Church Leaders in Alabama and Georgia Lead Fight Against Harsh Anti-Illegal Immigration Legislation
By Mary Theroux • Monday July 18, 2011 7:18 PM PDT • 6 Comments
Christians in Alabama and Georgia are stepping forward to defend undocumented immigrants against harsh new laws aimed against them. The new Alabama law—widely considered the nation’s most restrictive state law against illegal immigration—prohibits, among other provisions, providing transportation to illegal immigrants, requires schools to check the immigration status of students and report their findings to the state, and allows police to check the immigration status of anyone during a routine traffic stop or other interaction, and jail without bail those lacking proper documentation.
Leaders of the United Methodist Church, the Episcopal Church, the Lutheran Church and the Roman Catholic Church all have criticized the law as running counter to biblical teachings about caring for neighbors, helping visitors and showing hospitality to strangers.
Church leaders in Georgia actively opposed the recent passage of a similar law there, and a federal judge has blocked key provisions of the act.
In Birmingham, a crowd of 2,000 marched in protest against the law, and 100 United Methodist ministers signed an open letter to the governor criticizing the law.
Christians compare biblical instructions to welcome strangers and love others with the law’s restrictions against knowingly assisting undocumented immigrants by helping them secure a place to live, a job, health care other than for emergencies and even a ride to the store.
A first-hand witness of that harshest of restriction against the free movement of individuals, the Iron Curtain, Pope John Paul II wrote in his encyclical Laborem exercens, “Man has the right to leave his native land ... in order to seek better conditions of life in another country.”
Well-meaning Americans tend to frame their objection to illegal immigration in terms of its illegality. What they either do not know or cannot comprehend is that it is “illegal” because of a change in law and quotas—the rules under which our own forebears immigrated no longer exist.
Americans’ demand for immigrant labor falls mostly into two distinct groups: unskilled labor: agricultural, etc.; and highly-skilled: primarily hi-tech skills this country fails to produce in sufficient numbers due to our abysmal education system. While the H-1B visa covering specialty occupations helps provide a legal supply of the latter, the annual quota for these high-skill-level visas has in recent years been completely filled on the first day they are made available each year.
For unskilled labor, there is no such visa quota available, meaning that the vast majority of those with nothing to offer but a willingness to work hard have no legal means available to them to do so in America.
As detailed in the Independent Institute’s Open Letter on Immigration, immigrants come to America for its promise of freedom and opportunity—attributes we used to celebrate. Immigrants as a group are if anything arguably more representative of the so-called American ethic than our native-born: religious, family-oriented, and desiring to improve the lot of themselves and especially their children. As Independent Institute Senior Fellow Ben Powell points out:
The post-1965 immigrant wave IS different than prior immigration waves. It is partly distorted by government policy that prevents Europeans and others from coming, but it’s also different, NOT because the immigrants are fundamentally different, but because OUR culture is different than before.
Before, immigrants assimilated into a culture of hard work and self-reliance. Those who failed here often had to go home. Few go home today because of failure. Instead, they are taught to assimilate into a system of government reliance where failure and laziness are not punished. The post-1965 immigration wave is the first that has come once we had a welfare state in place. Unfortunately, that welfare state not only makes them less productive, it also teaches them to undermine our old culture that made America successful.
It’s wonderful to see church leaders stand up for what’s morally right in a war against immigrants for whom legal entry is all but impossible. Instead of enacting laws that criminalize the desire for a better life, breaking up families and driving illegal immigrants into the black market where they are more likely to be victimized and exploited, concerned Americans should be fighting the real cause of the deterioration of our society and economy: government entitlement programs that disincent the formation of families, sap human dignity, and undermine self-reliance.
For further on this issue, Independent Institute Research Director Alex Tabarrok explores Economic and Moral Factors in Favor of Open Immigration in depth in this talk, and Senior Fellow Benjamin Powell provides his video response to the Top 3 Myths About Immigration, here.
Tags: Business, Civil Liberties, Culture, Entrepreneurship, Immigration, Labor, Law, Liberty, Morality, Personal Liberty, Police, Property Rights, Racism, Religion, Socialism, Terrorism, The State, Unemployment, Welfare 
As a follower of Christ I understand the desire to love our neighbor and have compassion for those in need. BUT, it is a misuse of Christ’s teachings in this case. First, when asked about paying taxes to the government Christ clearly said render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and unto God what is God’s (paraphrased). The term “undocumented worker” is ridiculous, they broke the law coming into this country. We as individuals have a duty to help others, we should not force that duty onto others who do not agree. That in itself is the antithesis of Christianity, the Lord NEVER forced anyone to do His will. He taught and he asked but never “made” anyone do something against their will. As a second generation citizen from family who immigrated here legally, I have a problem with the attitudes of many of those coming here illegally. I lived on the border for many years and have seen many abuses by and toward illegals. Many do not share the American ideal of hard work and making it on your own merits. They illegally work, and get abused in that effort, on the other hand many illegally take welfare and social security benefits. Some are good people, many are not. The cost to the border states is enormous, for healthcare, etc., for people who are here illegally, and that includes many different races and cultures. We the tax payers are about tapped out on giving to the “illegal” and we have no say in the matter. As a christian, personally I have helped many folks, legal and some not. But it is MY choice as a Christian to do so and to whom I choose to give help. NO ONE, not a church or government should try to force me to do otherwise. Nor ask me to break the law or “make” me feel like they should change to a one size fits all solution. I have lived in many cultures and assimilating them within ours is great. Making subcultures that fracture the thread of our Constitution is just wrong no matter who proposes it. I believe God had a hand in our Constitution and the wholeness of our borders was an important part of how we became a Judeo-Christian country. Leave our freedom intact.
Bill | Jul 20, 2011 | Reply
Bill:
We are in complete agreement. Obviously in a blog post I can’t include all the articles, etc., we have done on the issue, but the quote from Dr. Powell was meant to convey our sincere opposition to welfare and other public, taxpayer-funded programs. Past waves of immigrants very successfully formed mutual aid societies that provided such assistance to their fellow-immigrants falling on hard times, and are an excellent model that should be followed.
Our book, The Voluntary City, contains an excellent history of mutual aid societies, as does this article, “poor Before Welfare.”
The one point on which I believe we remain at odds is the issue of these seekers of opportunity being here “illegally.” Again, that is a concept of only the laws of current men, not rooted in Natural Law. The immigration laws have been changed since your parents immigrated legally—they would no doubt today not have the ability to do so legally. Thus, the ethics of immigration is separate from its “legality.” Law as legislated and just law are increasingly entirely separate matters. It is an age-old concept that one should follow God’s law and when it deviates from man’s law, to hold true to what one knows to be Right. We believe that voluntary association among individuals is ethical—thus if I want to hire someone from another country or invite someone from another country to live in my property I should be as free to as I am to hire someone from another state.
I encourage you to also read the articles I reference in my post, above.
Thank you for writing,
Mary
Mary Theroux | Jul 20, 2011 | Reply
Just because the immigration laws have been changed doesn’t mean we should not folow them. As in anything else, if you don’t agree with the law, work to change it. As for the admonishment of not responding to the article, we are responding – we don’t agree with it. The fact the religious leaders are weighing in on the side of the illegal immigrants is no sign it is the right thing to do. The majority of people in this country are weary from carrying the burdens of the world and the fact that people from another country are treated better than our own citizens is appalling to them, so they react negatively. I do too!
Ardis | Jul 20, 2011 | Reply
Dear Ardis,
You wrote:
“Just because the immigration laws have been changed doesn’t mean we should not folow them. As in anything else, if you don’t agree with the law, work to change it.”
I understand your viewpoint and it is very common but when positive law (passed by governments) conflict with Natural Law, you can work to change it (as we do at the Institute) but you can also resist it. That may come with a price (see my _Race and Liberty in America_ for people who paid the price).
Another author of note: Heinrich Rommen was a lawyer in Germany. When the Nazis too over and passed laws to discriminate between Jews and non-Jews, require gun registration and so forth, Rommen grew disgusted at the populace and the lawyers who said “you must obey the law or work to change it, but meantime you must obey.” Was it wrong for Christians to resist? I’m not calling the USA Nazi Germany but if the government tramples on basic human rights then we share that in common with all regimes that place “the laws” above individual freedom and Law properly construed.
Jonathan Bean | Jul 22, 2011 | Reply
Mary, THANK-YOU... I am so tired of hearing from supposedly “small-government” types on the right who argue that in order to reduce the size of government, we first need to increase the size of government (stronger government presence and stricter enforcement at the border). I have argued your above points for years (no legal means of immigration for unskilled, and limited legal means for skilled workers). And Bill’s argument that somehow it is within the teachings of Christ that we should deny another human being the right to seek a better life, and the freedom to travel at will, is prevalent in the “God and Country” crowd. But at the end of the day, it really is as simple as this; borders are for governments. Big strong borders are for big strong governments. Borders are how governments control its citizenry. If you favor a citizenry beholden to its government than you must by default favor a strong border/immigration/travel policy. Free men move freely. And with our current border/immigration/travel policy, there are no free men in America. What I find odd, is that the right can argue for restrictions on liberty for non-U.S. citizens, all the while criticizing the TSA and Homeland Security… odd indeed. As if the “All” from the “All men are created equal” only meant “All men born in the U.S.” We were all born with our freedoms and liberties – they are inalienable (or “unalienable” for the Jeffersonians among us), no man, or group of men can take those rights and liberties. The only thing that governments can do is violate those rights, and at our airports, and along our borders, that is exactly what they do – daily.
This of course is not to construe that I do not understand the “immigration” symptom that we are now experiencing, nor that I do not understand the difficulties that this symptom has created. That symptom however is a result of a domestic policy problem (welfare, high taxes, prohibition, etc...) and a foreign policy problem (the visa restrictions you mentioned above), and thus to solves that symptom, we must address these two problems. Do that and the immigration symptom will resolve itself, and we will then have to return the immigration “issue” to it’s rightful place of argument, one of racism and prejudice.
joe4liberty | Jul 26, 2011 | Reply