In order to help with this overall topic, I will offer to answer four fairly good questions about undocumented immigration. The images on the right were taken by me in 2013. They are all explained in the video lecture, but they also speak for themselves here.
Why Is This Important to Me? This topic should be important to people living in Michigan, far from the southern border, for several reasons. First, we should have an intellectual and ethical interest in maintaining political and cultural literacy. This is an important national topic, even if it seems remote from our neck of the woods, and we should be well informed on the matter to elect representatives who will work wisely with their peers from other states. We should be willing to bring a biblical perspective to the table. It is easy to see economics and civics frame the conversation, but that is insufficient to properly converge on the topic. Immigration laws have historically protected “who we are” as Americans, an identity more strongly intertwined with Protestant/Western Europe in the past. As we move into the future though, that future is less and less “white” in both the country and the state. We should consider changes to immigration laws that reflect our future rather than cling to our past. Why Do So Many Wish to Come? There are three groups of reasons why undocumented immigrants wish to come here. First, there is a kinship of population, geography, and religion that is shared between Mexico and the U.S. When America took over Mexico’s northern lands as the spoils of the Mexican-American War, it also took over the Mexican population that was living there. In other parts of the world, most recently in the Ukraine and Crimea, it is unsurprising to see a longing to reunite such a kinship that was interrupted by a political border. The chance of returning those lands to Mexico is infinitesimal, but crossing the border is a way of affirming that kinship. People in Mexico also have a desire for the stability, safety, and wealth of the United States. Our southern neighbor has run the gamut of political instability and armed conflict that runs from imperialist advance by the French to internal turmoil in the times of Villa, Huerta, Obregon and Calles to the drug turf wars of the late 20th and early 21st century. Rather than be caught as collateral damage in these conflicts, people would understandably rather go north where it is safer, especially if you couple this with the greater opportunity for financial wealth that the United States has offered for over 150 years. Interestingly, Mexicans who have become invested in the philosophy of the second amendment to our Constitution have been willing to return home to begin vigilante movements to take back their neighborhoods from both the criminals and the government. But in the final analysis, they have come mostly because we invited them. The Braceros (forearms) program of the mid-20th century provided guest work visas to supplement farm workers whose numbers were diminished by the migration of white and black men away from the industry. Effectively, the United States government called for migrant workers to come, and then looked the other way when these workers decided to stay rather than go back. But even after this program ended, the desire for inexpensive labor remained, and the business community has tacitly welcomed and encouraged immigration in the intervening years. Why Can’t They Come Legally & Speak English? As Americans we have mostly been trained to “trust the system,” that if we were ever found in need that either a public safety or other government entity would provide aid. This concept is very American or Western, and is not at all similar to how Mexican people have grown up. In that country, the government is feared as much as it is trusted, so the citizenry has become accustomed to flying under the radar as much as possible. Obtaining visas and becoming naturalized is lengthy, technical, cumbersome, and possibly either racist or elitist. So it should be no surprise that if there is a chance to fly under the radar. Mexican would prefer that as much or than working with the system. But there is another phenomenon at work as well, that modern immigrants have less desire to assimilate into our culture than they did in the past. In the past, immigrants from Europe, Asia, and other parts of the word including Hispania were willing to exchange both their economic and political background to adopt what Gunner Myrdal calls the American Creed – Protestantism without God, so to speak. There was a belief in American idealism. But that belief has foundered of late, such that immigrants come to share in the wealth but prefer to retain their language and culture. Sam Huntington refers to these people as ampersands, people who are comfortable maintaining a duality of citizen identity. The belief in the exceptionalism of the American Creed is legitimately subject to some pushback. President Theodore Roosevelt elaborates the longstanding to have immigrants learn and speak English as follows: “We have room for but one language in this country, and that is the English language, for we intend to see that the crucible turns our people out as Americans, of American nationality, and not as dwellers in a polyglot boarding house.” But Roosevelt’s crucible at this time was meant to be use to build the world’s leading industrial economy. This measure of success is based partly on economic efficiency – the biblical example of the Tower of Babel reminds us that a monolingual people is highly efficient – and on exceptionalism. But must that be our measure of success? Is there also room for a measure of success based on cultural depth and richness, in a diversity of language and thought? If there is anything that the growing diversification of our country teaches us, it is that we should have room for new measures of national success. Is There a Lesson I Can Learn from the Undocumented? I believe that Heaven will judge our country for how we treat those who work to support our wealth. The biblical book of James clearly states this in James 5:1-6. Furthermore, the government as a stakeholder and driver of the national economy must also share in the warning to the rich in this passage. In Leviticus 19:34, God directs the Jewish people to love the stranger and alien among them, and let them live with them, because they were strangers and aliens once. I never forget that I am a child whose ancestors came to this country without documentation; it tempers and colors my otherwise conservative leanings. In Matthew 19:13 and 12:7, Jesus Christ tells us that mercy is better than sacrifice; in other words, given a choice between helping out a distressed immigrant or tossing that person out of the country because “it’s the law,” God is more pleased at the former. The ultimate question in this matter is how wealthy we must be? My name is not George Soros, Bill Gates, Larry Cuban, or Michael Bloomberg, but I am very wealthy by world and biblical standards. Is the acquisition of fanciful paper, metal, wood, and brick more important than what happens to a human being? Should I support laws that are meant to preserve my wealth at the expense of theirs? According to Hebrews 11:13-16, my desire should be to look forward to my true and better home in Heaven. The undocumented teach me this – they are willing to leave their comfortable surroundings because they have faith that a better place awaits them after a difficult journey. They teach me to keep a light grip on the things of earth, which will allow me to keep a tighter grip on the things of heaven. |