVISED to do just that?

Obey your leaders and submit to their authority. They keep watch over you as men who must give an account. Obey them so that their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no advantage to you. Hebrews 13:17

[Dane]

You continually blanket a whole industry as an employer of illegals to try to back up your position.

Huh I ain't the one who wants to put people who grow food or build buildings out of business.

[Auntie Dem]

God's law is permanent. Caesar's law is changeable.

If God's laws are permanent, then why aren't Christians still living the Law of Moses?

It would seem that the laws framed by a "living" constitution would be no more or less changeable than those framed by a Living God.

[Godzilla]

Leviticus 13:33-34 (NIV): 33 When an alien lives with you in your land, do not mistreat him. 34 The alien living with you must be treated as one of your native-born. Love him as yourself, for you were aliens in Egypt. I am the LORD your God.

Important note: The alien remains an alien, does not become a citizen. Second important note: Comparison of 2000 BC to 2000 AD societal and legal issues are not possible since the laws were tailored to fit a middle eastern situation, NOT present day western culture.

[tertiary01]

Since you are so knowledgeable, then you should be able to cite specific employers. To blanket whole industries as employers of illegals is INACCURATE. Most of your food has never been handled by illegals.

[HiJinx]

WWJD Ping!

Lots of interesting replies on this one...

[MIchaelTArchangel]

I would ask: Can a Christain truly love his neighbors without deporting those who are here illegally? The crimaliens are undercutting the wages of Americans. It is not that they won't do the jobs Americans won't; it's that the crimaliens will do jobs Americans will do for less money because they want to be paid in cash. The result is that you and I have to pay the taxes they and their criminalemployers won't to support all the services the crimaliens demand. In short, being against deporting the crimaliens means the faux Christians are complicit in cheating and stealing from others.

[michigander]

You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet ... anything that belongs to your neighbor.

[snowtigger]

Christians ask: Can you love thy neighbor but deport him, too?

Wouldn't this fall under the premise that a father who loves his child also disciplines him?

These people have broken a myriad of US laws, yet we are expected to reward them? The only ones who want to legalize hem want to continue to exploit them. Either by working them at substandard wages, or using them to increase voter rolls in their favor. If we want to show "love" for them, we must make them responsible for their lawbreaking. To do otherwise would be to teach them they can get what they want by breaking "unjust" laws.

At the very minimum, anyone who wants citizenship should have to return to the country where they hold citizenship and apply through channels, legally. Otherwise, they remain illegals, subject to deportation upon discovery. Property should be forfieted under the law as the "fruits of illegal activity".

[Brilliant]

Christians ask: Can you love thy neighbor but deport him, too?





Personally, I don't know any Christians who are asking that question.

[Dane]

It is not that they won't do the jobs Americans won't; it's that the crimaliens will do jobs Americans will do for less money because they want to be paid in cash.

Okay, go and recruit on a college campus for vegetable pickers jobs or janitors and see how many applications you get.

BTW, how about this below this is a job every American will do, too bad that job is driving GM into bankruptcy because of the UAW.

In 1984, the United Auto Workers and management created the Jobs Bank as a way of keeping workers on the payroll while the company automated its production. "The argument went that if the auto companies had a pool of idled workers, they would be less likely to outsource labor overseas," wrote Jeremy Peters of the New York Times. What was supposed to be a billion-dollar program was supposed to end in 1990. A generation later, it continues. It costs GM about $9.4 million a week to pay the salaries of people in the Jobs Bank, and that does not include their health care and pension benefits. Now the bank threatens to undermine the buyouts of up to $140,000 each that GM is offering its workers. Peters visited Oklahoma City, where 2,300 employees remain on the payroll a month after GM shut down their plant. They receive full pay and benefits even though there is nothing for them to do except sit around and chat, play games, or watch TV. Garland Pruitt, 53, with 27 years of seniority, told Peters: "Why would I walk out the door with $2,000 less per month and have to go find a job when I can sit in the bank, get my 30 years and retire? It's really to my advantage to ride the bank out as long as it goes."

[MHGinTN]

My first thought was the same --tough love-- but take a look at #35 post; we are actually subsidizing the feudal state in Mexico by NOT dealing with deporting those who are here illegally and not desiring to be citizens here. THAT is unChristian, last time I looked.

[SwinneySwitch]

"You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife or his male servant or his female servant or his ox or his donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor." Exd 20:17

[Nea Wood]

I just keep thinking of the verse, "by their fruits you shall know them," which makes me think that by its fruits you shall know illegal immigration. In my town, the following has increased in direct proportion with the influx of illegals:

Bars on doors and windows.
Crime.
Hospitals closing.
Schools overcrowded, dangerous, ineffective.
Gangs.
Graffiti.
Blight, (broken windows, abandoned shopping carts, rusty old cars in front lawns, etc.)

It's happening in neighborhood after neighborhood in the US, formerly nice areas that are now too unsafe to walk through. Could God possibly approve of that? I can't imagine it. Yet it happens everywhere illegal immigration occurs.

Nothing will make me believe that God wants Christians to encourage and embrace illegal immigration. I believe that illegal immigration is a great curse on this country.

[george wythe]

Samaritans were imported foreigners, living in land stolen from the Israelites:

The king of Assyria brought people from Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath and Sepharvaim and settled them in the towns of Samaria to replace the Israelites. They took over Samaria and lived in its towns.

2 Kings 17:24

Samaritans never completely assimilated into Israel:

They worshiped the LORD, but they also served their own gods in accordance with the customs of the nations from which they had been brought.

To this day they persist in their former practices. They neither worship the LORD nor adhere to the decrees and ordinances, the laws and commands that the LORD gave the descendants of Jacob, whom he named Israel.

2 Kings 17:33, 34

Samaritans were a fifth column who sabotaged Israelites’ efforts to rebuilt their city and temple:

Then the peoples around them set out to discourage the people of Judah and make them afraid to go on building.

They hired counselors to work against them and frustrate their plans during the entire reign of Cyrus king of Persia and down to the reign of Darius king of Persia. Ezra 20: 3,4

Samaritans wrote a letter falsely accusing the Jews of sedition :

The king sent this reply:

To Rehum the commanding officer, Shimshai the secretary and the rest of their associates living in Samaria and elsewhere in Trans-Euphrates:

Greetings.

The letter you sent us has been read and translated in my presence. 19 I issued an order and a search was made, and it was found that this city has a long history of revolt against kings and has been a place of rebellion and sedition.

Ezra 20:17-19