Illegal Immigration

So I keep running into discussions of this issue in all sorts of venues with all sorts of opinions. I thought I’d throw mine out there.

I’m all for ending situations that make it easy for those in power to take advantage of the underdogs. I don’t like the fact that people can do “favors” for illegal immigrants at exorbitant rates, or get labor for sub-legal wages knowing that those being taken advantage of won’t complain, can’t complain to authorities.

So here are two ways to bring an end to illegal immigration:

1. Allow all immigration. If all immigrationn is legal, there will be no illegal immigrants and none of the accompanying abuses.
2. If that doesn’t sound good to you, another option would be to bulster the economy (particularly the local economies of the poor) in those countries where illegal immigrants are coming from. If they can get enough for themselves and their families to eat, plus maybe a little extra to buy their kids gifts at Christmas, they won’t have sufficient motivation to face the affore mentioned attrocities. They will stay in their own country and we won’t have to learn to interface with other cultures and we can continue to make enemies abroad largely through our cultural illiteracy

Until one of the above (or some other real solution) is carried out, there will continue to be illegal immigrants. There will continue to be people who will risk a great deal on the chance of a better life, or more like on the chance of a better life for their kids.

So in the meantime I propose that those of us who call ourselves by the name of him who came “to preach good news to the poor . . . proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, [and] to release the oppressed” do some of the same ourselves. I propose that we work, not only to reduce abuses to the disenfranchised, but to live lives of love that reach people in real ways.

Like I said, I’ve overheard several of these conversations recently, most of them took sides other than the one laid out here. I’m not trying to ignore other issues. But I want to lay out what I feel is important, what I think is called for from those of us who call ourselves by the name of Jesus.