Likely Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio, who two years ago was part of the Senate “Gang of Eight” pushing for a form of amnesty, has admitted it was a serious mistake to push for “reform” before securing the border. It’s now time to get serious about real immigration reform, rather than the version that passes for clear thinking and compassion among so many policy makers, pastors and priests.

All human beings are created in God’s image. That doesn’t mean that we should favor the poor who have immigrated here illegally over our least fortunate fellow-Americans. American citizens are our political family. They fight in our country’s wars, pay its taxes and sit on its juries. Homeless shelters, public schools and hospitals for the poor across America are overwhelmed and underfunded. Taxes are high and budgets are bleeding.

In the face of all this, a majority of Americans favor a much more cautious approach to immigration. They want our borders secured and our country’s workplaces staffed with verified, legal workers. They want visitors who overstay their visas (such as the 9/11 hijackers) found and deported. In other words, Americans want to see our country’s just immigration laws enforced. If we’re serious about solving our immigration crisis in a way that most Americans will support, why are we avoiding these commonsense actions?

No one in the mainstream of this debate proposes that we deport eleven million illegal immigrants who have been here for years. Obviously we need to exercise mercy, but that is what it will be — mercy, not a requirement of justice. And border security and enforcement must be in place before we reach any permanent settlement. To grant amnesty otherwise would not only be unjust to the poorest Americans, it would create a massive run on our borders and a humanitarian disaster.

Unfortunately, powerful elites in both political parties, across major media and in leading Christian churches are working hard to prevent real reform. One of their most powerful weapons is distorted Christian rhetoric of compassion and social justice.

The Devil Exploits Our Virtues

I don’t mean to imply that the religious leaders calling for amnesty are duplicitous. I assume they believe their rhetoric. But the impulse behind the call for immediate amnesty is an example of virtue distorted.

Dorothy Sayers said, the devil “is much better served by exploiting our virtues than by appealing to our lower passions; consequently, it is when the devil looks most noble and reasonable that he is most dangerous.”

Dorothy Sayers (1893-1957), Christian author, translator of The Divine Comedy. Photo: Wikimedia.

We see this law of spiritual warfare in effect throughout Christian history. Satan fastened on Judas’s prudence — Jesus had made him treasurer for a reason — and blew it up into stinginess, then greed to the point of betrayal. In subsequent centuries, the Enemy found some men with a zeal for eternal truth, and goaded them to persecute Jews, “heretics” and “witches.” He found men who loved the poor, and convinced some to go a little further and hate the rich. As St. John Paul II observed in Memory and Identity, some of the worst crimes in Western history were committed in the name of “liberty, equality, and fraternity” — secular knockoffs of faith, hope, and charity.

This same dynamic, albeit in a subtler form, is behind the drive among religious leaders for amnesty now.

True Compassion

Today America’s safety and solvency are being threatened by a counterfeit form of compassion. Real compassion “suffers with” a person in need; it does not recruit him in a political crusade to transfer the pain to innocent others. The Good Samaritan did not cheat the innkeeper or steal the Levite’s gold to aid the victim he’d found on the road. Christ did not tell the rich young man to seize his neighbors’ wealth and give that to the poor.

Here are some key questions to ask any church leader who champions amnesty for illegal immigrants:

• Has your church or charity received money from federal contracts or grants in the past five years for “helping” illegal immigrants? If so, how much?
• Does your church provide attorneys for immigrants fighting the U.S. government’s attempts to enforce its laws?
• Does your church favor IRS rebates of up to $35,000 to amnestied immigrants who can prove that they were working in the U.S. through felony identity theft (using stolen Social Security numbers)? Should these immigrants be exempt from prosecution for these felonies? If so, why?
• Does your church “sponsor” legal immigrants entering the country? If so, do you fulfill your legal promise to prevent such immigrants from becoming a “public charge”? Or do you refer them to tax-funded welfare programs? How much have you spent financially supporting such immigrants last year, to save taxpayers’ having to subsidize them?

The way many of these religious leaders speak and behave, one would think the Christian tradition condemned the idea of borders, border security and the application of the rule of law to people who violate immigration laws. That tradition calls us to a loving concern for all humanity, yes; but neither the Bible (see relevant verses here) nor the Catechism of the Catholic Church (see pertinent passages here) offers any support for the notion of open borders. Instead, Christian churches have always taught that a citizen owes his country the duty of patriotism, and that each of us must work for the common good of our given community.

If someone today wants to offer properly Christian aid to an immigrant, the existing law offers him an ideal way to do that: He may sponsor a legal immigrant, promise not to allow that immigrant to become a “public charge,” then honor that promise by providing the migrant financial support until he gets on his feet. To do all that at one’s own expense is truly to “welcome the stranger.” As to those who shunt that responsibility onto others, then “announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do” (Mt 6:2). . . . They already have their reward.