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Dream Act with baby Gabriel [DREAM Act Advocacy at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia. Infant is Gabriel Jantzi, young woman is DREAM Activist Virginia founder Isabel Castillo]. Elizabeth Phelps.
At a panel discussion on immigration in Harrisonburg, Virginia, a woman turned to me and said, “the religious language on either side just really annoys me.” Nevertheless, religious language is often engaged in debates about migration; even more to the point, MCC is an explicitly Christian organization striving to work in a manner informed by Biblically-based principles. Whether you as a reader are annoyed vs. inspired by religious language, this post on migration seeks to explore precisely that perspective.
I am an anthropologist, not a theologian; I’m more interested in how people think and talk about Biblical implications for migration policy than I am in discovering the correct or true, orthodox, reading of Scripture. What I have noticed, like the woman quoted above, is that God and the Bible are referenced in many different ways from different points of view on the topic.
Jeannette,* a young Christian college student from Mexico living and studying in the United States, had this to say in a chapel presentation at a Mennonite university:
My family decided to move to the United States when I was fifteen. We wanted to start a new life away from hurtful consequences. My dad had passed away a few years before, due to his alcoholism…. Life in the United States has been a mixture of painful and joyful moments…. I know what it feels to be rejected and hurt for looking and speaking different. I know what it feels to be treated according to what kind of documents I have. I carry with me a label. A label that in God’s eyes shouldn’t matter. Some people… treat me according to my status. They care about what kind of documents or what kind of visa I have. They do not care about who I am as a person, and what’s in my heart. (April 11, 2009 – emphasis my own).
From Jeannette’s point of view, God is interested not in state-sanctioned legal status as much as in “who I am as a person, and what’s in my heart.”
“That was not Biblical voting” [sign on a gas station in Harrisonburg, VA, following the election of Obama in November 2008]. Elizabeth Phelps.
Personally, I do believe that people that are disrupting the system… living off the government, claiming children that they shouldn’t claim, doing stuff like that, those folks should abide by the law. They cannot be rewarded… because these are the same folks… that are making the rest of the immigrants look bad and that are giving the opposition counterarguments. And personally, man, immigrants that are harmful to the country, I think they should be kicked out… or do some rehab treatment with them.
A theology student, David seemed to feel compelled to espouse a notion of justice and fairness that did not absolve immigrants of responsibility of complying with the laws of the nation; yet his rhetoric reinforces nationalistic frames of reference as well as the image of the “good ethnic” vs. the dangerous (possibly criminal) illegal immigrant bringing harm to the country.
In a way, David’s argument is echoed in Jeannette’s point of view – if God looks on the heart, then righteousness according to God’s moral law is actually an important measure of a person. But whether or not mutable human laws, written by fallen people, are actually moral and ethical in accordance with Biblical standards is still a matter for debate.
Two stories from the Bible which are often referenced to speak into immigration policies are the story of the Good Samaritan, and the story of Abraham (Genesis 18) referenced in Hebrews 13: “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares” (English Standard Version). In neither case are the moral standings of those receiving hospitality considered relevant; they are worthy simply because they are there, standing in the doorway.
During the same chapel presentation where Jeannette shared her own story, Mennonite theologian Nancy Heisey spoke about the word “stranger” in the Bible: “Very often the words stranger or foreigner appear in the Bible to relate to two ideas: one, that God’s people are foreigners and strangers in the world, and number two, that for that exact reason God’s people are called to open themselves and to be hospitable to foreigners.”
DREAM Act Advocacy at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia. Elizabeth Phelps.
These concepts are not foreign to Mennonites; a pastor once explained to my friend and fellow anthropologist Laura that “Mennonites have been hounded from place to place and of all people, we should be empathetic to immigrants.”[1] Like the Israelites, strangers and aliens throughout their own wandering, Mennonites see themselves as sharing a moral obligation to empathize with and help others in the same plight.
Christian advocates often use the image of the Holy Family fleeing to Egypt in order to evoke not only empathy for refugees and migrants, but also to show that Jesus was himself a refugee and a migrant. In seeking to serve and to aid “the least of these,” we are literally serving Christ. I believe this is the central tenet of a Biblically-based approach to immigration policy and advocacy. The injunction to hospitality towards strangers does not hinge on the merit of those seeking shelter, but on their humanity. As Nancy Heisey put it, “it is central to being fully human to welcome the stranger. Hospitality is at the heart of humanity. It is central to our welfare as a human race, it is central to our survival. If we do not welcome strangers, we are doomed.”
*pseudonym
[1] “The Latinization of the Central Shenandoah Valley” in International Migration vol. 46:1, pp. 24-25.