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 This amendment went into effect in 1920 and was repealed by the Twenty-first Amendment in 1933.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.
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