However, I wasn’t able to bring them around to my way of thinking on some other things. We didn’t agree that:

1) Deportation doesn’t have to break up families, children can always go home with the parent(s). If advocates demand that citizen children have the right to have both parents stay in this country with them, then the solution is to end the whole “anchor baby” interpretation of the 14th Amendment. Or,

2) That the slavery analogy doesn’t work. Slaves were brought here against their will, treated like animals, and were rightfully given sanctuary because they were fleeing for their lives. Illegals come here voluntarily, are paid a wage they willingly accept, and are wrongfully given sanctuary because they are here primarily for economic not moral reasons. Or,

3) That “sanctuary” is all about awaiting a fair trial, not amnesty. The concept dates back to the Old Testament book of Numbers, chapter 35, where Moses was instructed to set up cities of refuge wherein men could await getting a fair trial before the congregation. This was to ensure that the punishment—death—fit the crime—murder. This was to avoid condemning a man to death for murder when he had only committed manslaughter.

The operative point here is that for churches to be truly biblical in their approach to sanctuary, the illegals must be awaiting a deportation trial—if a court has already issued a deportation order, then the church needs to comply with the ruling of that court and “render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s.”

Thus, what Adalberto United Methodist Church in Chicago gave to Elvira Arellano and her son Saul for a whole year was not really “a sanctuary” but more accurately “a hideout.”

Yet, with all the heated rhetoric in the immigration debate, I found comfort and hope in the fact that there is common ground on which I could agree with listeners like Hector and Lindsay.

Let’s begin with that common ground and secure the borders and deport criminal fugitives. Then, inevitably, the debate will rage on.

But, in the short run, we’ll be a safer place where the rule of law is elevated and a couple of steps will have been made in the right direction.