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Jim Davis
Welcome to TGC good faith debates. This is a series of conversations designed to help you learn about and engage in issues of contemporary life and culture that might be confusing might be challenging and might even be divisive or polarizing. My name is Jim Davis. I’m Pastor of Orlando Grace Church. And it is a privilege to be able to moderate these debates today. The topic is immigration. Immigration is obviously a charged issue. It is a political issue. But it’s also a gospel issue. So we want to talk about it. And today I am here with Matthew Saurons. Who is and I have to read this because it’s a long one, US director of church mobilization and advocacy for World Relief. And Dr. Darren Guerra, who is a professor of political science at Biola. University. Thank you both for joining us here today. Glad to be here. Thank you. Well, Matthew, we can start with you. We would love to hear your perspective on the question. Should we have tougher immigration laws?
Matthew Soerens
Yeah, I will get to that question. But I do want to say just upfront, first of all, thanks for having me. Wonderful to be here. Great to be with you, Darren. I think that question of governmental policy is super important. But sometimes I think as Christians, we only ever get to that question. And we skipped over a question that, you know, certainly biblically, there’s some potential wisdom that we can draw from the scriptures that might guide our thinking about public policy. But most of what the Bible has to say about immigration and immigrants is more to the question of how do we treat our immigrant neighbors that I won’t spend all my time there. But I do just want to mention that those biblical principles, I think, are really important. You know, it’s loving your neighbor as yourself, which is pretty clear from the Good Samaritan story that that can include a vulnerable traveler of a different ethnicity or a different religion. It’s a sense of solidarity with the global church. And it’s worth noting that in the US context, at least, it’s hard to measure people’s hearts. But most immigrants self identify as some sort of Christian background, and many of them certainly have bring a vibrant Christian faith with them. That is a gift to the mission of God in the United States. Some of them are even persecuted for their faith in Christ. And that’s how they end up as refugees, the United States. And then the flip side of that is there are others who don’t yet know Jesus, there’s a missional opportunity associated with migration with the great commission is to make disciples of all nations. Certainly we shouldn’t be doing that in the ends of the earth. But we’ve missed something really profound if we don’t notice that God and His sovereignty has brought people from the ends of the earth to this context in the US, where we are blessed with rigid religious freedom, where we have the opportunity to share our faith freely, and individuals who might never have encountered the hope of the gospel in their own country can either receive that or to reject it. We respect their religious freedom to do either, but is a way that God is at work. And I don’t think that’s an accident next 17, it talks about how God is sovereign over the movement of people towards the net and verse 27, that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him. I start with that, because I think sometimes so many Christians have not actually recognized immigration as a gospel opportunity. In fact, LifeWay Research, did a poll that was out just recently, less than half of self identified evangelical Christians say that they think of the arrival of immigrants to their community as an opportunity to introduce people to Jesus. And I suspect that’s because for a lot of evangelicals, not all but many of us start with a question of policy, should we have tough policies or lenient policies, and then never get to the other questions of how do we actually interact with our immigrant neighbors? That said, as we do interact with our immigrant neighbors, and in a ministry context, and that’s the work that we do it well, relief, I get the privilege of working, it doesn’t usually take very long to realize that policies are important. And they have very profound impacts on people and on our society as a whole. And I do think that there’s some biblical wisdom that we can draw on to think about what is a good prudent immigration policy? Is it tougher, is it less tough? Of course, you can define those in different ways. But I would say generally speaking, there’s a few biblical principles that really guide me as I think about that, starting with this idea that human beings, including every immigrant are made in the image of God, God in Genesis, chapter one, we see that God makes both man and woman in His image. And Christians have historically understood that to mean that human beings have this inherent dignity that is worth respecting. Now, that doesn’t mean the US government must have a policy that everyone can come to this country. What it does mean is as Christians, we should be encouraging our government to treat everyone humanely in a way that recognizes their dignity, even when the policy of the government is means that they’re going to have to be sent back to a different country. A second dynamic of that image of God is that we should have, I think, err on the side of wanting to protect human life. So that’s why if tougher immigration laws mean, let’s roll back helping refugees who are fleeing a credible fear of persecution, or those seeking asylum because they say that they’re fleeing a risk of death in their country of origin. I wouldn’t be conveyed concerned with that. I think we should err on wanting to respect human life, whether that’s under or in life are born life, whether that’s of any nationality, any religious tradition, human life is has dignity and it’s worth protecting. One of the dynamic of being made in the image of God is we believe that human beings are made in the image of a creator with this mandate to to be fruitful and multiply. And, you know, sometimes we talk about immigration, the focus is on Well, what are those people going to take? What are they going to receive? Those are fair questions for our society. But they’re really only fair questions, if we’re concurrently asking the question of what are they going to contribute as people made in the image of God. And the reality is, if you talk to economists, the vast majority of economists have a very warm view of immigration, they tend to think that it’s good not only for immigrants, but for the US society as a whole. In fact, even if you get to the most complicated and controversial category of immigration, which is illegal immigration, the Wall Street Journal surveyed economists a few years back and found that 96{c024931d10daf6b71b41321fa9ba9cd89123fb34a4039ac9f079a256e3c1e6e8} of economists said that the net economic economic impact of illegal immigration was positive for the United States. Now, that’s not to say they’re not cost there are. But we make a mistake if we only add up the costs, and don’t do what good economists do, which is also add up the contributions. So my general general view on immigration is not that we should have unlimited immigration, but we should have a more generous approach, at least towards legal migration.
Another biblical principle that I think comes into play here is God actually has some immigration laws for the people of Israel in the Old Testament. Now, I would be very careful to say, I don’t think that God intended those for the United States of America. And I don’t think we should take the book of Deuteronomy and just turn it into US Code. But I do think that there’s some principles, some some things that we can learn about the character of God from what we see of God’s treatment of vulnerable Sojourner strangers in the Old Testament. Starting with this principle of equal justice under the law we see in Exodus 12, and elsewhere, as God gives the law to the Israelites, he repeatedly says the same law applies to the sojourner who resides among you and to the native born. And that’s a principle that I think is worth considering that has positive and negative ramifications. It meant that immigrants sojourners received a Sabbath day rest and fair treatment as laborers. It also meant that if you committed a crime, if you violated the law, there was penalties. And that implies a certain element of integration into society that’s appropriate. But then the other part of the Old Testament law is that God repeatedly mentions the sojourner, the stranger, the immigrant, depending which English translation you’re you’re reading alongside the fatherless, and the widow, as these groups of people who were uniquely vulnerable. And even to the point of establishing laws for the people of Israel and Deuteronomy 24, God says, you know, go through your crops one time leave what remains for the, the fatherless, the widow, the soldier. So there was this idea of a system to ensure that these particularly vulnerable, usually landless people will have their most basic needs for sustenance met, not by handout, they still had to go do some work, but God was looking out for those who are vulnerable. And I think that’s a principle that we can encourage our government to consider as well. You know, I think we should certainly prefer for that to be an immigration that is lawful as opposed to unlawful. And that goes to what I would say is my last point, biblically, is the idea that God has ordained government. And we see that most clearly in Romans chapter 13, where we see Paul writes to the church in Rome, that government has been established by God, the governing authorities says do not bear the sword without reason. And that’s why as a Christian, I don’t think we have the option to simply ignore laws that we don’t like, we do have the option in a democratic form of government to peacefully try to change laws that we think are not functioning well. And we do that at World Relief and our partners with the Evangelic immigration table. But we can’t just simply throw our hands up in the air and ignore laws because God has established government. That’s one reason, for example, that we’ve always maintained at World Relief, that it’s appropriate to expect our government to have secure borders, to do what is reasonably possible to know who’s coming into the country, and to do everything reasonably possible to keep out anyone who’d be seeking to do harm. Now, that doesn’t mean every border security proposal is prudent or efficient or a good use of resources. But I think it is, it’s a fair expectation on government. I don’t think that’s a harsh immigration policy to say, we have a border that it’s our government’s job to respect it. Also, of course, a secure border is not the same as a closed border that no one ever crosses. That’s not a realistic possibility in a globalized world. The other dynamic of respecting the rule of law is that we have roughly 11 million immigrants who are unlawfully present in the country. That’s only about a quarter of the immigrants in the country. And that’s worth observing. But that’s why as as an evangelical Christian, I don’t think that we should have an amnesty policy that says you broke the law, but it’s forgiven and forgotten. Amnesty is from the same Greek root word as amnesia, universally ignored that violation of law. We’ve held up position that world really for a long time. On the other hand, I don’t think that is either humane or respecting this other institution that God has established the family to just round up 11 million people and deport them, especially when you think about millions of US born kids who under US law cannot be deported. So what we’ve proposed for a long time, and actually John Piper proposed this years ago, as he said, there needs to be a way to both honor the law and show compassion to immigrants and what Piper proposed was To have them pay a fine a penalty. That’s what we’ve proposed as well. We’ve called that a restitution based immigration reform. So not an amnesty that says a lot doesn’t matter. But a way to come forward acknowledge a violation of law, pay a significant fine is a consequence for that violation of law, whether that was crossing a border unlawfully, or about half those 11 million people overstayed a temporary visa, and then have the opportunity to earn permanent legal status over the course of time, if you’re willing to, you know, be reasonable requirements, if you pair that with making it easier to immigrate legally. And a lot of our challenges, I think are result of a really archaic immigration system that hasn’t been updated in terms of quotas since about 1990. And with real good faith efforts to keep people from immigrating unlawfully, I think, you know, so is that a tough immigration policy? Some people who think we should have open borders and amnesty would say, That’s too tough. Is it a too loose of an immigration policy, some people who would say, seal off the borders and cut legal immigration would say that perhaps I think it both honors the law and is compassionate to vulnerable people and to the idea of keeping families together. And lastly, I’d say that’s important in part because it’s also a way for us as the church to convey to immigrants, some of whom are already brothers and sisters in Christ, but many others whom are not that we care about them that we care about their well being. And that has a profound impact when we think about the credibility of the gospel that we proclaim.
Jim Davis
Well, I appreciate that. And just to clarify, you obviously want lawful immigration, you want secure borders, but you would be open for open once with secure borders, opening them for more immigrants
Matthew Soerens
more not unlimited, but I think we should have more, I think it would be in our national interest and in the interest of a lot of vulnerable people to have greater lawful migration. Okay, thank you, and in a variety of categories, like refugees, but also employer sponsored immigrants, family reunification.
Jim Davis
Appreciate it. We’re gonna dive more into that in a little bit. Darren, what’s your perspective?
Darren Guerra
Well, again, also, thank you for having me here. I want to focus on on one word, I think a lot of this centers around that word is home. People want a home. And what is a home a home is a place where you can take your hat off, be yourself, where you can laugh and cry, you can experience life together, experience life with your families. But when we think about what makes a home Well, part of fundamentally what makes a home is your ability to close your windows, shut your doors, define your own personal space, my neighbor has their home, I have my home. But what makes it a home is the fact that it’s my home, I have space that I have control over. And I have boundaries that I can set. And when you carry that over into thinking about countries and nations that define spaces defined by borders. And so that’s where I would say that we need tough borders, clearly defined borders and clarity to find laws on how to police those borders. I want to contrast that with views and that there are some who do advocate open borders that advocate that we need a borderless world that we better bring efficiencies and so forth. I want to talk about that in a minute. But I want to focus on what the borders two borders primarily do. They do a lot of things but but three things. One is they help you, as I’ve suggested, define your community. Right? And so when you define your community, you’re allowed you’re you’re able to set unique ways of customs and laws that define you as a people. My mom, when she was a young married woman and my dad invited his uncle over my uncle was a bit of a character and my mom is very meek and mild smile on her face happy go lucky. nonconfrontational kindergarten teacher. And my uncle comes over and he wants to light up a cigarette. And she nonconfrontational person she said, put her foot down. No, there’s no smoking in my home. And he he hemmed and hawed and got but he finally complied. And now the thing is, he was free to smoke a cigarette in his home, he was free to smoke a cigarette out of his home. But when he crossed that border into her home, it was going to be the rules that her and my father set, and that he was going to adhere to. And I think we need to remember that we as Americans, over 200 years have set up a home in this in this in this world. And that home has a principles enshrined in the declaration and pennants has laws and trying to in the Constitution, we have laws and customs and ways of behaving as Americans, that that we want to honor and we want to preserve that. And so we need to think about but that can only be done if we have borders that we maintain. Secondly, I think once you have a community that’s established, that community is set up for human flourishing people want to flourish and my great grandmother who immigrated from Southern Italy cheer month outside of of Napoli, she came over, raised a family in New York City, upstate New York, but she did it without her husband who died tragically upon arrival in the United States. her version of human flourishing was having a garden. And when she later moved to California as an 18 year old, she would call up her grandchildren and say, perform a Performa. And they would dutifully come over and they would unload a pile of manure and hope fertilize her garden. So she grow her vegetables and grow her plants. That was her vision of human flourishing. My father in law, Vic immigrated from the Philippines. And he came from a place where they lived outdoors a lot. He didn’t have shoes, a place of poverty, he came and found opportunity and flourishing in the United States, like a lot of immigrants want to do. And he brought his wife, he had three daughters, one of which I married, thankfully. And he also sponsored his extended family. And so this idea of human flourishing, this is important. But again, it can only be done if we have borders that are clear, we have laws that are strictly enforced, and that allows people to flourish and flourish and unique ways that America allows people to flourish. Lastly, borders allow us to have security, people need security, they need to be able to lay their head on the pillow at night and know that they’re safe. And they’re protected from threats, either from foreign powers or individuals that are dangerous. They need to know that who’s coming and going into our country is something that’s going to contribute to the community and contribute to human flourishing and not something that’s not. And so it pains me when I when I hear some Christians advocating for open borders, a borderless world, or they advocate or they point out, they say that the Christian church is anti immigrant. And I really don’t think that’s true. I don’t think the Christian church is anti immigrant. I think they are anti chaos, and they are anti confusion. And the Cato Institute who’s very pro immigration has a study showing that when there’s increased chaos at the border, then anti immigration support for immigration laws go down. When there’s peace and stability at the border support for legal immigration goes up. And so when people see people, maybe complaint and artfully about immigration, it’s usually an indicator that things are not going well at the border, and that they’re not unhappy with immigration, because as I’ve pointed out, our nation is a country. In many ways of immigrants, every almost every family has ever got stories like the ones that I shared. And there the Bible, it does call us to care for the sojourner call for the immigrant. And it does do that and and so we are called to do that. But it also the Bible does show that people God has ordained different communities, different ethnicity, different nationalities, and those are to be respected. Israel has unique customs has unique ways of, of living and moving and breathing the world that that needs to be honored. And so the in the Old Testament shows that other other communities do as well. Remember, in the book of Ruth Ricci comm says Your people will be my people, your God will be my God. And it’s a picture. It’s a beautiful picture of being integrated into a new community. And so we can’t take that that lightly. The other thing I want to point out is this notion of a borderless world, I want to come back to that there are those that advocate you can look on the internet and just see people advocating for this and they produce and I want to caution us against that one, as I’ve shown it this not within the larger biblical mandate that for this time, there are going to be different peoples and will be different communities and they have a right to define their way of governing themselves and their own way. But a borderless world. I think if Christians really think about it and think it through deeply, who’s going to govern this borderless world, and human history basically have three ways that human beings have govern themselves, either and tribes and clans on one end, or on the other end on large empires ruled by distant elites. In the middle, we see the nation, larger collections of peoples, but so closer to the communities that are governing, I would advocate for us maintaining that middle posture. In a globalized borderless world, you’re going to have either the chaos of the clans, or you’re gonna have the homogeneity of an empire. And again, I think the Bible counsels against this with the Tower of Babel, right? Human beings are trying to create a world in which there were similar in languages and customs and cultures and, and God tore down the tower saying no, there’s going to be different people and they’re gonna have different customs and we’re gonna respect that. Think in a globalized world. I’m concerned about an elite that doesn’t respect the differences that people have naturally. Also think in a globalized world where there’s no borders, I would say poor borderless not necessarily globalized, but more or less but there is some relationship there but a borderless world. I’m concerned about the dignity of the human person. Human beings tend to become economic units. They become they tend to be depersonalized borders are the way that we can express our uniqueness express concern for the Imago Dei and moving towards a borderless world is is not something that we should move toward Christians should. While they may be trying to love their neighbor by advocating against borders or border enforcement, I think moving us in a direction where there aren’t borders where there aren’t rules where there aren’t sustained communities in that way is a mistake. Just to summarize, God has given us borders and communities they provide us were able to create our communities, we’re unable to engage in human flourishing, we’re able to provide security, and that helps us have a home, a place that we can call our own, even in a communal sense. And that can be our home until God’s God calls us and is divine providence to our eternal home.
Jim Davis
Thank you. Alright, well, I’m gonna start out with maybe my most divisive question. Immigration, while it’s been a conversation for a long time, seem to be more of a household conversation during the Trump administration in those elections. And his America First policy, what would you to say is question for both of you? I’ll start with you, Matthew, what would you say were the pros and the cons of Trump’s America’s first policy as it pertains to immigration?
Matthew Soerens
You know, I think, first of all, I think every country is going to put their own interests and the interests of their citizens first. So on that level, I think that’s just sort of rational. And I mean, anyone who is trying to win elections in the United States probably should be more concerned about the views of voters who are allowed to vote the United States, then about people halfway around the world. I think that’s, you know, reasonable. I do think, though, the broad the state is that I don’t know, as Christians that I can get on board with that idea. I mean, it was just reading Luke for this morning, actually. And Jesus goes into his hometown of Nazareth, and they’re just enthralled with his message. You know, it’s like, Who is this guy? He’s amazing. And then he has to, you know, from their perspective, ruin things by mentioning God’s love for people beyond the people of Israel by talking about in the Old Testament, how God had gone out of his way to care for people outside of Israel. And a few verses later, they’re trying to throw Him off a cliff, it would have been easier to just go Nazareth, Nazareth first. But Jesus’s vision is bigger than that than that. So I do think there’s gonna be a difference. I mean, I think it’s understandable and appropriate that an elected official is going to prioritize the interests of United States. I don’t know that as a Christian, I can I can justify prioritization of those who happened to be had been born in the same country? I think there are, it’s a biblical argument, the Galatians, six, for prioritizing the concerns of those who share our faith who are part of the family of God, you know, to be seek the good of all people, but especially those long the family believers. And again, I wouldn’t say that’s the state role, I wouldn’t support the government saying we’re gonna prioritize people of one religion, but it is part of why I think Christians should be concerned about persecuted Christians. That’s where I would say I have a lot of concerns maybe not less with like the language of America first, but with the outcomes of those policies under the Trump administration, for example, President Trump came into office one week in office, he put an executive action that restricted refugee resettlement, put a moratorium on refugee resettlement. And I remember talking to reporters, I was actually in DC when that happened. And, you know, working through what the executive order would mean, he talked a lot about a Muslim man in during the campaign, which we were not supportive of. But what are the if we think that Muslims are made an image of God and their neighbors from we’re called the left, and we shouldn’t have a test that says people want religion are not welcome in this country. Frankly, it’s also closing off an incredible mission opportunity for the American church. But the effects of closing not all refugee resettlement, actually probably affected more persecuted Christians ended persecuted Muslims, because it shut down refugee resettlement altogether, at least for a time. And over the course of four years, we saw refugee resettlement decline dramatically. And this is a lawful form of migration. These are people identified by the US government because they have fled a credible fear of persecution on account of specific reasons race, religion, political opinion, national origin or social group. waterleaf worked with Open Doors USA, and we actually looked in 2020. Yet Well, what has been the effect on Christian refugees from the particular countries were open doors as Christians face the most severe persecution in the world, their World Watch list, it’s, you know, it’s it’s Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, North Korea, Burma, some of the countries you’d expect. We went as a country from taking more than 18,000 Christian refugees from those 50 countries, Christians of any Christian tradition, down declined by about 90{c024931d10daf6b71b41321fa9ba9cd89123fb34a4039ac9f079a256e3c1e6e8} over the course of five years. And I really feel that that isn’t an effective this American first idea that meant the United States closed its doors on the persecuted church, and on persecuted people of other faiths whose views of of Jesus are impacted by the response of of a nation that many people rightly or wrongly view as a Christian nation. So my biggest concern with a lot of those policies is actually the witness that it has for people outside the United States. And you know, it’s absolute The truth, there’s amazing churches who are not anti immigrant who are very eager to welcome people. We also did see public opinion surveys in 2018, that the percentage of white evangelicals, which is my categories, I’m not picking on them. But the percentage of white evangelicals who wanted who said that the US should has a responsibility to take refugees declined to about 25{c024931d10daf6b71b41321fa9ba9cd89123fb34a4039ac9f079a256e3c1e6e8}. That was kind of a gut punch to me, because I mean, I think that this is a proud part of our nation’s history. And the good news is it’s back up. I mean, whether that’s because of Afghanistan, or Ukraine, or people been reading their Bibles more, I don’t know for sure. But it’s 68{c024931d10daf6b71b41321fa9ba9cd89123fb34a4039ac9f079a256e3c1e6e8} of white evangelicals. Wow. It’s a big jump, huge jump in four years. And frankly, I think it’s partially because President Trump isn’t president and isn’t on Twitter and isn’t saying some things that were untrue about particular categories of refugees, and about the vetting process that exists and has existed for a long time for refugee resettlement.
Jim Davis
Thanks, Darren, same question.
Darren Guerra
In terms of Trump?
Jim Davis
Specifically, his America First policy implications and immigration pros and cons, right?
Darren Guerra
Well, I think I would, I would say, controversy about immigration does not start with Donald Trump. And I would say that Donald Trump and his campaign and his his rhetoric about immigration and refugees and so forth, regardless of how an artful it may have been, at times, it was responding to an angst as I suggested earlier, in the American people about our government’s inability, and sometimes unwillingness to deal with immigration in consistent and fair ways. And so I wouldn’t lay all of that on him. He was responding to movements within the American electorate that were expressing disinterest or not disinterest just appointment and how our government was handling immigration. For years. I remember in grad school in the mid 90s, I was studying immigration a little bit and there was controversy over how to handle it, there was controversy over Reagan’s immigration laws. And before that, the Brasero program, and this is an ongoing issue. And it has become, you know, it’s a political football of sorts. So Donald Trump was more seizing on the discontent of the confusion and the chaos surrounding the borders. And so that’s kind of how I took his view. Now, again, we people could debate how artful he was about how going about that, but I don’t think he was stirring things up. He was responding to me stirring things up, depends on you interpret that, but he was responding to discontent that was already there. And it was discontent tied to the government’s inability to deal with this and protect our borders and who we are as a people in an orderly fashion.
Jim Davis
Thanks, Matthew, you made the case that the US economy would have a net positive from immigration, both legal and illegal. I understand you’re not supporting the illegal immigration. But one of the arguments that I hear against immigration is that these people are going to take our jobs, particularly the illegal immigrants. So how do you respond to that claim, given what you’re saying? Sure.
Matthew Soerens
Yeah. So a lot of Americans believe that to be true, although I will say in the polling, the number of Americans who believe that to be true has gone down really significantly. In part, I think that’s because most of us have been to a restaurant recently, that’s close two nights a week because there’s not enough of waitstaff or kitchen staff. There’s last I read about 5 million more jobs in this economy than there are people who say they’re looking for work, which is a particular time for me that it would make sense to have, again, don’t open up the border without regulation, but have more visas available for those seeking to fill a job, whether that’s an agriculture or restaurants or at the high skill end of doctors and nurses and so many other real shortages in our economy, I think that’s the place to start would be matching the needs the self interest of the United States with vulnerable people who are looking for opportunities. But I would say even at a normal time, you know, that’s sort of a simplistic view of the economics of immigration that well, there’s 1010 jobs in the economy. If you give one to an immigrant, there’s one less job for an American economist, I think that it’s a lot more complicated than that for a bunch of reasons. One of those is not all jobs are the same. That is to say there’s complementarity in labor. So an example of this, I was at a church in Iowa a while back and talked to a dairy farmer, he owns a dairy farm. And he said, You know, I’d be very happy to hire American citizens Iowans, to milk cows. I’ve tried to in fact, but they’re not applying. Meanwhile, a lot of Central Americans are and because they’re willing to milk cows, which is a hard job. And he said, By the way, I’m paying them well, you know, I want to pay people well treat them well. I still have my job running a dairy. And not only that, but there’s the ice cream factory down the highway, which is where most of our milk goes and people have a job in that ice cream factory because somebody’s going to milk a cow. And then you can think about the truck drivers you can think about various levels of the economy. It’s not that we have one set number of jobs that are simply replaceable with one another. It’s also true that immigrants are not just taking jobs or you know, that may be a derogatory way to talk about accepting employment, whether they’re lawfully present are not the reality. This does happen, people working in effect, those who are unauthorized. And again, I’m not condoning this, but they work at a higher, they have a higher labor participation rate than those who are lawfully present, because there’s no social safety net, that they’re going to benefit from very little. But they’re not just taking those jobs. They’re also adding to the whole of the US economy. They’re buying groceries, they’re buying smartphones, and cars and paying rent on buying houses even. And all that goes back into the US economy. The reality is, if we didn’t have immigration in the United States, and with birth rates, as we have them, we would have a declining population very likely. And we can see at a country like Japan, what that does to an economy, it’s very difficult to sustain a growing economy with a shrinking population, not just Japan, but you can find certain states in the United States where they have a similar problem. And interestingly, it’s often immigrants who’ve moved into sort of dying towns in the Rust Belt that are reviving creating businesses by creating the consumption base as well. So again, all that goes back in my mind to this idea that people are made in the image of God. And we should care for vulnerable people because they have dignity. But we should also then not be surprised when they have something to contribute. I mean, even you know, we talked about taking jobs, 44{c024931d10daf6b71b41321fa9ba9cd89123fb34a4039ac9f079a256e3c1e6e8} of the Fortune 500 companies in this country were founded by an immigrant or their child. I mean, there’s all sorts of American jobs, that wouldn’t be American jobs might not be jobs at all, was we’re not our country’s heritage of immigration. And that’s not to say that we shouldn’t have some expectation of integration into society, I think it’s people who come and who want to embrace the values of our Constitution of the core values of our nation. And that’s part of what makes that economic process growth possible. And so I certainly agree on that. But I, I think that the idea of these people are taking our jobs. You know, we don’t necessarily say that one, like, oh, people from Wisconsin moved to Illinois, we only say it from people from outside of our national boundaries. But economists don’t tend to take that view. All right,
Jim Davis
that’s helpful. Matthew, mentioned there in two specific opportunities for the church with increased immigration. Now, both of you admit that the church and the government were different things. But from a Christian standpoint, he mentioned the gospel opportunity in the terms of the Great Commission opportunity. So unbelievers coming in who would have an increased opportunity to hear the gospel, but also an opportunity in terms of is 10s of millions of people are leaving the church today. The the great D churching. happening all around us the gospel opportunity in the reality that a lot of the people who want to immigrate are coming from the global south and bring with them Orthodox Christianity, that could be an infusion to the church in America. Do you think that those two gospel opportunities should compel the average American Christian to want more immigration? Again, we’re all arguing for secure, not open borders, but more immigration into our country today?
Darren Guerra
I think they can be I think, I find little to disagree with in those two points. And I think that’s true. And we should look for gospel opportunities in in any situation. But I think often when we talk about immigration, its glossary, it does focus you on the economics, or it focuses on on kind of the church’s role in spreading the gospel or nurturing immigrant. And so I don’t have an issue with that. What I do have an issue with is often the conversation ignores people who do have concerns about the real impact of uncontrolled unlimited immigration, I know, you’re not calling for that. But there are people who are. And when people object to that or want some kind of more control over the process. And they want that process to be more orderly, than they get pushed back. They’re called names, and they’re called extremists. And I think that’s unfortunate is that people have a hard time expressing concerns over the instability that happens with an uncontrolled immigration process. And people come here. For a certain type of community, they come here for the culture and the laws that have been built up over the years and the customs and the people. And sure it changes as new immigrants come they contribute new elements to the culture, but that’s built upon the traditional American culture that exists. I was talking to a man in our community there in Southern California, where there’s obviously a lot of immigrants, and he had recently come with an eight month from Venezuela, and he appreciated the stability that United’s hat and United States had in contrast to Venezuela. And so but I think there’s not when people try to have the conversation Well, how do we sustain that community? How do we sustain the values the principles, the built this country and made it great? Then they’re called that that can’t have that conversation and you can’t have it connected to immigration because that then maybe you’re racist, or maybe you’re insensitive to other cultures. And so I’m just concerned about shutting off parts of the car. conversation that do have to do with it is a real concern when you have unlimited immigration, what does happen to the culture long term? And if you don’t have an eye towards if it’s only towards economics or what, even if people are contributing economically? Do they love this country? Do you love its traditions? Do they want to be here? You know, there’s, as we said, There’s millions of people that have come here for the principles, the culture that’s been built, are they going to come and sustain that? And then so we’ve been certainly focusing on the United States, but I have colleagues of a good colleague get at Biola, from Switzerland, who wrote a mark Zender. He’s written a wonderful book on immigration. And he’s in Europe, he says, Look, Europe is dealing with the similar thing. And they’re very concerned about what impact does this have on our traditional culture? And if people are going to come in, how do we integrate them in? Like the book book of Ruth says, are they going to be part of the culture that exists or that you want to come and make something different? Or be indifferent to that? And so yeah, those are some of the concerns I have. Well, I
Jim Davis
want to pull on that thread a little. Yeah, things are your Venezuelan friend, yes. valued the stability, yes, of this country. And you raise in that context, the issue of, of how much they should assimilate into our culture, what what expectations should we have of assimilation when someone immigrates into this country? Obviously, language would be, I guess, a first barrier to pass? What what what else should we expect?
Darren Guerra
We used to our immigration system used to have some signifiers or some requirements that you were coming here, and you were going to, to integrate into the culture, as I suggested earlier, my my father’s family came from Italy, none of us speak Italian, because they thought that I mean, tragically. So I wish I did. But they saw it as hey, we’re going to integrate, we’re going to be a part of that. So language is one of them. But I think language generally takes care of itself. If people are integrating the community, if you want to have opportunities, the second generation learns to speak English and they and they integrate, but the fact that I don’t see enough concern, at least in the conversations with as we integrate immigrants, new immigrants into our society, how are we going to inculcate them into the principles of our country, the culture that we have? Are they going to learn about our system of government in ways that is meaningful, and that might deal with larger cultural issues where that’s just not in vogue right now to to talk about our country’s history and the resources are there and how that can can can lead to an increasingly vibrant society. So it’s more of kind of an ethos and, and building that ethos into how we welcome people. And oftentimes, that conversation is cut off, and it’s not allowed to happen. Again, for some of the reasons I’ve mentioned, it’s seen as too, too harsh to even bring that up. That always has to be welcoming, but but welcoming without any responsibilities on the coming in.
Matthew Soerens
You know, I think one of there’s a lot of agreement here, obviously, I think one of some of the differences is the different seats we sit in, in a dance coming from an academic setting. In my observation, I mean, I go to churches all the time. I got a lot of immigrant churches as well, I hear very few advocates for open borders and unlimited immigration, you look at public polling, there’s very few Americans who are advocating that position. If you talk to Republicans or Democrats in Congress, good luck finding one who will say that we should have a borderless world, that is not a position that is mainstream in any way in United States. It might be mainstream in like the Political Science Department at Harvard. And I think that’s, you know, that’s the distinction as I’m working with, you know, people who are not necessarily thinking about this theoretically, question of like, do we, you know, our borders real? Most of the immigrants in my church are like, well, I crossed one will lawfully or not, you know, but like, it was real. And there’s, you know, whether there’s, you know, that’s a fair question, how do you secure a border and in a humane way, those are good questions. I think a lot of the questions are on the border right now, or actually confusion about our asylum process. So it’s, I mean, we see this even, you know, there’s been things in the news in recent weeks and months of well, there people are being bused or flown to different parts of the country from the southern border, especially from Texas or Arizona. The reality is those people get described as people who are here illegally. Well, some of them crossed the border illegally. But then they also sought asylum lawfully under the terms of section 208 of our asylum laws or immigration laws, Immigration Nationality Act, which says explicitly, you can request asylum, whether you enter at a waffle port of entry or not. Now we could debate whether that should be the law, but it is the law so those Venezuelans and right now, the people being bused are largely Venezuelans in recent years. You know, more than three quarters of Venezuelans who have finished their asylum cases, which can take several years have won their cases, because what they’re fleeing in Venezuela tragically is Couric oppression by a horrific government. But until they have their final disposition on their immigration court case, they’re not unlawfully present in the country. They’re in this limbo status. They’re also not on threats to work, which is a huge challenge, because some of them do end up working unlawfully, because they’re also not eligible for, you know much they’re not the US government’s not going to buy them in apartment the way they might for resettled refugee identified overseas pay for a couple months of rent when they first arrive. But I think a lot of the tension and fears that a lot of Americans, including a lot of Christians have, specifically around the border are based on some, some very complicated laws that are not very well understood by most Americans. And I do think I mean, this is where I would maybe not be quite as charitable to President Trump. I don’t Yes, he’s, he’s reading a sentiment among a lot of Americans, but he’s also exacerbating it. He’s telling you that Mexico is sending rapists and criminals, and maybe there’s good people, you would get the sense from that, that comment that maybe the good people are 20{c024931d10daf6b71b41321fa9ba9cd89123fb34a4039ac9f079a256e3c1e6e8}. The reality, of course, is very, very, very small, small percentage of immigrants are committing any sort of violent crime. In fact, the state of Texas happens to be the only state that tracks the the immigration legal status of criminal convictions, they find that unlawfully present immigrants commit crime at significantly lower rates than native born US citizens. And I’m not saying that so that we will be afraid of our native born US citizen neighbors. Just to say it’s I think that a lot of Americans have an irrational fear of immigrants, especially maybe immigrants who are unlawfully present. And again, I think that there should be a penalty for that violation of law. I don’t think it’s fair to presume that there’s somehow uniquely a dangerous category of people. But to be fair, I also think we should have secure borders, we should have not let them in unlawfully. Or what’s actually much equally common is they came in on a temporary visa and overstayed and that gets a lot less attention, because it’s doesn’t make for as good to be role on the cable news, to have someone walking through the CBP checkpoint at the airport, as it does to see the border images.
Jim Davis
So you actually answered a question I was about to ask. And you hear people we talked about vulnerability, the helping the vulnerable. And there are people who say, Well, when we let a bunch of immigrants in, we and our children become the vulnerable, we’re the ones we should protect. And what you’re saying is that’s factually untrue.
Matthew Soerens
I mean, of course, a few immigrants have committed horrific crimes, and I’m all for if they ever should be let out of jail, deporting them, but they are less likely to do so statistically than native born US citizens. And I’m also not saying that because they’re all more virtuous, though they are, by some studies, more likely to be Christian than the average American. But I think it’s probably about the consequences at play. If you commit a crime even as a lawfully present immigrant with your green card, fairly minor crime, you steal a candy bar in certain states, that can be a deportable offense under immigration laws. Whereas if I’m a citizen, I’d commit the same crime or deal with the criminal justice system, but I don’t have the risk of being uprooted from my entire life. And so we see the immigrants, they tend to avoid law enforcement, especially those who are unlawfully present, but even those who are lawfully present, which is it’s good to avoid crime, that’s a benefit to society. What’s not good is when they’re also disproportionately likely to be victims of crime. And that is often because when they’re victims, they don’t call the police, when they’re witnesses to crime, they’re less likely to call the police. And that speaks to the dysfunction of a system that has, as you said, there. And I mean, this is not a new problem. We have had a policy on immigration that has involved a lot of burying our heads in the sand, relying upon immigrants coming in and meeting important labor needs in our economy. For decades. This doesn’t start with President Trump, it doesn’t start with President Obama didn’t start with President Biden either. These dynamics are long standing. And in fact, the borders are far more secure by a lot of measures now than they were in 2000. I mean, we just had a record number of encounters at the US Mexico border. But that means the Customs and Border Protection was interacting with someone and in the either turn the back that happened in roughly half the cases in the last year. Or they determined that they had a right to pursue an asylum case or some other immigration court case. And they were allowed in the country or they were detained sometimes for many months. But their best estimates we don’t have current data. But as a few years ago, the last several years under Trump and under Biden has been roughly 80{c024931d10daf6b71b41321fa9ba9cd89123fb34a4039ac9f079a256e3c1e6e8} of people trying to cross the border unlawfully are being interdicted, that is to say they’re either caught, or they’re turned back away. If you go back to 2000, according to department Homeland Security at that point, they thought that it was you know, less than 50{c024931d10daf6b71b41321fa9ba9cd89123fb34a4039ac9f079a256e3c1e6e8} of people were being caught. So the number of people who crossed the border unlawfully was far higher 2025 years ago than it is today. But we still had several 100,000 people who probably did cross surreptitiously in the last year. And I don’t think that’s acceptable, I think we ought to do things to improve that situation. One of the best things we could do is be to have a more functional legal migration system. So the vast majority of people who what they want is come fill a job that we desperately need them to do could go to the US Consulate in their country of origin pay far less than they would pay to a smuggler to get them all the way to the border and come in after going through some reasonable screening coming in on an airplane. And the lack of will to do that as part of the frustration with this is a congressional question. They didn’t need to do that. But to me that’s at the root of a lot of the problems that we have.
Jim Davis
So really briefly, you also talked about the confusion about our laws. One thing I hear is we have the easiest laws most open laws of any country on Earth. why would why? Would people want more of us? How? And I have to ask briefly, but like, is it a hard process? There’s a confusing process?
Matthew Soerens
It’s an incredibly hard process. I mean, my background is in immigration law. It wasn’t a hard process for my ancestors came in the 1850s. And I think that’s the idea that a lot of Americans still have in our head. We had no federal immigration laws in the 1850s. Now, Americans, I think, tend to think, well, I have a blue passport and I go through the process of getting the visa before I go to a different country. Why don’t they? Some most of the time, it’s because the your eligibility for certainly an immigrant visa, but even for that tourist visa, if you’re not fairly wealthy, by global standard, you’re probably ineligible for that visa. And yet, if you managed to get here other than lawfully, you’ll be in a job within a week unlawfully.
Jim Davis
With Darren, a question I have, Matthew has been clear that if we could secure borders, he would want increased immigration against secure legal immigration. Do you feel the same way?
Darren Guerra
Yeah, I think yes. I mean, if if we had secure borders, and there was a political will to enforce the laws that we have? I think I would, and many Americans would be open to legal, lawful immigration. So yeah, that’s not a question. But we don’t have that. And we could get into the political dynamics of why that isn’t the case. And there’s guilty hands probably on both sides. It’s an advantage advantageous political football for, for both parties in a lot of ways. And, and so yeah, but I do have a concern, I think in terms of when we talk about the economic side of things, there’s a danger of I think part of the concern of people who are concerned about immigration is that there’s just a focus on the immigrant on the economics of it, that there are, at least on the Republican side of the debate, there was this is part of the whole phenomenon, whether Trump or just the more conservative side of things is that you had kind of what’s often called Wall Street, Republicans who are favored immigration, because they see not to unfairly tag them, but they see immigrants as labor widgets, that they can plug into businesses, whereas other people and conservatives, I’ll lived in communities, maybe in Appalachia, or in the middle of the country, where they did see where they felt like they were being disadvantaged by immigration. And so you have that, that friction. And, and so sometimes focus on hey, there’s economic benefits to this farm, but it doesn’t address kind of the the cultural anxieties that people have when they perceive things as not being under control, that there are things that and when you try to get control, you try to put limits, or you try to structure things, and then you’re accused of being insensitive. And so I think that’s the concern. And so, as Christians, we should be able to walk and chew gum, we should be able to have concern for not only the immigrant coming in, but also those in our own communities, who are suffering and suffering under perhaps processes of globalization that are displacing their jobs, displacing them. So there’s people who the job has left where they live, I remember seeing one young man interviewed, and it was somewhere I think, maybe in Kentucky or Ohio and, and they were like, Why don’t you just move and get new jobs like, this is where I live. This is my family. This is my community. I can’t just leave that. And so I think in the globalized world, a lot of us are like, Well, I just move it’s not a big deal. But for many people still in America, and for centuries, there’s like, no, your community is your community, you don’t leave the community, you adapt to the changes within that community. And I think that part of the conversation often doesn’t get how Gutzon isn’t had and I think Christians are rightly concerned with immigrants and refugees. That’s great. But often, that’s the only part of the conversation I hear. I don’t hear about the people who are experiencing dislocation, dislocation, because of the very processes that are driving people to our borders, this kind of globalized view of labor as kind of this fungible commodity that you can just off one in one out, well, let’s display it. Let’s let’s move on American worker out, let’s move another worker in. That’s for kind of an economic analysis that I think is leading to a lot of discussion. And I think that part of the conversation needs to be had as well. So
Jim Davis
that’s helpful. You know, one of the things that I I hear a lot both of you talking about, we want the government to govern, nobody say anything other than that here. But there are those who say, I’m gonna direct this to you. First, there are those who say, the more immigration we allow, the more progressive or liberal our government becomes undermining its ability to govern and then point to California as an example of that happening. How do you respond to that?
Matthew Soerens
Yeah, I mean, I think most of the people who make that argument don’t know that many immigrants, like I go to a Spanish speaking church. And frankly, I think I’m fairly, at least theologically conservative and often on some of my politics as well. But I have some people in my church who are way more conservative than I am. I mean, they fled Venezuela, and they see socialism and everything, like even the things that I think are actually not socialism. But like, you know, if you’re coming from that background, that’s like a big red flag of anything of too much government involvement. Also, you know, if you talk about the pro life issue, Hispanic immigrants in particular, that’s not all immigrants, but whether they’re Catholic, which is the traditional majority, although increasingly from Central America, it’s nearly 5050, Catholic and Protestant. Um, these are very pro life communities who have very strong pro life convictions. And, you know, I think that that you see that even you mentioned this globally, not just in terms of politics, but theology. I mean, we have denominations in the United States that are staying true to biblical orthodoxy, because of the Africans who are, you know, get a voting role in certain denominations. And in other denominations, the Africans are a whole separate entity, and they don’t get a vote, and you don’t see that same trend. And that’s not just Africa, it’d be Latin America, certain parts of Asia as well. I think in terms of the politics, it is true, it becomes sort of a self fulfilling prophecy. I think California is an example of that. It used to be true that the Latino vote in California was fairly evenly split. And then Pete Wilson came in 1984, as governor, and advanced a proposition and stood behind a proposition that was viewed by a lot of Hispanic immigrants, and frankly, their US born adult children who get to vote as really hostile to Hispanic immigrants in particular, the idea was, if you’re here illegally, we’re not gonna let you go to school. There already been Supreme Court precedent saying that, that you could go to school, but you know, that sort of thing. And, you know, eventually that that proposition never actually went into effect, but it was popular with certain number of Californians. But the pushback to it a few years later, is we have now seen Hispanic voters in California are much more progressive than Hispanic voters. For example, in Texas, who did Texas happen as their governor in the mid 90s. They had George W. Bush, who was very pro immigrant, as as governor and as president. He was advancing I mean, the sort of restitution based immigration reform that we’ve supported at World Relief and the National Association of Evangelicals, the Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty commission and others have supported. They supported that when it was George Bush’s proposal, they supported it. One of them was Brock Obama’s proposal and frankly, they weren’t very different. But President Bush when he was governor had that attitude in office as well. And if you still look today, Hispanic voters in Texas vote really differently than Hispanic voters in California and a more conservative direction. And I think they may be imperiling that with some of the recent policies out of Texas, frankly, but I think that that is if they didn’t fall into the self fulfilling prophecy of we better keep these people from ever becoming citizens, because they might not vote for us to the contrary, Governor. And then President Bush said, I think that these people, some of them are related to him share a lot of my conservative values. And to be really clear, I’m not my job is not top Republicans, not top Democrats, you know, like I have I’m equally I’m upset with both of them as well, and their terms of immigration policy. But I think it is, it’s a misconception to think that that is sort of unnecessarily the trend that will happen if we have more people who are immigrants, or sometimes that’s the argument will accept more immigrants don’t ever want to become citizens, because then you can vote, they may end up not voting for you in the next generation, because that seems like an awfully discriminatory policy that, you know, turns them off. But if you embrace them, it turns out a lot of their values would be in line with a lot of conservative evangelical Christians
Jim Davis
daring to do anything you’d want to add or disagree with that?
Darren Guerra
No, I think there’s evidence that Latino voters are very conservative. And one example when when I forget the name of the proposition, but it’s the gay marriage proposition in California. This is 1011 12 years ago now. But I was looking at the data, the proposition won the vote against gay marriage because of African American and Latino voters, white voters supported gay marriage. And so there’s other evidence is that these communities are very conservative in social ways may win economically less so. And I think in California, is an interesting situation where you have kind of people in Palo Alto, where the the weather never gets below a certain degree, voting on policies, environmentally or otherwise, that are disproportionately impacting people in the Central Valley who are crowding into Walmart because they don’t have air conditioning at home. And these people end up voting for the same party on issues, but their interests are very divergent and a lot of ways but those interests haven’t been surfaced. And so I think, yeah, I’d be hard pressed to predict what Latino voters will do in California in the next 10 to 20 years or longer. It may not always be that way. Right now, California is reliably a blue state. There will be four foreseeable future, but you don’t know what’s going to happen. Because their interests are not necessarily always aligned.
Jim Davis
That’s helpful. So I want to land the plane with a question for both of you really, really practical. Let’s say, there is a pastor or church leaders out there. And hypothetically, we find an illegal immigrant in our church worshiping, what responsibilities do you think that we have? And what ways can we help that person as a church? Because this is really obviously happening all over the place? Would you like to start there?
Darren Guerra
Sure. The Bible is clear, we are to treat the soldier and the immigrant with love, love them as our neighbor. And so as Christians, as the church, we had to reach out to them were to try to help them. At the same token, though, the government has a job a legitimate, legitimate job to enforce the laws. And so the church shouldn’t stand in the way or advocate against the government enforcing the laws. And so one, I think it can be very consistent in terms of helping individuals that we see that are in need, regardless of their nationality, but still support the government enforcing the laws clearly, and having strong borders and clear laws. I mean, those two things are not incompatible, as I’ve suggested earlier, they actually, I think, a well police border will lead to people being more open to immigration, we can debate numbers, and this and that, and we may disagree on how high or how low. But I think for pastors or people in the pews, they are to reach out, but that that does not but to be concerned about the larger policies and what the role of the government is enforcing the laws, and, and may mean on time to enforce the laws. Let’s be clear, maybe in deporting people. Those two things can we can walk and chew gum, and we can love the individual but still support strong borders, which is a more loving way to create a community that people want to come to a community that does love people that creates space that respects the human dignity of people. But you can’t have that if you’re constantly chipping away at the borders. And so I would just add real quickly. That’s one thing. It’s one I don’t You’re right, I don’t hear people saying let’s open the borders. But did you advocate policies and postures that chip away at maintaining a sound border and some policies? And so it’s one thing Yeah, I’m not open borders, but I don’t support actually enforcing them. I don’t support the measures that it really takes to have strong borders. And so that’s my concern. And when you try to raise concern over that, then then people call foul. I don’t think they should.
Jim Davis
One. One thing that has become clear to me just with interacting with you to the word tougher, some people mean sick, more secure. Some people mean more closed, and you guys are at really helpfully defining those two very separate things. So when we talk about tough we need to talk about whether we’re, we need to clarify, are we talking about secure? Are we talking about closed? Because they’re different things?
Darren Guerra
Yeah, I want to go back to my home analogy. If people are like barging through my door, I’m gonna close it. Yeah. Until think there’s some stability and status quo. And then I might be able, okay, you can come in. Right. So when things are disorderly people do and they probably don’t think it through. But they look, yeah, let’s, let’s shut it down till we get control things. This is out of control. So when they have anxiety about uncontrolled border, immigration, uncontrolled immigration, unsustainable immigration, that’s when they start to use words like close. But I think most people when things are calm will say, Yeah, we want healthy immigration from people who want to love our country and want to be here and contribute, because that’s been part of our history. It’s the chaos that they’re responding to.
Jim Davis
Thanks, Matthew, same question. You’re talking to a pastor?
Matthew Soerens
Yeah. It’s not a hard not a hard question for me, because it’s not a hypothetical a few times a week, you know, and no, it’s not hypothetical. And you know, a lot of the immigrants who will receive Service have legal status, the refugees that come through the US refugee resettlement program, they all have legal status, but we also empower churches to serve their vulnerable immigrant neighbors. Regardless, you know, we run English classes, and we don’t ask people about their legal status. But some of our teachers get to know their students well enough that they might know that they’re unlawfully present. I’ve had neighbors who I know are unlawfully present and honestly, when that literally like not least, like Luke 10 Your neighbor in a very, very general sense, but like my next door neighbor, at 1.0, I figured out this very lovely lady who cooks me Mexican food is here illegally, like, Why do I think about that as a Christian? And what was really helpful for me was actually, you know, if I’m going to think biblically, of course, there’s the love and welcome people share the gospel with people. That all applies. There’s no out to that. If there’s a concern that people haven’t sat back to Romans 13 Well, you should follow the law because the government is established by God. But here’s the good news. The US does not tell you that you can’t We go over to your next door neighbor’s house for dinner, even if you think they’re undocumented, and even if they are undocumented, it doesn’t tell you as a church that you can’t share the gospel of someone, it doesn’t tell you as a church that you can’t run a food pantry or run an English class or teach them on Sunday school, or let them teach high school to you. Because he may have some things to teach you about following Jesus, so long as I would have the caliphate as long as you’re not employing them. As long as there’s not compensation. That is where you hit the illegal issue that that churches do run into. It’s complicated. But in terms of normal ministry interaction, we can be subject to the governing authorities and love and serve our immigrant neighbors. And by the way, that’s another set of tougher immigration laws that I would pretty strongly oppose would be any proposal and we’ve seen these proposals, but they haven’t passed into law, that would actually have the government saying, you know, it is against the law to provide assistance to someone who is present unlawfully in the country, which could mean it’s against the law for your church to run your English class. And some, some of the proponents, Hey, Bill bills to become legal. Yeah. I mean, some of some people might say, well, that’s not in, you know, that’s not where we went. And we voted for that bill. But frankly, once you’ve voted for that bill, it’s up to a judge to decide what you meant. They don’t come back to you to ask you what you meant. And we have been really concerned again, none of these have become law. But there’s been a few bills that have passed one house of Congress over the years, some really concerning threats to religious liberty, when you have the government taking the precedent of saying there’s this category of people who the church is not allowed to serve?
Jim Davis
Well, guys, I appreciate it. I appreciate the ways that you have thought through this issue. You both nuance it very well, you obviously are building this based on a value for people value people made in the image of God of value of the Bible. And I appreciate that, you know, give your time and your energies to this. And you know, in many different ways, whether it’s teaching the next generation of people in the academy or at the grassroots or in Congress, I really do appreciate what you’re doing. And I want to thank you for joining us today. Well, and to all of you out there, we hope that this time has been helpful, profitable, we pray that the Lord would use it again, not just in an academic way, but in at a heart level in your own local context, and that he would use you to be able to love our neighbors, whatever that looks like for you.
