Immigration continues to be a flashpoint in American politics. Who, how many, how, and when should we allow immigrants to come to America?
Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #278 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.
America has always been a nation of immigrants. But it is also a nation with borders, laws and a sovereign government responsible first to its own citizens. Those two facts are not contradictory.
The real question is whether America will have an immigration system that serves the national interest—or one that increasingly allows political, economic and humanitarian pressures to determine who enters and who remains. For decades, Washington has failed to answer that question. The fundamental problem is a breakdown of confidence in the immigration system.
Americans are told that immigration is legal, orderly and controlled while millions of people have entered or remained in the country unlawfully. The government has struggled to process asylum claims promptly, enforce deportation orders and prevent unauthorized employment. Even Americans who favor substantial legal immigration can—if they’re honest—reasonably conclude that a system unable to enforce its own laws is not functioning properly.
America needs an immigration policy that begins with secure borders and enforcement of existing law. Border security is not an expression of hostility toward foreigners. Every sovereign nation has the right to determine who enters its territory. The United States should know who is entering, why they are entering, whether they are legally entitled to remain, and whether they pose a security or criminal threat.
There is also an economic dimension. Historically, immigrants strengthened America when they filled genuine labor shortages, created businesses, developed new technologies and contributed more taxes than they consumed in public benefits.
But immigration is not cost-free. Rapid population growth can increase demand for housing, schools, health care and other public services. Americans competing for lower-skilled jobs can also reasonably ask whether immigration levels are contributing to downward pressure on wages in particular industries. The answer should not be to stop legal immigration. It should be to make legal immigration work for America.
That means establishing immigration levels according to national economic needs rather than treating ever-increasing immigration as an automatic virtue. It means giving consideration to skills, education, employment prospects and the ability of immigrants to become self-supporting. It means enforcing employment laws so that businesses cannot gain a competitive advantage by hiring unauthorized workers. It also means expecting assimilation, and this assumes immigrants want to assimilate, want to work, and want to pursue the American Dream.
America historically offered immigrants something extraordinary: the opportunity to become Americans. That required more than physical residence. It involved learning English, understanding American history and government, accepting constitutional principles regarding life, law, and freedom, and participating in a common civic culture. America can welcome people from virtually every nation while still insisting that citizenship carries responsibilities and that the United States has a national identity worth preserving.
The asylum system deserves scrutiny. Genuine refugees fleeing persecution deserve protection. But asylum should not become a substitute for ordinary immigration or a mechanism by which people enter illegally and then remain for years while their claims are adjudicated. The longer the government takes to decide cases, the more difficult and expensive enforcement becomes.
The same principle applies to legalization. America should be extremely cautious about another mass amnesty. The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 legalized millions of undocumented immigrants while attempting to strengthen enforcement. Critics contend that enforcement did not ultimately match the promise, leaving the country vulnerable to another wave of illegal immigration.
That history helps explain why many Americans now insist that enforcement must come first.
There is no shortage of possible reforms: secure the border, expand immigration courts, accelerate asylum decisions, require effective employment verification, remove criminals and others without a legal basis to remain, reform legal immigration categories, discourage welfare-dependent immigration and strengthen assimilation.
There is another fast emerging but still largely ignored problem re immigration—the increasing number of Islamic immigrants coming to America is not healthy for America long-term. Making this statement is not racist—Muslims represent virtually every country, race, and ethnicity on earth.
The question is about religious values and whether those values reinforce or tear down the American system. Making this statement is not ipso facto a violation of the First Amendment. Yes, Islam is a religion, but it is unlike any other religion on earth. It is equally and thoroughly a political ideology and a civilizational worldview demanding territorial and religious dominance wherever it exists.
This comes at a time when America, and indeed the West, seem to have lost confidence our nation, it’s heritage and values, and in its meaning. Fueled by encouragement from the left and many in media, Americans are wallowing in a kind of self-loathing, i.e., that nothing we ever did was valuable and certainly Western civilization is no better and maybe worse than all other civilizations, especially now Islamic. But this is revisionist history, the product of leftist neo-Marxist propaganda, and damaging, maybe deadly, in its impact upon American prospects and prosperity.
I address these and other considerations pertinent to the health of the American system in my new book, “We Hold These Truths”—Responsible Christian Patriotism. Islamism, which is often defined as Islamic extremism, is a direct threat to the future freedom and well-being of America. If you don’t believe me, do some reading about what is taking place in Europe where Islamists immigrants are rapidly overwhelming Europe’s heritage and culture. It can happen here.
So why hasn’t Congress acted? Because immigration is politically useful to both parties.
Republicans can campaign on border security and the rule of law. Democrats can campaign against what they regard as excessive enforcement and deportation. Each party has constituencies that punish its leaders for compromising. The result is predictable: politicians can obtain political benefits from the immigration controversy without accepting the risks of solving it.
The political landscape in 2026 makes a comprehensive bargain particularly difficult. Border encounters have fallen dramatically under the Trump administration, yet the immigration issue remains deeply polarizing. Pew Research found that 60% of Republicans still regard illegal immigration as a big national problem in April 2026, compared with only 17% of Democrats. At the same time, Americans are not uniformly supportive of every restrictive policy; for example, a January 2026 Pew survey found substantial support for a large military presence at the southern border but majority opposition to suspending all asylum applications. That combination makes compromise difficult.
Republicans have little incentive to surrender the political advantage of emphasizing enforcement, while Democrats have little incentive to provide Republicans with a legislative victory on an issue that divides their coalition. Recent Democratic debate over whether ICE should be abolished or reformed demonstrates that the party itself remains divided over the proper role of immigration enforcement.
America can remain generous without being careless. It can welcome legal immigrants without accepting illegal entry. It can enforce its borders without abandoning compassion.
It can even restrict, limit, or ban certain individuals who wish to come to America as a kind of fifth column or cell to work to undermine and ultimately to destroy the American system. As President Eisenhower once said, “the Bill of Rights contains no grant of privilege for a group of people to destroy the Bill of Rights.”
A government elected by the American people has a responsibility to “establish Justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.”
That is not anti-immigrant. It is what a free government of laws and a sovereign nation must do.
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. For more Christian commentary, see my website, r-e-x-m as in Martin, that’s rexmrogers.com, or check my YouTube channel @DrRexRogers.
And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.
© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2026
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