In recent months, prominent leaders of the Evangelical Christian movement have joined
with mainline Protestant churches, the Catholic Bishops, the Conservative and Reform
branches of Judaism, and other establishment religious groups in calling for an overhaul
of U.S. immigration policy that includes amnesty for current illegal aliens and significant
increases in legal immigration to the United States.
Evangelical Protestantism has often been the odd-man-out in the arena of religious
political activism, tending to take a more conservative line than other established
religious denominations on contentious political and social issues. Thus, when leaders
of the Evangelical movement start singing from the same political hymnal as their more
left-leaning brethren, one might assume that the moral issues of the current immigration
debate are a matter of settled religious doctrine.
Yet, in the United States, arguably the most religious of all Western societies, the
majority of people continue to resist amnesty for illegal aliens, insist that immigration
laws be enforced, and oppose increasing levels of immigration to the United States. It
seems implausible that these millions of otherwise decent, generous, church-going folks
would suddenly exhibit a moral blind spot on the issue of immigration.
The disconnect between the clergy and the people who fill the pews suggests that the
moral questions surrounding immigration policy are not as clear as they might seem.
It is easy to understand the position taken by religious leaders when immigration is
viewed solely from the perspective of immigrants. We all understand and empathize with
the human aspirations that drive people to leave one country and come to another. It is
undeniable that immigration always benefits immigrants – they wouldn’t come otherwise.
What is missing from this narrow perspective on immigration is a thoughtful assessment
of how immigration affects people in the receiving society (or even how large-scale
emigration might impede morally desirable social and economic reforms in the sending
nations). The reason the United States, and every nation on Earth, restricts immigration,
however, is precisely because we recognize that what is in the individual interest of a
would-be immigrant is not necessarily in the interest of everyone else in the receiving
country.
Those who support amnesty for current illegal aliens and expanding legal immigration
(above its already record levels) do not necessarily claim a higher moral ground. They
tend, instead, to claim a higher rung on the socio-economic ladder, or see an immediate
personal, political or economic benefit in more open immigration.