Evangelical pastor’s immigration column went beyond legal vs. illegal | Opinion
As I read through the comments on a guest commentary I ran in the paper Friday, I think of the shortest verse in the Bible.
Jesus wept.
The guest commentary, written by an evangelical pastor, was titled: “The most unsafe place for an immigrant … is inside of an evangelical church”.
Here’s one fairly typical reaction from when we posted the commentary on The Eagle’s Facebook page: “The most unsafe place for a lawbreaker … is inside of an evangelical church’” [fixed it] Illegal? GTFO.”
And here’s one from the Facebook page of our sister paper, The Kansas City Star, which also ran the column.
“Just so we are clear, the Red Star supports the view that it’s Evangelical churchgoers in this country that pose more of a threat to illegal aliens than drug cartels and gang members. Why am I not surprised.”
I’m quite certain they didn’t read the article. Because that’s not what it was about — not even close.
The guest column in question was the most moving testimony on the intersection of law and faith that it has been my privilege to publish in The Eagle and Kansas.com since I became opinion editor about three years ago.
It’s by Nathan Paulus, the founding pastor of the Reliant Church.
In it, he traces the evolution of his gradually developing friendship with a fellow evangelical Christian, who happens to be an undocumented single mother working as a cleaning lady — and how it led him to a deeper understanding that immigration is not as simple as “legal” or “illegal.”
He details the woman’s story:
- Kidnapped at 14 from a small village in Mexico by a cartel and smuggled to the U.S. to be the “wife” of a cartel lieutenant.
- Abandoned, with children, when her gangster “husband” realized that by legally marrying a U.S. citizen, he could put himself on a path to permanent residency and even citizenship.
- Exploited by Americans, who pay her slave wages and try to extort sexual favors with the ever-present threat: “We can call ICE. We can turn you in.”
As I read the column for the first time, I saw this young pastor going through the same evolution of thought that I went through as a young reporter covering the barrios of southern California — the realization that undocumented immigrants are not the universal threat we’ve been conditioned to believe.
Most are like the woman Pastor Paulus writes about, decent human beings doing their best to survive when there are no good options and no safe place for them on either side of the border.
And there are those who exploit them for personal gain. Some are illegal immigrants, and some are “good Americans.” Some profess to be Christians.
I hoped hearing that message from one of their own, an evangelical pastor, might get some people around here to open their eyes to the fact that enforcing the letter of the law doesn’t always equal justice — and when law and justice are in conflict, the law needs to change.
I would defy anyone to tell me how it would benefit the United States of America to deport this abused and exploited woman and her children (who are citizens by birth, which the Supreme Court just upheld), while allowing the gangster ex who dragged her here and abandoned her to go about his business.
It cuts to the heart of what’s wrong with immigration enforcement as currently practiced in this country.
We were explicitly promised that enhanced enforcement would be targeted to rid us of the “worst of the worst.”
I’m all for that. But it’s a promise that’s been broken.
Instead, enforcement has become a numbers game, with quotas to be met and angry voting blocs to be appeased.
Immigration authorities were forced to shift focus from criminals to mass sweeps targeting those who are easier to catch: farmworkers, meat packers, hotel maids, restaurant busboys, parents picking up their children at school or day care, day laborers in the parking lot at Home Depot.
This does not speak well of us as Americans or Christians.
It opens those of us who profess to faith to the charge that we are little more than poseurs when we talk about loving God and loving our neighbors as ourselves.
Here’s another response to Pastor Paulus’ commentary: “They’re not really churches, more Jesus-themed country clubs that schedule their headlining entertainer for Sunday morning.”
For the most part, I disagree with that. But I do see it as an indicator that our response to immigration has brought us to a crossroads as a society.
We can try to regain our ability to deal with immigration as a nuanced problem where each case is unique — and our approach acknowledges that there are undocumented immigrants that it benefits us to get rid of, and undocumented immigrants it benefits us to keep.
Or we can wield the blunt instrument labeled “legal or illegal,” and look the other way as detention camps expand, families are torn apart, and human beings who have contributed their labor and taxes to our society are quietly disposed of behind a curtain of secrecy, so we can comfortably ignore their suffering.
Either path costs money. Only one costs us our souls. Choose wisely.
