Immigration

Below is my response to Relevant Magazine article and the comments deriving from that article.

(http://www.relevantmagazine.com/main/slices/politics/22007-nebraska-town-votes-to-ban-illegal-immigrants)

The article just points out a law that was just passed in a Nebraska town. The law makes it illegal to hire or rent housing to illegal immigrants. The initial comments ranged from a person calling it a racist law, to someone supporting it, to someone questioning adherence to the law by Christians on the grounds that it contradicts Jesus teaching us to care for aliens and strangers.

This is my response:

It [the new law] is not racist in the least. I don't care if you're a Caucasian Canadian, an Latino from Mexico, or an Asian from China...there is a legal process for you to reside here and when you do not adhere to it, there are consequences. I appreciate your compassion, Corey Jackson. Jesus did, in fact, tell us to care for orphans and widows and the aliens and homeless. But I also recognize that Jesus was not a political figure. A state, in our fallen world, operating strictly on Jesus' teachings, would likely not last very long. It would be overrun and taken advantage of. There is also a reason that Jesus said "Give to Caesar, what is Caeser's, and to give to God, what is God's."

That being said, I don't have the answer on how an individual is to balance political ideologies and personal convictions of faith. Perhaps it looks like, as Solomon Grey mentions, the church and individuals caring for and taking in illegals until things can get straightened out. I do not think this is a long-term course of action, but it is an alternative to turning illegal immigrants out on the streets.

I am not heartless, but I recognize the need for a politically sovereign nation to exercise laws, such as this, in the interest of self-preservation. If they neglected to take steps in the interest of self-preservation, that nation would likely not long be preserved.

And to those who would respond to that with "Would illegals really put our country in danger?" Yes, it could. Snowball effects are real, and the massive influx of illegals into the United States in the past ten years are indicative of this. We already have crisis going on with healthcare, social security, and national debt as it is. Adding illegals and their offspring, legal because they are born inside the U.S., to these numbers is not helping matters. As Wayne points out, it also has significantly negative effects on the job market in the lower/middle class tier of employment. Jobs are disappearing and becoming unavailable to legal citizens because too many employers are cutting corners and hiring illegals because those illegals are willing to work for less money than are their legal competitors in that market.

I'm interested to hear replies. Thanks for reading.