Immigration and this administration’s handling of it don’t seem to go away.
Recently, ICE agents unlawfully detained San Diego Padres catching coordinator Oswaldo Pirela, accusing him of unlawfully overstaying a visa. It seems like this sort of thing should not happen in a “free” country.
Michael Gunn
I have watched the responses from the left and right, particularly the Christian left and right, and both often appear more political than biblical. Our choices seem to be either “love people regardless of what laws they have broken” or “kick them out; we don’t want them.” Neither binary seems particularly biblical.
America’s immigration debate has become another casualty of our inability to hold two truths in our minds at the same time. The left often seems unwilling to acknowledge the damage caused when the Biden administration allowed the southern border to descend into disorder. The right increasingly seems unwilling to criticize anything done in the name of correcting that failure.
“A government can be right about the need for enforcement and wrong about the manner in which it enforces.”
As followers of Jesus, we should refuse both choices. A government can be right about the need for enforcement and wrong about the manner in which it enforces.
Borders are an unfortunate necessity in a broken world. Governments have a responsibility to protect their people. “No borders” is not a serious solution; virtually no nation operates that way, and before nation states, it was a free for all, in which the powerful consumed the land.
Having immigration laws is not inherently racist, and expecting people to enter through an orderly legal process is not incompatible with Christian compassion. The government has responsibilities the church does not have. Paul describes governing authorities as God’s servants responsible for restraining wrongdoing (Romans 13:1–7), and Peter says government exists to punish wrongdoing and commend what is good (1 Peter 2:13–14).
Note these verses do not tell us how many immigrants or asylum seekers America should accept. They do, however, establish that the government has a legitimate responsibility to maintain civil order.
The Biden administration severely mishandled that responsibility. The immigration system became overwhelmed and forced desperate families to entrust themselves to smugglers. Women and children became vulnerable to exploitation. Cartels profited. Migrants were forced to take dangerous journeys to find their Shangri-La.
“Compassion without order can produce cruelty toward the very people it claims to help.”
Compassion without order can produce cruelty toward the very people it claims to help. It is not xenophobic for Americans to ask who is entering their country, whether convicted criminals are being removed, or whether communities can absorb large numbers of newcomers. Governments exist, in part, to answer such questions.
But the previous administration’s failure does not give the next administration unlimited moral authority to repair the damage.
ICE has a legitimate function. I know people with ICE, and they are not the monsters our culture sometimes portrays them to be. Doxxing and vilifying agents simply for doing their jobs is unjust.
Deportation is not inherently immoral. But law enforcement must still be lawful, proportionate and humane. Government agents are not exempt from morality because they carry badges.
The methodologies of some of these ICE members have been anything but humane. A Honduran mother is not less human because she crossed the border illegally. A Mexican father who has lived here peacefully for 15 years is not morally identical to a cartel member. An immigration officer does not receive permission to degrade another human being because that person violated immigration law, and all people are constitutionally granted due process, which was stripped from many of those deported.
Scripture repeatedly warns those possessing power and more particularly, how that power is exercised:
- “The LORD watches over the sojourners.” (Psalm 146:9)
- “You shall not wrong a sojourner or oppress him.” (Exodus 22:21)
- “The stranger who sojourns with you shall be to you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself.” (Leviticus 19:34)
These passages do not dictate American immigration policy. Ancient Israel is not the United States. But they reveal something fundamental about the character of God: God cares about the vulnerable foreigner.
Some Christians reduce the immigration question to Romans 13: “Obey the government!”
Christians should respect lawful authority. But Paul does not give Caesar unlimited authority. He calls the ruler “God’s servant for your good” (Romans 13:4). The government possesses delegated authority, and delegated authority carries moral responsibility. The same Bible commanding respect for authorities contains prophets confronting kings for their injustice.
Christians should therefore be able to say simultaneously: The immigrant should respect legitimate law, and the government must exercise their authority justly. They do not cancel each other out.
Christians also need to recover the distinction between the state and the church. The government must decide who may legally enter the country. The church must decide how to love the people standing in front of them.
The government may legitimately say, “You do not have legal authorization to remain here.” The Christian can simultaneously say, “You are hungry. Come eat.”
Jesus never told Caesar how many immigrants Rome should admit. But he repeatedly told his followers how they should treat vulnerable people: “I was a stranger, and you welcomed me” (Matthew 25:35).
“We can support secure borders while opening our dinner tables.”
We can support secure borders while opening our dinner tables. We can deport dangerous criminals while grieving when families are unnecessarily separated. We can insist that immigration laws matter while advocating reforms that make legal immigration more humane. And we should remember that followers of Jesus are themselves described as exiles and strangers (Hebrews 11:13; 1 Peter 2:11).
Perhaps the deeper problem is that Christians have allowed opinions about immigration enforcement to become another tribal identity marker. The left tells us compassion requires opposing enforcement. The right tells us law and order requires defending enforcement regardless of how it is conducted.
Paul says our citizenship is in heaven (Philippians 3:20) and we are Christ’s ambassadors here (2 Corinthians 5:20). Our allegiance is first to Jesus, not a political party. That allegiance to Christ and his mission tells the progressive: Compassion without order is not compassionate. It tells the conservative: Order without mercy is not justice.
So where do we go from here? Expand workable legal immigration. Process asylum claims rapidly. Remove violent criminals. Give people meaningful due process. Treat migrants humanely. Consider a reasonable path to permanency for those who have lived peacefully and productively here for many years and punish cartels and human traffickers severely. And stop using desperate human beings as political theater.
Christians must become capable of criticizing our own tribe. If we condemned Joe Biden’s border failures but refuse to criticize abusive enforcement because Donald Trump is president, our standard is political loyalty, not biblical justice. Likewise, if we condemn aggressive ICE tactics while refusing to acknowledge the chaos created under Biden, our standard is equally partisan.
We must remember: The border patrol agent bears God’s image, as does the frightened Guatemalan mother fearful of deportation. Partisan politics teaches us to divide these people into competing categories. Jesus teaches us to see them as neighbors. Followers of Jesus should insist that justice never requires surrendering mercy, and mercy never requires abandoning justice.
Michael Gunn serves as director at the Antioch Initiative and writes the Substack “Jesus Culture.”