Who are the people promoting racist laws like what Arizona has just passed? Arizona now requires brown people to carry identification, or risk arrest. That’s what the fascist, communist, apartheid, and totalitarian nations do - not Americans.
I hope Bible-believing Christians are not promoting these kinds of laws. Bible-believing Christians know God’s Word:
“When foreigners reside among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigners residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt.
I am the LORD your God” (Leviticus 19:33-34).
“The community is to have the same rules for you and for the foreigner residing among you; this is a lasting ordinance for the generations to come. You and the foreigner shall be the same before the LORD” (Numbers 15:15, TNIV, Zondervan).
Not long after Jesus’ birth, the Holy Family became immigrants, fleeing to Egypt for protection.
Imagine if Egypt had then had the same laws the U.S.
has today. Herod would have killed Jesus while Joseph waited 16 years for a visa. (The current U.S.
average for legal familyimmigration is 16 years.) Or Joseph’s family would have been smuggled into Egypt as illegal immigrants.
Thankfully for Jesus, Egypt was more benevolent toward immigrants than we are. (Most of us can be also be thankful that the U.S. was more benevolent toward immigrants when our ancestors arrived here.)
There is a young man who is part of our congregation. I’ll call him Jose. When Jose was 15 his family moved to Rogers, entering the U.S. legally on a worker’s visa. Jose graduated with honors from Rogers High School, earning an academic scholarship to college. He’s a straight-A college student. He was named counselor of the year at a summer camp where he served. But Jose’s father didn’t renew the worker’s visa, and now Jose is undocumented.
While Jose was a minor, his father filed papers applying for legal residency status for Jose, but the wheels of immigration move like a glacier. Jose reached his18th birthday before those papers got through the system.
On his 18th birthday, Jose, in essence, became a criminal. He is subject to arrest, confinement, and deportation. His teachers and adult mentors say Jose is brilliant. He can do anything, they say. He’s an especially talented classical musician and has had invitations to perform overseas. He dare not cross our borders.
Jose is a good and talented young person. He’s not a criminal. He doesn’t deserve to be treated like a fugitive. Jose is the kind of young person that the bipartisan DREAM Act seeks to address.
The Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act would offer undocumented students who have been raised in the U.S.
a feasible way to obtain legal status.
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There are four requirements. The young person must:
• Be of good moral character (no criminal record, etc.),
• Graduate from high school or the equivalent,
• Have entered the U.S. before age 16,
• Have lived in the U.S. at least five years before passage of the DREAM Act.
Young people meeting those criteria would qualify for a six-year conditional permanent resident status. Then, if the person completes two years ofhigher education or military service, he or she could earn permanent resident status.
That’s a sane, humane, compelling change to our broken and abusive system of immigration laws. Yet the DREAM Act has failed in Congress since it was first introduced in 2001. Does anyone read their Bibles?
The recent Episcopal Church suggests the following as a reasonable framework for comprehensive and just immigration policies:
• Undocumented aliens should have reasonable opportunity to pursue permanent residence.
• Legal workers should be allowed to enter the United States to respond to recognized labor force needs.
• Close family members should be allowed to reunite without undue delay with individuals lawfully present in the United States.
• Fundamental U.S. principles of legal due process should be granted to all persons.
• Enforcement of national borders and immigration policies should be proportional and humane.
We are a nation of immigrants. Fear and prejudice never get us very far. Let’s work together to create something that is just and fair, not merely punitive.
LOWELL GRISHAM IS THE RECTOR AT ST. PAUL’S EPISCOPAL CHURCH IN FAYETTEVILLE.
Opinion, Pages 9 on 05/23/2010