If not Congress, then Christ: Seeking the right response to the illegal immigrants who live among us

Maybe someday they'll do something.

They'll build a wall. They'll offer amnesty. They'll offer economic help to the nations whose citizens are crossing our borders because they cannot find work within their own. They'll fund a mass deportation. They'll actually punish the businesses and individuals who exploit illegal labor. 

They'll do something. Hell, they'll do anything. 

Someday.

But not today. Not tomorrow. Not a week from now. Probably not a year from now.

And not yesterday. Not the day before. Not a year ago. Not five years ago.

It has been nearly three decades since the United States Congress last agreed on a substantial immigration reform bill. And over the past 10 years, in particular, even the best of efforts to align our nation's immigration laws with the needs and desires of its population have been stymied by partisan bickering and political infighting.

In the meantime, the number of people living illegally in this country has grown.

Five million. Seven million. Nine million. Eleven-point-seven million — a number greater than the populations of New York City and Chicago combined.

It is completely appropriate to debate what our laws should do about this situation. It's also a largely theoretical exercise. Congress, because it is Congress, has failed to do its job when it comes to making laws that are actually effective in governing our borders and regulating who may work in this country. And that is unlikely to change any time soon.

The next question, then, is what should we do?

For whatever reason, these days I hear about this issue most often from my Christian friends. And they all seem so very angry. One recently lamented that "illegal aliens" in our nation, "get free housing, free health care, free contraception, free education, free transportation and the right to vote," and wondered why, if that was all true, he couldn't get some "free ammunition."

Notwithstanding the myriad inaccuracies of his statement — and setting aside the menacing insinuation as mere hyperbole — I was still struck by how incredibly unChristian his words seemed.

It has been a long time since I attended church, though. Perhaps, I thought, I've forgotten a thing or two along the way. So it was that I took the stairs to our family's library and dusted off the Bible my parents gave me when I left for basic training, nearly 20 years ago.

Here is what it (and a little bit of surfing on a handy Bible search tool) told me:

If they are homeless, shall we not give them shelter? Leviticus 25:35 says: "If your brother becomes poor and cannot maintain himself with you, you shall support him as though he were a stranger and a sojourner, and he shall live with you." 

If they are sick or injured, shall we not help nurse them back to health? Luke 10:25-37, the parable of the Good Samaritan, seems pretty clear on this: "He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine," Christ told his followers. "Go and do likewise."

Shall we turn their children away from our schools? What kind of a world would that beget? Proverbs 22:6 says that Christians should "start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it." And, of course, Matthew 19:14 is among several gospel renditions of a story in which Jesus rebukes his followers for pushing young would-be disciples away, saying "let the little children come to me." 

I don't know what the political solution will be to this crisis, but I do know that is it not coming. Not any time soon, at least. 

In the meantime, it seems rather clear to me what the Christian approach should be to those living among us in this, a nation in which about three-quarters of our citizens identify themselves as Christian.

We should treat them as friends, as neighbors, as brothers and sisters. We should treat them as fellow children of God.