Issues Tearing Our Nation's Fabric The Center for Reclaiming America

[ Previous | Table of Contents | Next ]

Immigration
Chapter Twelve

The United States began as a nation of immigrants, and from the early seventeenth through the mid-nineteenth centuries a steady stream of new citizens came to these shores from countries around the world. A majority of the early arrivals spoke English or German and settled on farms all across the Midwest. Most were Protestants, though large numbers arriving from Central and Eastern European countries in the eighteenth century and from Ireland in the nineteenth established a sizable Catholic community, as well.

The U.S. Department of Immigration and Naturalization Services (INS) was set up to facilitate legal immigration and to halt illegal entry. But with increasing numbers of illegal aliens coming across the southern borders into California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas—and eventually into Florida—the INS had to expand operations in the mid-1960s. By the mid-1970s Border Patrol agents were making as many as a million apprehensions of illegal aliens each year. To deal with the growing problem, Congress created the bipartisan Commission on Immigration and Refugee Policy.

In 1981 the Commission announced that employers who knowingly hired illegal aliens would be subject to fines or imprisonment. Additional immigration reform measures were added in 1986 and 1990, but so far nothing has been able to stem the tide of illegal immigrants flooding across our borders. Though U.S. policy allows as many as a million people per year to enter the country as naturalized citizens, recent estimates suggest that from three to five times that number may enter illegally each year. Clearly, this is a serious problem.

The states of California, Texas, and Florida have been the hardest hit by the unimpeded flood of non-English speaking and often destitute aliens. Social services facilities of most Southern states cannot keep up with the demand, thereby creating welfare and financial crises which have caused state and local governments to react with alarm. Stretched to the limit by these burdensome costs, the state of California sued the federal government in 1993 for $10.5 billion to recover the costs of education, health care, policing, and other administrative services for legal and illegal immigration.

California officials estimated that emergency services, including pregnancy and child-delivery medical treatment, cost the state in excess of a billion dollars a year. Fraud and misuse of state-funded welfare services stretched the tax base to the limit, and the constant influx of cheap labor contributed to a 3 percent rise in unemployment among legal residents of the state. In addition, state and local authorities were spending more than $500 million a year to arrest and imprison illegal immigrants who committed serious crimes. New York estimates these added costs at $270 million, while Illinois estimates $40 million per year for incarceration alone.

An Ethical Dilemma

The problems created by these inequities cannot be measured in dollars and cents or in quality of life alone. At this moment there are nearly four million eligible people on waiting lists for legal immigration to this country; some have waited as long as eighteen years. But illegal immigration has further extended the delay, as the steady stream of invading peoples makes a mockery of American law and immigration policies and places law-abiding citizens and thousands of legal aliens at a disadvantage.

The demand for falsified documents in Southern and coastal states has created a thriving underworld industry in counterfeiting, thievery, and forgery. For as little as $40 per person, illegal aliens can purchase documents that guarantee them unquestioned entitlement to health care, welfare, and work privileges. In addition to the problems this creates for American workers, the related support and infrastructure burdens on the states tap the resources of taxpayers to the tune of $40 billion every year.

The problems in public education are equally great. Public schools are already overcrowded with six million more children in schools today than in the late 1980s. By 2002 school attendance is expected to rise from the current level of approximately 50 million students in primary and secondary education to more than 55 million—largely a result of new immigration.

The language problem has become so intense in New York City schools that authorities were forced to open a special school for immigrant children in Queens. In San Francisco, where fully one-third of all public school students are enrolled in "limited English" programs, a Newcomer High School was opened especially for the children of immigrants.

Passage by the voters of California in 1994 of Proposition 187 to deny expensive social services to illegal aliens created a firestorm of controversy. Supporters of the initiative insisted that language and educational problems created by illegal immigration had placed an unfair burden on schools, hospitals, and public services. Opponents argued that the state does not have the right to deny education to any immigrant, regardless of legal status. Obviously, there are many moral and legal issues to be dealt with, not the least of which is the constitutional right of citizens to make and pass such resolutions. However, for the time being a federal judge has overruled the people of California and placed a freeze on any changes pending action by a higher court.

Social Consequences

According to an April 1997 report from the Associated Press, more than 180,000 aliens were granted U.S. citizenship in 1996 without the mandatory criminal background checks. An earlier AP report in February 1997 suggested that the Citizenship USA project, pushed by the White House in 1996 to expedite admission of 1.3 million aliens, may have allowed as many as 130,000 criminals into this country from Mexico, South America, and the Caribbean.

What makes this all the more objectionable is that the INS has pursued an opposite policy with respect to Christians fleeing persecution in communist and Muslim nations. Our own immigration service has sent back the vast majority of religious refugees seeking asylum. In January 1996 the National Association of Evangelicals released a "Statement of Conscience" which blamed the INS for its "hostile" treatment of Christian victims.

Meanwhile, the number of criminal aliens mounts. In 1980 there were approximately 9,000 criminal aliens in U.S. jails and prisons; by 1994 the number had jumped to 59,000. Today, criminal aliens account for more than 25 percent of all inmates in federal prisons and are the fastest growing segment of the prison population. The federal prison population of non-citizens has increased by about 15 percent per year from the mid–1980s to the present, compared to a 10 percent increase for U.S. citizens. Upkeep for each prisoner costs the taxpayers $21,300 per year.

The list of problems created by poor planning and inadequate immigration controls reads like a strategic plan for national decline. In addition to the crime problems, higher taxes, the squeeze on the job market created by the influx of low-paid immigrant labor, and the education and social services problems, the cities that receive the largest numbers of immigrants also have twice the unemployment, three times the population density, seven times the crowding, 40 percent more people living in poverty, and 40 percent more serious crime per capita than cities with few or no immigrant arrivals.

A Christian Response

It would be unfair to blame the immigrants themselves for all these problems. Many immigrants, in fact, have enriched America, bringing brains and talent to our shores. Our wealth as a nation is due, in some measure, to the contributions of immigrants from all over the globe.

The responsibility for the adverse conditions related to immigration must fall on bad federal policy, lax border controls, and lack of adequate programs for relocation and residential assistance for incoming families. Illegal immigration must be halted at all costs: any nation that cannot define and defend its borders is hardly a nation at all. But the American people must have a better means of dealing with those who come to us from abroad; and this is an area where the churches should be able to help.

The Bible says we must not allow the aliens among us to be abused: "Do no wrong and do no violence to the stranger, the fatherless, or the widow, nor shed innocent blood . . . " (Jeremiah 22:3). The writer of Hebrews tell us, "Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some have unwittingly entertained angels" (Hebrews 13:2). And most compelling of all, when Jesus speaks to the disciples in Matthew 25 about the end times, when the Son of Man will return to judge the nations, he warns that some will receive blessings because they ministered to the strangers in their midst:

Then the King will say to those on His right hand, "Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me" (Matthew 25:34-36).

Failure to render care and concern for these strangers in our midst is to fail in our most essential Christian duty. God is love, we are told, and every believer is equipped to share God’s love with those in need. Surely none of us would wish to be held accountable for misunderstanding our responsibility in this area.

What You Can Do

Unlike many of the issues discussed in this book, the problem of immigration is not a single issue or a simple one. Obviously, immigration authorities need to establish sound policies for admission and naturalization, and maintain reliable enforcement. We need secure borders, and if that means increasing the number of qualified agents, expanding patrol authority or negotiating with other nations to stop the flood of aliens coming here without proper credentials, the government must take the necessary steps.

Secondly, we must deal appropriately with immigrants in our cities and towns to help them avoid situations that provoke crime, violence, fraud, and other irresponsible behaviors. State and local agencies can provide assistance for those who need help, provide work for those who are willing and able, and provide opportunities for free or reasonably priced language training.

Refugees are in a special class and generally receive favorable treatment at our borders, but Christians can help to make sure all these groups receive follow-up attention when they arrive in our towns—food, shelter, and simple advice about how we do things. It’s not a lot to ask, but a little concern and attention could save a life and change the future for an entire family. Sharing your faith and helping these people find a church that welcomes foreigners could make a world of difference. Your gift of love will surely have eternal, as well as temporal, rewards.

For further reading:

Roy Beck. The Case Against Immigration: The Moral, Economic, Social, and Environmental Reasons for Reducing U.S. Immigration Back to Traditional Levels. W.W. Norton & Co., 1996.
Peter Brimelow. Alien Nation: Common Sense About America's Immigration Disaster. Harperperennial Library, 1996.

On the World Wide Web:

NumbersUSA: http://www.numbersusa.com/
Immigration Forum: ftp://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/pub/Immigration/Index.html

(Coral Ridge Ministries does not necessarily endorse the opinions offered in the above resources. They are offered to aid understanding on the issue of immigration.)

[ Previous | Table of Contents | Next ]

Copyright 1997, Coral Ridge Ministries. All rights reserved.