Lux Lucet

Ruth and Naomi Leave Moab, 1860, by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld (1794-1872).

When I began writing this series of posts on immigration in September 2016, my original plan was for five to seven posts and to wrap things up by early 2017. Obviously, the series grew well beyond these plans, and I find myself nearly a year and a half later sitting down to bring the work to a close.

At this point, it may be worth asking and answering the questions 1) Why I started this series in the first place, and 2) Why did it grow in length far beyond my original intent?

There are two reasons I chose to write on the topic of immigration. In the first place, it’s important, for the effects of a nation’s immigration policy cannot be reversed easily if at all.

Most other political decisions can be reversed. For example, the US passed the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution prohibiting the production, importation, transportation and sale of alcohol. This amendment went into effect in 1920 and was repealed by the Twenty-first Amendment in 1933.

Immigration, on the other hand, is forever. Once immigrants are welcomed into the national family, there’s no going back. Their acceptance permanently alters the makeup of a nation. For this reason alone, it is important for legislators and citizen both to have a clear idea in mind about what constitutes proper immigration policy.

Second, for all the ink that has been spilt on the subject, I have yet to read a fully satisfactory treatment of immigration. In Immigration, Citizenship and the Bible (ICB) I review immigration commentary from across the political and religious spectrum, including secular and religious right and left. I have reviewed the works of proponents of mass, taxpayer subsidized immigration and the works of immigration restrictionists. None of the writers I have read get it right for the simple reason that none of them begin their thinking with the Scriptures.

Some writers do use Scripture when formulating their ideas about immigration, but either apply it inconsistently or misunderstand what the Bible has to say on the topic.

And because I was dissatisfied with the work that has been done up until now that I decided that what is needed is a Scripturalist take on immigration. That is, I wanted to approach immigration systematically as someone who believes the Bible has a monopoly on truth, not as someone who seeks to combine the truths of Scripture on immigration with “truths” discovered elsewhere.

Concerning the second question, Why did this series grow much larger than I had originally intended?, the answer lies in the fact that immigration is a large topic and more space was needed than I thought at first.

Apart from immigration – immigration is the act of someone coming to a new country for the purpose of taking up permanent residence – there are two other major related subject: migration and refugee resettlement.

Migration – more specifically, international migration – is the is simply the temporary movement of people from one country to another. Migrants do not intend to settle permanently, but come for various reasons, for example seasonal economic opportunity.

Refugee resettlement involves the accommodation of people fleeing their native countries. A refugee is defined as someone who, “Demonstrates that they (sic) were (sic) persecuted or fear persecution due to race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group” (USCIS).

Both migration and refugee resettlement issues are closely related to, but separate from, immigration proper. And because of the close relationship all three topics have to on another, to discuss one generally involves at some point discussing the others. This was a major reason for the growth of this series beyond the original five to seven posts that I originally thought would be the case.

The Big Takeaways

As mentioned above, this has been a rather lengthy series. As such, I would like to pull together what are the most important points made in this series. Listed below are the major, high-level takeaways from this series.

First, the two major Biblical principles that apply to immigration are: 1) the free movement of people, and 2) citizenship in a nation is obtained by one of two methods, children born to at least one parent with citizenship or by oath of naturalization.

Second, the principal cause of the immigration crisis in the West is the West’s rejection of Jesus Christ in favor of secular philosophy. The West was built by the widespread preaching of, and belief in, the Gospel of Justification by Faith Alone during the 16th century Reformation. But few there are in the 21st century who believe what the Reformers believed. As a result, we are losing our civilization.

Third, more than any other single institution, the Roman Church-State (RCS) is the active agent behind the immigration, migration, and refugee crisis in the West. Rome’s motive for creating the crisis is to overthrow the Westphalian World Order (WWO) – the WWO is the international system of independent nation states established as a result of the Protestant victory in the Thirty Years’ War in the 17th century, the WWO is geopolitical Protestantism – and to replace it with the globalist New World Order (NWO) with Rome running the whole show.

Fourth, in cahoots with the RCS are secular globalists. These are individuals such as George Soros, most Western heads of state, major business leaders, as well as international institutions such as the United Nations.

Fifth, immigration altruism is a serious inhibitor to rational thought on the subject. Altruism is the idea that one should practice unselfish concern for the welfare of others. This shows up in discussion of immigration by the constant focus by politicians, academics and the media on what is best for immigrants, migrants and refugees while at the same time never considering the welfare of their own citizens. When it comes to immigration, the people of the West are told to sit down, shut up, fork it over, and never ever to ask the question of how the socialist immigration policies of their governors is beneficial to them and to their children.

Sixth, the mainstream media (MSM) are little more than an echo chamber for the immigration policies of their globalist masters. Not only do they do nothing to contribute to the public’s understanding of immigration issues, they actively suppress reasoned discussion. Immigrants, migrants and refugees are portrayed as if they were the holy angles of God, untainted by original sin. On the other hand, anyone who so much as questions the wisdom of importing millions of foreigners at taxpayer expense is immediately vilified as a racist, a xenophobe and an all around deplorable individual.

Seventh, the welfare state, substantially a product of the social teaching of the RCS, acts as a magnet, drawing immigrants, migrants and refugees to the West in numbers far greater than otherwise would be the case. The existence of the welfare state requires immigration restriction, which results in further loss of liberty.

Eighth, birthright citizenship – birthright citizenship is the idea that any child born within the US is automatically given American citizenship, regardless of the immigration status of his parents – contradicts what the Bible teaches about the acquisition of citizenship and should be abolished.

Ninth, Protestant churches throughout the West, have failed to articulate what the Bible teaches about immigration and the larger related issues of politics and economics. When it comes to these subjects, the Evangelical community is largely the intellectual slave of Rome. This is to our shame.

Tenth, fixing the immigration problem must be done systematically.  While I believe in open immigration, it is foolish to attempt to liberalize immigration laws at the same time the West in general, and the US in particular, is being flooded with immigrants, migrants, and refugees by forces who mean to do us harm.  The term is Us for this is weaponized immigration.  Today’s immigration very often is not the “What a country!” Ellis Island style immigration of our great, great, great grandparents.  Much of today’s immigration to the West is being pushed by those who wish to use immigration to undermine and to overthrow it.  The idea of weaponized immigration was expressed well by Roman Catholic priest Paul Marx. who was quoted in The Wanderer saying, “America is a dying nation.  I tell the Mexicans when I am down in Mexico to keep on having children, and then to take back what we took from them:  California, Texas, Arizona, and then to take the rest of the country as well.”

Weaponized immigration is a serious danger to the West.  If the West has any hope of surviving, it must not give into the temptation to attempt to buy peace with the promoters of this shakedown by giving in to demands for more immigration amnesties.  Amnesties have never solved anything in the past – according to Numbers USA, there have already been seven immigration amnesties – and almost certainly will not solve anything in the future.   

Amnesties reward bad behavior, and when you reward bad behavior, you should expect to get more of it.  That’s what Neville Chamberlain learned when he tried to appease Hitler by giving in to his petulant demands. Every concession on Chamberlain’s part was met with a new and more outrageous demand from Hitler.  Any talk about granting amnesty to illegal immigrants – for example, passing legislation such as DACA, DAPA or the DREAM Act – is to follow that same disastrous path.  It is, in effect, like handing our enemies a loaded gun to shoot us with.  And that is unacceptable.

If you want proof that appeasement is not a solution, consider what Jorge Ramos has to say about Trump’s proposed White House Framework for Immigration Reform.  Trump’s Framework is an offer to amnesty 1.8 MM DREAMers in exchange for some changes to US immigration law. 

You may never have heard of Jorge Ramos, but in some circles he’s a rock star.  He’s the longtime anchorman for Univision, America’s Spanish language television network, and he has 3.2 MM Twitter followers.  He’s hardly an obscure guy, and here he is saying, in so many words, that Trump’s concession is weak sauce.  If Trump manages to get his immigration deal done and amnesties the 1.8 MM DREAMers as he’s proposed, do you think Ramos and his 3.2 MM Twitter followers will be satisfied? You already know the answer.

And ask yourself this, do you suppose that once “the majority of the 11M undocumented immigrants” that Ramos wants legalized have been legalized that this will solve the problem of illegal immigration, or do you think it will encourage more of it, and will require another, even bigger amnesty at some point in the not too distant future?

I submit that, once again, you already know the answer to that question.  

This nonsense has to stop.  Now.  

A Way Forward

So how are Western Christians to respond to the immigration crisis before us?

As John Robbins argued in his book Christ and Civilization, the West was born out of the widespread preaching of, and belief in, the Gospel of Justification by Faith Alone. But as mentioned in my second point above, the West has largely rejected Christ and his Gospel in favor or secular philosophy.

This rejection of Christ has penetrated to the point where even conservative, putatively Bible believing churches have rejected the Gospel of Christ in favor of some mongrel faith-works complex.

If Christians are to be effective on an important, but secondary issue such as immigration, we had better make sure we have our own act together. We need to ask ourselves, do we understand and believe Justification by Belief Alone, or are we relying in some way on our works to save us? If the latter, let us repent of our sins first, before daring to tackle the issue of immigration.

Second, we need to pray for reformation and to evangelize. The freedom and prosperity we in the West have enjoyed is the result of the faith of our forefathers. They sought first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things were added unto them.

The spread of the Gospel is what created freedom in the West, and it is the only hope of re-creating it. The Gospel is our only hope of draining the swamp of corruption that plagues our land, of ending big government, and of defeating the evil lies of the Roman Church-State’s social teaching, which are the cause of so many of our immigration problems.

From a practical political standpoint, a good place for Americans to start is working to end birthright citizenship. Birthright citizenship results in nearly 400,000 new Americans born ever year to parents who are not themselves American citizens. This total is about 1 in every 12 births in the US each year.

There is no good reason, Constitutionally or Biblically, for this practice to continue. When Donald Trump was running for president, his website stated, “This [birthright citizenship] remains the biggest magnet for illegal immigration. By a 2:1 margin, voters say it’s the wrong policy, Harry Reid who said ‘no sane country’ would give automatic citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants.”

Rather than focusing on building The Wall, Trump and his supporters would do much better working to get rid of birthright citizenship. We have the moral high ground on this issue. Let’s use it.

Second, it is important to scale back and eliminate the welfare state. The Bible nowhere recognizes what the socialists call “entitlements.” “If a man will not work, neither should he eat,” is the Biblical maxim. Along with ending birthright citizenship, ending the welfare state will reduce the perverse incentives for immigration fraud we have built into our system.

Third, we need to end identity politics. Identity politics is based on catering to the cultural, ethnic, gender, racial, religious or social interests the characterize group identity. In the US, identity politics has its origin in laws passed during the Civil Rights Era, in particular racial, ethnic and sex based employment and educational quotas. These quotas apply to immigrants, migrants and refugees just off the boat – people who never suffered any discrimination in the US – as much as they apply to the historic minority groups in the US that the laws were originally intended to help. As things stand, it can pay to be a minority in the US, and this benefit extends to recently arrived immigrants. It’s time for a pay cut.

Future Plans

Lord willing, I intend to continue to write about immigration. So the end of this series does not mean the end of my work on this subject.

If possible, I would like to edit the posts in this series and perhaps publish them as a book.

In addition, I hope to continue to write posts and produce videos and podcasts on this important, and largely misunderstood, subject.

In particular, it would be nice to do additional work on the role of the RCS in fostering today’s immigration mess. One of the interesting things I have found in my immigration research is that behind nearly every immigration controversy one will find Rome stirring up the problem. In fact, it would be hard to overstate the degree to which Rome is culpable for the immigration crisis in the West. Many people may be shocked to hear this, but I believe it is demonstrably true.

I would like to thank my readers for patiently bearing with me while I wrote this series. It is my prayer that you have found this edifying.

Most of all, I would like to thank God for giving me the interest in this subject and the time to research and write about it. It has been a fascinating learning experience and I am honored that he has given me this opportunity to share what I have learned with others.