Is deportation of illegal immigrants morally justifiable?
Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #189 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.
Immigrants and immigration are part of the warp and woof of the American nation state. In a very real sense, there would be no United States of America without immigration. Yet today we are embroiled in a major, costly, political problem involving not simply immigrants but unvetted illegal immigrants.
I’ve talked about immigration in several podcasts.
Immigrant Qua Cultural Enricher
Western Nations and Mass Immigration
Love Your Neighbor—Immigrants Too?
Before I proceed, let’s pause for a few qualifiers.
I am not taking a position against immigration, nor am I anti-immigrant. When I say this, I mean individuals who have come to America via a legal process. I have friends who fit this definition, people who came from other countries, worked for a time with a Green Card, and in the requisite period, applied for and attained their American citizenship. Bravo to them.
Our problem today are not these legal immigrants who worked the process and became American citizens. Our problem involves millions illegal or undocumented immigrants, many of whom it seems have not come to assimilate and pursue the American Dream, but to seek entitlements and apparently to prey on those around them.
So, when I say we have a major political problem relating to immigrants I am talking about illegals.
“As of January 2024, more than 7.2 million migrants had illegally crossed into the U.S. over the Southwest border during U.S. President Joe Biden's administration — a number higher than the individual populations of 36 states.” Other listings cite as high as 11 million migrants illegally entering the U.S. during the Biden Administration. Mr. Biden opened the floodgates his first day in office in 2021with executive orders that overturned the previous Trump Administration’s policies, like Stay in Mexico, and stopped work on the border wall. And, then the Biden Administration and so-called Progressives allowed illegals to flood the border, even employing night flights of illegal immigrants around the country, forcing state law enforcement to stand down, and more.
Since that time, several cities like New York, Chicago, Denver have spent billions of dollars on illegal immigrants, coopted schools and hotels to house illegal immigrants, spent millions on food credit cards, free cell phones or insurance, inexplicably refused to prosecute illegals involved in crimes against property and even rape and murder.
Now the Trump 2.0 Administration is closing the border and plans to deport, as necessary, millions of illegal immigrants. This, of course, has produced reaction: some 54% of Americans support mass deportation, while others, Democrats, Progressives, social justice advocates, cry fascism and say Trump and those who support his efforts lack compassion, or worse.
Why President Joe Biden, and why most Western European nations, opened borders in the past few years to mass immigration is at this point murky at best.
One reason is a philosophy called Multiculturalism, which wedded to the leftist progressive Democrat desire for political power is at work in the U.S. The last few years’ influx across the open southern border of unvetted, unauthorized, mostly male military-age migrants is now producing predictable, social fragmentation, unrest, and dangerous circumstances in American cities.
“The events on the border are not a humanitarian crisis but a political one…What’s at stake is whether or not laws apply to citizens and foreigners alike. Biden believes that the law should only apply to the former; Trump, to both…People often say, ‘the system is broken’ and call for new laws, but the legal framework isn’t broken, it’s ignored. It’s ignored because various people with power benefit from the chaos politically and economically.”
Meanwhile, many Christian leaders argue it would be wrong for the U.S. to consider closing borders or curtailing immigration because to do so is to not love our neighbors or not welcome strangers. So, this view states that to close borders, restrict immigration, and certainly to deport illegals, is to act in a non-loving, non-Christian manner.
Recently, “Pope Francis said Donald Trump’s plans to impose mass deportations of immigrants would be a ‘disgrace,’ as he weighed in on the incoming U.S. president’s pledges nearly a decade after calling him ‘not Christian’ for wanting to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border.” Interestingly, the Pope failed to mention the walls that surround Vatican City.
Author Megan Basham observed, the United States should welcome ‘huddled masses yearning to breathe free’ to share in the blessings God has bestowed on us. But if we incentivize illegal immigration by rewarding those who ignore our laws and fail to ensure that those to whom we grant citizenship understand and respect our founding ideals that made the nation great, the United States will soon look little different from the countries these immigrants are fleeing.
So, deportation is one approach to correcting what many consider an unsurvivable wave of mass immigration.
Deportation of illegal immigrants is nothing new. The first U.S. presidential administration to order the deportation of illegal immigrants was that John Adams, the second President of the United States. All U.S. president administrations have deported unauthorized non-citizens. Recently, George W Bush deported 2 million, Obama 2.8 million, Trump 1 766,373, and Biden 1.1 million.
Is deportation of illegal immigrants morally justifiable and why?
- National sovereignty, including self-determination of identity and who may live here, is part of citizenship, and without citizenship, there is loss of freedom.
- For a nation-state to exist, it must maintain territorial boundaries that are recognized by other nation-states. No borders, no identity, no nation-state. No nation-state, no common purpose or accomplishments, and likely no security.
- Deportation is a legitimate means, not an intrinsically evil act,of protecting the common good, of protecting culture and safety, of advancing e Pluribus Unum based on a desire to assimilate, while upholding the dignity of each human person.
- “The reason for the deportationremains that(illegal immigrants) have no right to be in the country to begin with…This follows the basic principle of equivalence in moral justice: the punishment should be calibrated to offset the crime, and should not impose suffering that exceeds that caused by the violation. Deportation merely reverses the harm caused by the person who entered illegally. And if you acknowledge that illegal immigration has negative effects on American citizens – particularly the most vulnerable ones – justice and morality demand that we offer them redress…When illegal immigrants are allowed to work, to make use of public schools, to get drivers’ licenses, to receive in-state tuition at our universities, to receive medical care at the cost of American citizens, to collect welfare assistance, and indeed, in some cases, even to vote…what benefits remain the sole privilege of citizens? We owe it to all citizens – especially the most vulnerable, who are most affected by the mass importation of impoverished, uninvited foreigners – to restore the value of citizenship.”
- Considerations of national and local security. “The lesson of the last 20 years of immigration policy is that lawlessness breeds more lawlessness. Once a people or government decide to normalize one form of lawbreaking, other forms of lawlessness will follow until finally the rule of law itself is in profound jeopardy…Immigration is not a service we provide to the rest of the world. Yes, we are a nation of immigrants and will continue to be. No other country welcomes as many newcomers. But rewarding illegal immigration does an injustice to the many legal immigrants who played by the rules to get here.”
- To continue as we are now with open borders is to destroy America’s position as a beacon of hope to the world.
So, the U.S. must develop immigration policy that protects and preserves American ideals and identity, rule of law, and borders so that the nation may survive and meet the needs of its citizens, and the U.S. must develop immigration policy that provides a legal, orderly, just path for those who desire freedom and opportunity to become Americans. Both these conditions empower us to love our neighbors.
Well, we’ll see you again soon. This podcast is about Discerning What Is Best. If you find this thought-provoking and helpful, follow us on your favorite podcast platform. Download an episode for your friends. For more Christian commentary, check my website, r-e-x-m as in Martin, that’s rexmrogers.com. Or check my YouTube channel @DrRexRogers for more podcasts and video.
And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.
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