Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:38 All right. So we've had a little cold front come through here in Houston in late October. So Matt, that took, it probably looks different than the world you're in right now that took our temperature from the mid eighties to now it's like 60. So, you know, everyone's like burger it's. So it's so called
Speaker 1 00:00:57 In Chicago. We've gone from mid sixties to mid forties in the last year.
Speaker 0 00:01:01 There you go. There you go. It's it. It's, you know, it's on a ratio there. Um, so anyway, so we're hoping that technology, uh, works for us in this episode because we did have some thunderstorms to bring that cool front end, but we're going to do our best today. Um, I'm here with Matthew Soerens. He has had a part in writing some incredible books for the church on the discussion of immigration. Um, and so the one that we are going to make the basis of our conversation today is a couple of years old now, but it is it's fantastic. And it is full of an incredible knowledge, um, for the church in this discussion. So it's called welcoming the stranger justice, compassion and truth in the immigration debate. So thanks, Matt. I appreciate you coming on.
Speaker 1 00:01:51 Yeah. Happy to be with you.
Speaker 0 00:01:53 So first I wanted to say if people pick this up and I hope that they do, and we'll put a link in the show notes that people can grab that they'll notice that it says revised and expand edition on the front. And so when I was looking at the title page, you guys released this book in 2018, but you released the first edition in 2009. Um, and so, and so we're going to, we're going to get to that. I'm going to kind of ask you a question, kind of a series of leading questions to get us there. And then I just realized, I said your name and your book, but we don't really know who we're talking. So mine introducing yourself in relationship to the organizations that you work with and kind of how you know about this topic. And then, and then we'll get going. I got, I got ahead of myself trying to get to this amazing content.
Speaker 1 00:02:43 Um, yeah. So my name is Matt <inaudible>. I I've worked for about 15 years now for world relief, which is a Christian humanitarian organization that works all over the world. Um, actually I started with world relief as an intern in Nicaragua, uh, as a college student and really my experience there loved the people that I got to interact with and loved the mission of the organization, which is to empower the local church to serve the vulnerable. Um, honestly, in the, in, in central America or the work we do in Africa or in Southeast Asia or the Caribbean, you know, the work we do looks different than it would do in the United States. So after I came back from that internship, there was a world relief office down the street from the college where I was finishing up and I just loved the organization so much that I applied for a job, not because I was super passionate about immigration issues or honestly knew very much about immigration issues at all.
Speaker 1 00:03:30 I just knew I loved that mission statement, but in the U S context, most of what world relief does is focused on empowering the church to serve refugees and other immigrants. And so, um, I, I think I actually got turned down for the first job I applied for, but a couple of tries later, I was hired for a role actually in the immigration legal services department at world relief in Chicago land. And really the, the, the book welcoming the stranger in its first edition in a large, significant way was, um, you know, it was came out of my own exploring this issue. And really two realizations one was that I was sort of generically supportive of caring for vulnerable people. I, my theology was up to that point, but I didn't know what, if anything, the Bible said about immigrants in particular. And as I was looking for that, because this was not my job, I was really almost like blown away by how specifically infrequently the Bible speaks to this question of how to treat vulnerable foreigners and almost felt a little ripped off that nobody in my, you know, 20 years at that point, 22 years of life had ever told me this, you know, I managed to go over, grew up in a great church and memorize a lot of Bible verses and go to a great Christian college.
Speaker 1 00:04:38 But somehow I felt like I'd had this biblical blind spot. And then the other thing that was really a revelation to me as I started working at world relief is I started, I needed to learn U S immigration law and U S immigration law is far more dysfunctional than I used to presume. And I think I'm a pretty typical American in that I was born here. I didn't have to deal with U S immigration laws at some point back. My ancestors did. And maybe I presume that they are laws worked roughly the same way now that they did in 1860s when my first ancestors came to this country. Um, but they don't. And so learning a little bit of the history and especially because the current state of us immigration policy and how truly dysfunctional that is not just for immigrants, but also for our economy, for our society as a whole.
Speaker 1 00:05:20 Um, all of that was what, you know, and then in conversation with my colleague, Jenny yang, um, uh, what turned into the book, welcoming the stranger back in 2009. So it was a few years in the works at that point, but that's kinda my background. I also, now, in addition to world relief there, in my role at world relief, I also helped to coordinate something called the evangelical immigration table, which is a broader coalition that will really support us, but so are several other national Christian organizations really towards the goal of helping both the church think about immigration in informed biblical ways, and then also helping our elected officials, uh, think about how biblical principles would apply to the public policy questions. So they need to engage.
Speaker 0 00:06:01 Yeah. That's um, thanks for mentioning both of those places. I feel like what you just said, um, up until the point when you started becoming educated for your job describes so much, so many American Christians, right? We understand our theology has a place for caring for the vulnerable, but we don't really understand what that looks like in terms of immigration. I would, I would say that probably there are many people and maybe it's different now, especially than it was in 2009. Um, but don't fully understand how vulnerable immigrants are in America vulnerable
Speaker 1 00:06:37 And sadly, in some ways I think they're more vulnerable now than they were in 2009. I mean, it's become certainly more hostile climate
Speaker 0 00:06:43 You when, as I was finishing up the book you talk about in the last couple of chapters, some of the differences between what you see in the church or what you were seeing in the church before this publication in 2018, compared to what that looked like in 2009, the environment, and it sounds largely positive, you know, like there's been a lot of positive change, um, kind of in that decade. So I, I'd kinda like for you to give us maybe a little timeline that kind of post 2020, I'm curious what environment looks like now, um, compared to even, you know, 20, 20 16, 20 18, probably when you were prepping this book and then, you know, 2007 eight when you were doing it the first time.
Speaker 1 00:07:35 Yeah, no, I, I really appreciate that question. I think I would probably chart maybe two significant, um, changes I've seen in the course of the time I've been working on this issue. So I've gone back to 2006 or seven or so. Um, one thing I would say is sort of at the leadership level when Jenny and I wrote this book, first of all, I'm very grateful to university press for publishing this book. Cause we were both quite young and didn't really like know people to endorse a book or like how to promote a book. Um, it was, they were really taking a risk on us and we appreciate that because, and also it's an controversial topic. It was controversial in 2006, seven it's controversial now. Um, I would say part of the reason we wrote the book was there was a lot of silence from evangelical institutions on questions of immigration in 2009 when this book came out.
Speaker 1 00:08:26 Um, and that's, I should say, especially sort of mainstream evangelical institutions with majority white, um, membership. So Latino evangelicals were quite outspoken. Um, but beyond that, there weren't a ton of people speaking out. Um, and part of our goal was to try to encourage that conversation. And I don't know that it was our book. There's lots of factors that went into play, but I would say between 2009 and when the second edition came out in 2018, and this is probably just continued, we've seen a lot of institutions speak into this issue. So the national association of evangelicals, the Southern Baptist ethics and religious Liberty commission has taken on the position that the Southern Baptist convention has, has expressed in recent resolutions in the last few years around immigration and refugees. Um, the council of Christian colleges and universities has been very engaged. So it's become a much larger part of the conversation.
Speaker 1 00:09:15 Um, but especially among evangelical leaders and institutions. And I think some of that is they're looking at the rivals and realizing this is a common theme, but also frankly, their institutions are much more diverse now than they were 15 years ago. And that has brought con patients with immigration status in some cases, I mean, there's very few denominations that don't have Spanish speaking churches that are part of their membership. And within most of those, you've got at least some people and not just Spanish speaking, you know, it could be Korean speaking churches or other immigrant congregations. There are some people who are directly affected by these immigration policy questions. So that's one shift and I think that's been a positive trajectory. Um, I would say though, I'm less encouraged by the trajectory and sort of the, the lay lay person level. Um, in fact it really, if you re if, you know, people who have the first edition of this book, they'll find that we, we almost didn't talk about refugees in the first edition of the book.
Speaker 1 00:10:07 We kind of mentioned them on the side, even though that's a huge part of the work world relief does. Um, but I think honestly, because we thought that was sort of obvious, like it was just something we all agreed upon that helping refugees, people who have fled persecution, uh, and who all come to United States with legal status that we didn't need to like defend everyone. Agreed. That was a good thing to do. That was bi-partisan, but we really needed to respond to the questions about how do we, as Christians think about immigrants who are unlawfully present in the country, and then in between 2009, when the first edition came out and when the second edition came out in 2018, uh, that was no longer the case. I mean, refugees frankly became every bit as controversial and according to the polling as, uh, undocumented immigrants. Um, so it wasn't just the legal status question.
Speaker 1 00:10:52 There was also, I think for a lot of people that presumption that refugees were Muslim or just that they weren't adequately vetted, which I think is, I think they're actually very thoroughly vetted and there's a lot of evidence of that, but that was sort of the concern from a lot of people. Um, so we, we saw that shift in the American population and probably particularly frankly, in evangelical churches, which was really upsetting for us at world relief. I will say since the second edition of this book came on 2018 and mostly just in the last three months, frankly, we've kind of seen that shift back again and largely because of the Afghan crisis. Um, and it's, you know, it's probably too soon to say if this is a sustained shift. Um, and if it will be unique to Afghans, perhaps because of their service to the us military in many cases, or, I mean, not to be too cynical, but maybe just because Joe Biden messed up the evacuation and suddenly it became politically on one side of the aisle, you can say he met the Hayden, bringing refugees to the country and you know, enough, and suddenly people would put themselves on record for standing with refugees, but we'll take the shift.
Speaker 1 00:11:51 It's been really encouraging, um, incredible support from churches in the last few months. It's want to welcome the Afghans who are arriving. And that's something we're very busy with at world relief at the moment. So again, it's probably too soon to say if that's a sustained shift, but it has been really interesting. And even the polling that's already come out right now, like evangelicals are more supportive of welcoming Afghans than the population as a whole, whereas a year ago, not 10 years ago, but a year ago, the majority of white evangelical Christians in particular, um, thought that we should be restricting refugee resettlement. And they were probably the only religious demographic that said that certainly at that level.
Speaker 0 00:12:25 Wow. So that makes me wonder kind of, if I don't really know how to phrase this, but it makes me wonder if the, not just the political, uh, that you mentioned with Biden, you know, kind of, this is kind of a train wreck, getting everybody, um, you know, getting everybody out or not getting people out to. Um, but I'm wondering like how much of the visuals, right. Had a hand in the perspective change on that? I feel like I saw a lot of people who maybe I wouldn't anticipate, maybe it wouldn't normally show up on their social media feed or something like that with, you know, um, reposting, you know, pictures of, you know, the, the, the horrific pictures we saw, right. If people like hanging off of aircraft and things like that. Um, and when people can see, you know, with their eyes, something, um, as, as traumatic and dramatic as that, that we can't help but feel compassion. Um, I don't know.
Speaker 1 00:13:33 I think there's definitely something to that. And, and I would say that was true in 2015 with this horrifying image of a little boy, watched the show on a beach in Turkey as well. Um, Alan Kurdi, the little boy from Syria, it was the same dynamic where, I mean the civil war in Syria and the outpouring of refugees from Syria did not begin in 2015. Right. It's several years earlier than that, right. And Americans didn't seem to care very much. It was not something Americans were paying attention to. And then that photo, it was like a overnight just ignited as a wave of compassion. I will say. I mean, that, that was a busy time of world relief as well. Although ironically, the U S was not resettling very many Syrian refugees at that point. Very, very few. So we had all these people wanting to help Syrian refugees.
Speaker 1 00:14:20 And I was basically telling them how about we, um, the S advocate for them, we care about the Syrians, but the people who are arriving today are from Burma or from Congo, would you like to welcome them? And it was like, no, we wanna help the Syrians. But then the crazy thing was, it was only two months later, November of 2015, there was a terrorist attack in Paris, which was not perpetrated by Syrian refugees or Syrians at any legal status. It was perpetrated by French and Belgian nationals from what we know now, but all it took was a and within a few days you had 30 governors saying we don't want Syrian refugees in our states and a presidential candidate saying we don't want Muslims in this country. And that nearly became the policy of the United States government, you know, a couple of years later.
Speaker 1 00:15:05 And so I think that's also a cautionary tale, even as I'm encouraged by all the support for Africans right now is it doesn't even take an actual event to turn public opinion very quickly. And all of that is underscores, but, you know, it's really one of the main points we want to make in the book, welcoming the stranger, which is for Christians, our views on how to respond to these questions should be primarily informed by the Bible, which doesn't change. I mean, that was when we revise this book, the chapter that we barely touched was the chapter on the Bible. Cause it hasn't changed since 2009. The chapter on policy, you know, a lot has changed in politics and updated statistics on the economics and all that. But the Bible, you know, which reveals the unchanging character of God, um, that's the part that hasn't changed and the fact that our views as Christians tend to be so fickle is actually, I think, regulatory that we are not rooting our views in God's work.
Speaker 0 00:15:57 Yeah. I completely agree. Um, one of the things that, that I would say I have been struck by in the past couple of years, as I have started to read more and try and educate myself and, and try and figure out what, you know, what I can do. Things like that, um, is, is recognized a, that, that was, that was one of the big kind of shockers for me. So, so I would say I was in a worse spot than you, because I don't think that that was a biblical blind spot for me, as you described at the beginning of the show, um, I just didn't do anything about it. Like I was, I was completely familiar, had been taught on those verses and subjects and passages as Bible study, but it was just kind of like fodder for like theoretical theology, right? Like, let's just, let's just talk about this in, in theory and not really do anything about it on the ground.
Speaker 0 00:16:56 What started to change my perspective or make me realize that I didn't really have an informed perspective is probably a better description was when I started to hear kind of this compassion thing that we're talking about when I started to hear people's stories. Right. But, but that was kind of, I mean, it almost looked like a braid as I started to combine this biblical, um, you know, this biblical view that, that you're right. It, it, it doesn't change. It, it hasn't changed and this is the character of God. And combining it with, like, for me, the stories are almost like the, the why, or like, you wanna know why God said that, because look at what cause look at what happened, right. Look at what this is doing to people to humanity. When we turn a blind eye, when we don't, you know, do these things, um, and it's still happening, whether the pictures are showing up or not, or whether they're rumors or not, humanity is still being affected, um, affected by these decisions that we make. So let's go to that biblical piece though. Um, what were some of the, what, even though it didn't change that chapter didn't change from, from edition to edition, what are some of the things that you would draw out? Like if someone comes to you, this is your job and they say, I just need a 1 0 1. Tell me where to start. What do you, where do you point them generally biblically.
Speaker 1 00:18:17 Yeah. Um, there's a lot, I mean, to talk about biblically and again, that's part of the point is this, isn't just like one little verse that was a secret in the middle of the minor prophets. It's actually a pretty consistent theme throughout fulfilled the new Testament. Um, so I, sometimes I start just by highlighting that, I mean the Hebrew word for an immigrant, or depending upon your translation of the Bible in English, uh, Sojourner, foreigner, stranger, alien, that word is the word Gare. It appears 92 times in the old Testament. So like there's a lot of immigrants in the Bible, both as characters. If you think about it, many of the heroes of our faith we're crossing borders at one point or another, whether that's, you know, Abraham or Moses and Moses, it's so central to his identity that he gets, you know, he leaves Egypt and he named his son, um, basically Gershom, which is like an alien there.
Speaker 1 00:19:08 Like that's, you know, that was his son's name. Um, you see David fleeing the country at different points to seek, seek asylum, flee persecution, uh, and then Jesus himself, the most notably, um, you know, as a small child flees to Egypt with Joseph and Mary, um, because of king Herod. So that's one dynamic is just a lot of.bible characters for themselves, migrants of one sort or another. And interestingly for kind of all the same reasons as people migrate today, you know, fleeing persecution, fleeting, hunger, or poverty, they want to be like Ruth with her, mother-in-law related to family, um, all those dynamics. Um, and then God has very specific instructions to the people of Israel in the old Testament about how to treat immigrants. And often they're in the very same passages with how to treat the orphan and the widow of these three groups of people who sort of define vulnerability in that context.
Speaker 1 00:20:01 And I think you could argue that still, you know, those three groups of people are still often very vulnerable. Uh, and you see that that linkage both in the books of the law, but then in the books, the profits, as well as God is basically calling on, he's judging the people of Israel for failing to love and welcome and seek justice for the immigrants, along with the orphan, the widow, the poor, and then in the new Testament, uh, you know, probably there's less specific commands about how to treat immigrants. But one of the themes that I think is, is in various parts of the new Testament is the idea of hospitality, which is, um, kind of, I think, a, a forgotten virtue or a misunderstood virtue. We think about hospitality as having a nice guestroom for our relatives when they come and visit. So like we're gonna wash the sheets and the towels, cause you know, our in laws are coming or whatever, or maybe having friends over for a fancy dinner, but actually hospitality in the Greek of the new Testament is Philo Xenia.
Speaker 1 00:20:57 It is the love of strangers. So if we're loving our friends and family, we've missed the boat and nothing wrong with loving your friends and family, but you need to paraphrase Jesus in the gospel of Luke. Like you love the people who love you. That's what everybody does as Christians. We're called this, something beyond that, which is ultimately it's love even your enemies, but also to love those who are strangers, which is what it means when Romans 12 tells us to practice hospitality or in Hebrews 13, when we were told that by welcoming strangers, some people have entertained angels without realizing it. Um, even in Matthew 25, Jesus talks about that in a sense, we could be welcoming him by welcoming a stranger. So I think those are all biblical themes. And then, you know, so the broader biblical themes of recognizing that people are made in the image of God and have inherent dignity, um, and not only dignity, but also potential, which I sometimes use as an entry point to talk about the ways that immigrants contribute, uh, because that's not unique to immigrants.
Speaker 1 00:21:49 All people are made by God with, in his image, with the potential to create as in being made an image of a creator. But we tend to forget that dynamic, particularly when we talk about immigrants, when the conversation very quickly, it goes to what, what does this cost us? And yet we never do the other side of the ledger of what is this, what are these people contributing? Um, also gets the great commandment to love your neighbors yourself. And, um, that, you know, that clearly includes the vulnerable traveler because that's the precise definition that Jesus gives us or the precise example that Jesus gives us a Luke chapter 10 of what it looks like to love your neighbor. Interestingly, a neighbor in that case who was of a different religious tradition of the person who was beaten up on the side of the road, um, and then also the, the great commission, the command to make disciples of all nations.
Speaker 1 00:22:36 Um, I think it's really important to know that that's a two way street because a lot of actually the majority of immigrants come to the United States are already Christians or of some sort or another many of whom, very vibrant Christians who are bringing the gospel with them to this country and often are, you know, sharing the gospel with people in the United States. Um, and then the reverse is also true. There are people who are not yet believers who come into a country where there are many Christians and also where we are blessed with religious freedom. So, you know, often coming from countries where there is very limited religious freedoms, people come into this context where we are free to share our faith and they are free to receive it or to reject it. And we see, you know, w we find that there are people who come in, who would be very unlikely to ever even know a Christian if they were to stay in their country of origin, like not only not be a Christian, but unlikely to personally know a Christian, uh, Afghanistan is a good example of that.
Speaker 1 00:23:24 Less than 5% of the people of Afghanistan have ever saved. They personally know a Christian according to the center for the study of global Christianity, presumably they will meet a Christian in the United States. I mean, there's a bunch of us here, right? Um, as tens of thousands of them are resettled. Although even that, I mean, I guess it goes to what it means to know someone, but when they serve people, survey people, and this is the same source, the center for the study of global Christianity when they survey people of non-Christian religious traditions in north America, 60%. So they don't know a Christian, which I think is actually really, um, it's rather scandalous for American Christians. So we might say all those people need to go get out more. There's a bunch of Christians and, uh, Houston or Chicago, but maybe we need to put the mirror up to ourselves and say, are we loving our neighbors as ourselves enough to go into their neighborhoods and get to know them and love them as their neighbors, which we would be called to whether or not they would ever come to share our faith.
Speaker 1 00:24:20 But when we do that part, well, frankly, it's very that sooner or later, there's not the question of why do you love us so much? And we get to, at first, Peter says to be ready to give an answer to everyone who asks to, for the reason, for the hope that is within you and to do so with gentleness and respect. And we've seen that in our work at world relief. And then we've presented on a lot of refugees who are already believers, including a lot who are persecuted for their Christian faith, but also a lot more Muslims or Hindus or of other religious traditions. And, you know, a number of them again, never under any sort of coercion or pressure because we don't do proselytism. But when they're loved well by volunteers from a local church, they've often asked us questions and many have made the decision to follow Jesus in this country in a way that would just be unlikely to happen. Have they stayed in their country of origin. So I think there's an incredible mission opportunity for the American church here as well, but that we're missing out on if we've only framed immigration as sort of a political issue.
Speaker 0 00:25:12 Yeah. Wow. That's great, man. I'll tell you that this, the cynical side of me is kind of, it was kind of lighting up a little bit when you said to put the mirror up to ourselves, you know, are we going, are we going into the communities where we would find refugees is definitely the right question? My cynical question was like, yeah, maybe they don't know that they've encountered Christians because maybe we're don't look like them.
Speaker 1 00:25:36 Well, and the sad reality for better or worse. I think if you're coming from a non-Christian religious context, Muslim majority context, often you think that all Americans are Christians, which, um, may not be a very good witness or again, or they may encounter people who are Christians. And what they hear about Christians, especially evangelical Christians is other people who want to keep all the Muslims out there. The people who want to keep immigrants out or deport them all. And there are some survey data to support those views. I mean, those are not entirely, um, inaccurate views. Of course, there are many Christians who are exceptions to that, but there are some, you know, there are also some self-proclaimed spokespeople from American evangelicalism who basically do those, say those things. And I think it has an incredibly negative effect on the witness of the church, both for those coming to the U S but frankly, for tens of millions of others who will never come to the United States, but are still aware of those views.
Speaker 0 00:26:31 Yeah. Yeah. Um, one of the things that really hit me in your book kind of policy-wise I guess, and, and it's maybe it's, I do want you to about the policy if you can, but I just, I think it kind of affects in general, how we as this, this kind of people in this white evangelical American church, I hear, I hear this a lot, something like this, I'm happy for them to come, but I just want them to do it legally. Like my fill in the blank, this many generations back family member did, like my great-grandfather did my great-grandfather came from Ireland. My, my great grandma came from Mexico. My whomever, it is grandmother. Great-grandmother, I'm 40. So, you know, it's probably may not be parents that I hear as much as grandparents and that point forward and they, and that, and it's kind of looks like that. Right? So it almost turns into a black and white. I don't care if you're here. I just want you to follow the law. And that be that legality, I feel like is one of the fishers kind of that I see at least just when I'm hearing just general, like lay people talk. But one of the things that your book points out is this 1965, um, kind of line in time, um, in American immigration, that basically makes what we are saying as this part of the church, impossible or next to impossible. Can you elaborate on?
Speaker 1 00:28:08 Yeah. So I really appreciate that. And like, I can empathize with the people who have those perspectives, because I think that was basically my perspective on this issue 20 years ago. Uh, I think it's a very common perspective and occasionally it's sort of a front for, uh, an uglier perspective that is really, I, you know, I'm saying I don't, I like immigrants. I just need a couple of go away, but actually I don't like immigrants at all, especially for their own countries, but I don't think that's always the case at all. I think there's a lot of people who genuinely would be happy to have more immigrants in this country, but are very uncomfortable with people not following the law and it's their own historical context or their own family's experience often does inform that what I think people are often missing is, uh, just how dramatically our laws have changed. So, I mean, my family's stories and example of that, my, my ancestors came in the 1860s from what I understand from Holland. Um, I I'm sure that they came here legally and that is because we had no federal restrictions on immigration law until the 1880s. Right. They couldn't have come here.
Speaker 1 00:29:11 And I'm not saying we should go back to that system on that, not an advocate for that view, but I do think it's important that we know that before we brag about how morally superior our ancestors were. Wow, you're following all the rules. I mean, I think we use in the book, the analogy, it's like a, you know, a basketball coach bragging to a baseball coach. Then my ski team scored a hundred points and yours only scored four, you know, like, look, you're playing a different game with different rules like that, that doesn't make any sense. But the reality is 1965, you mentioned dramatic performance, our immigration laws, and actually just about hundred years ago in the 1920s, another dramatic reform of our immigration laws was in the twenties that we basically closed the door. Um, legal migration, uh, up to that point had been nearly open first restrictions start in the 1880s and then gradually more and more surgeons.
Speaker 1 00:29:55 And it was basically slammed shut in the twenties. Um, and a lot of that was fueled by some pretty ugly kind of pseudo scientific racism, um, eugenics and that sort of thing. Um, in 1965, we made further changes, which were actually, I think, overall beneficial compared to what we have in twenties, although it was negative for certain categories of people like those in the Western hemisphere. Um, we had some new restrictions, but that goes to how our, I mean, frankly, the 1965 reforms are still basically our immigration laws today. We've added things a little bit on the margins, but it's basically the, the, the skeleton of our immigration laws were, and in 1965. And basically if you want to come lawfully to the United States today, your options are having a close relative. Who's a us citizen or a lawful permanent resident, or you have an employer sponsor, but basically only if you're classified as highly skilled.
Speaker 1 00:30:47 So you've got an advanced degree, like a master's degree not to come and do agricultural work or, um, you know, work in the back of a restaurant or those other roles that are not considered highly skilled. Um, there might be temporary work leases and some of those situations, but not immigrant visas to come and live here permanently. You could win something called the diversity visa lottery, which is an online lottery. The odds of which of winning are something in most years around one in 400, which is not zero, but not very good. And also you can't even enter that lottery if you're from Mexico or El Salvador, Guatemala, Canada, the United Kingdom, the Philippines, India, China, and other countries, and some of the most immigrants already, or your last possibility is refugee or asylum status. So refugees mean to have fled a credible fear of persecution on account of your race, religion, political opinion, national origin or social group.
Speaker 1 00:31:34 And there's 26 and a half million refugees in the world. Last year, 12,000 were invited to come to United States. So we're getting into decimal points that I get confused on, but basically like less than one 10th of 1% of the world's refugees got resettled last year, your odds are not good. And the last point, their asylum asylum is people who get to the United States, not invited. That is to say either on a temporary visa, that's supposed to be just for tourism or they make their way to the border. And they basically say to the us government, please don't send me back because I have a credible fear of persecution for one of these reasons under the law. That's a lot of what we've seen at the U S Mexico border in the last few years, that is another big shift we've seen. It used to be.
Speaker 1 00:32:10 People came to the border to try to sneak in, to go fill a Jew, you know, work and support their families. Now they go to the border and in most cases, they look for the border patrol. They're not running away from the morning parole. They're looking for the border patrol to request asylum. It doesn't mean that they all have a good case or I'll qualify because frankly, you know, most would be immigrants. Don't understand our immigration laws much better than most us citizens do. Um, but they have generally heard that this country offers protection to people think that situations, which is not actually what our laws say, it's a little bit more precise than that and more complicated, but there are some people who qualify and others who don't and many who try to avail themselves of that offer of protection. And that's, I think that gets lost when we hear people, you know, focusing on all these people, coming to the border.
Speaker 1 00:32:52 When you see 10,000 Haitians showing up in a group, do you think they were trying to sneak in, like, do you come in a group of 10,000? If you're trying to sneak into the country, like, that's not a very good strategy. They're basically pleading with this country to give them hope. And I'm not saying that they also do out to stay. I think the law, you know, we need to have laws. I mean, to have systems, but we ought to be able to have some basic compassion and not accuse them of trying to invade the country or, you know, these nefarious ends. I mean, if you look at what Haiti has suffered really for a long time, but especially in the last 10 years, there's a lot of reasons people have felt they had to get out of that situation.
Speaker 0 00:33:25 Wow. Yeah. I mean, that's, that's what I was thinking. When you were saying there they're coming in, they're looking for the border patrol and I'm like, and many of them are not Mexicans. Right. They were coming through Mexico because that is this other in border. Right. So as you mentioned, they're coming from Haiti, they're coming from central and south America where civil wars have been continuously going for decades where government is extraordinarily corrupt and people don't have the ability to, to stay safe, um, where they are and they, and they feel very afraid. And so they're going, I mean, you know, that, that's kind of part of it. I, as laughing at, you know, are you trying to sneak in, it's not a very good plan, right. But it's also like how afraid, how afraid would you have to be to travel all of that way from central America as an example, or from Haiti,
Speaker 1 00:34:15 From Haiti, south America
Speaker 0 00:34:18 And all the way up like that. That also it's, it's not a very good plan unless it's the only one you've got. Right. Right. Unless, unless, you know, what, what kind of fear and desperation would drive someone here? What kind of compassion can we show? Can we mirror, you know, what we're seeing? Can we can our compassion mirror, what, what they're experiencing, you know, what would drive that?
Speaker 1 00:34:41 And that goes to your question on like, well, we just want them to come to the legal way. A lot of people are trying to come. The only last legal option that's left to them. If we would have more employer sponsored visas available, especially at a time when frankly we have incredible labor shortages in this country. Like if any of you have tried to go to a restaurant or like have an airplane leave on time or get a doctor's appointment, like there's all sorts of parts of our country right now that are not working well because of labor shortages. There are lots of people who are skilled at different levels, whether that's, you know, to work in agriculture or to, you know, work in a restaurant or whatever, um, who would be happy to go to the embassy in their country and pay a few hundred dollars to request a visa and come on an airplane in an orderly fashion, our view has never been let's celebrate illegal immigration or, or, you know, condone illegal immigration, but let's have a more functional, legal migration process, not without limit, but at least to meet the needs of the us labor market.
Speaker 1 00:35:35 And then we could discuss if it should go beyond that for humanitarian or foreign policy reasons or family unification reasons, but at a minimum, why not at least like when are people desperate to come, not make them go through this incredible, dangerous, long journey in hopes of requesting asylum, which may or may not apply to them, but having more robust, legal immigration options that are, that are available closer to home. And I think most Americans don't realize that those don't exist. They think that you can go get that if you want to. And as you know, as a legal professional, that was the shock to me was that most of my job was giving people bad news. No, you don't qualify come awfully. And once you're already here unlawfully, there's nothing you can do to fix that. And that's really what we've, you know, to go back to the Bible, we take really seriously that Romans 13 and some other passages, you know, tell us as Christians, we, that God has established government government is a good that God has established.
Speaker 1 00:36:26 You can, it can do evil, certainly. And there's historical examples of that, but it is good for there to be an order of the government maintaining order. Um, and so we're not saying, well, let's just ignore immigration laws or say that we don't have borders, but rather how can we fix the system so that it's both just, and also compassionate, um, that doesn't mean giving people a free pass necessarily for violating the law, but maybe we could have people pay a fine, you know, we've framed that as what we call the restitution based immigration reform where people could come forward, pay a fine for having violated immigration law, whether they cross the border unlawfully, or they're among the roughly half of the 11 million immigrants unlawfully in the country who overstated temporary visa. And that would allow them to then make amends for their violation of law.
Speaker 1 00:37:09 Just the way that, you know, I paid a fair amount in library, overdue fines in my life because I have violated some rules of the library. Uh, mostly my children have. And then, um, you know, you make things right. You pay the fine, and then you're able to earn permanent legal status. That's frankly, the, when we wrote this first edition of the book, we were pushing for that legislation back when president Bush was president, uh, we were pushing for it in 2013 when president Obama was president and they basically supported the same legislation, which this doesn't need to be a partisan thing. Right.
Speaker 0 00:37:37 Yeah. I mean, when I'm, when I'm hearing you the phrase that I wrote it down when I was reading the book, and I don't know if this is exactly the way that, that you and Jenny say it, but it's basically like, there is no line to stand in right now.
Speaker 1 00:37:54 Right. And to be even more complicated because that people hear that and they say, but I know this person who came here lawfully, there's actually like a thousand lines to stand in. And most people don't qualify to stand in any of them, you know, there is a line if you're married to a us citizen, there's a line. If you've got a PhD and a company that wants to hire you, it's not, I was an easy line. It's still rather dysfunctional. And it might take a long time. Um, you know, uh, adult, child of name of a us citizen can wait 20 years or more to come lawfully though. There is the process for them.
Speaker 0 00:38:24 That was a shock to me. That's when you said, you know, it's dysfunctional at the number. I thought it was 23. I think you used that. And at some point I'm like, are you kidding me, 23 years to stand in line? We can't wait five minutes at Starbucks. Right.
Speaker 1 00:38:40 And I mean, even like, if you're a parent has a green card, so they're not even a citizen, there's a process for an unmarried child, unmarried son or daughter, but not for a married centered daughter. So basically in that, while you're waiting for 15 or 20 years or more, you can't get married, we can go live with your boyfriend or girlfriend. There's not a legal problem there, which from a Christian perspective, I don't know that we want our policies encouraging that. Um, but that's the effect. I mean, I've, I've had to have conversations with my clients and I used to work as a legal counselor. I'm not telling you to get married or not. That's not my job, but I'm telling you, these are the legal consequences. If you choose to get married or your first son or daughter who is waiting on this petition back in whatever country chooses to get married. And so it's a rather dysfunctional system in so many ways.
Speaker 0 00:39:24 Right. And I think that, uh, cause I've, I've been reading a lot. I mentioned to you, I'm taking a course right now, I'm on this subject. And so, um, one of the, one of the things that I've seen is, is in the meantime, we have Christians who were just saying, if these certain, you know, there were certain laws that could have gotten passed, I guess, right recently in the last five or six years, where that would have put a lot of people who work in the church or in service industries, um, where they were violating immigration laws by, by doing, uh, you know, by serving people who are undocumented and, and, and people, church leaders, and, and various people have decided, you know, ahead of time, I'm just, just get prepared. I'm, I'm going to end up breaking the law. If this means I can't serve the people of my community, then I'll do that. But then there's also the other end that you're talking about of, we're not saying there shouldn't be laws, but how can we advocate for change so that, so that all of us together are not put in this predicament of being, of having to violate what are unjust and dysfunctional laws in the first place we're kind of in these, in these weird, it kind of puts everybody in this weird predicament, right? Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:40:37 Well, and I do think it's worth noting most of the, the sort of legal proposals that would actually put ministry to immigrants in a make that unlawful, most of those have been proposals that haven't become law. So they've gotten close, uh, various points actually. And in a few states, um, there've been efforts very recently and in Texas, you know, there's, uh, an executive order that's been held up by the courts in partial, um, religious freedom grounds that, you know, it made it against the law to transport someone who an asylum seeker. Who'd been letting the United States by the federal government, but doesn't have a permanent legal status yet. Um, but that's been not held up by the court. So there's also actually some good first amendment protections to some of these issues as they rear their heads. So I do think it's important for church leaders to know that like you can run your ministry to immigrants, and you're almost certainly not violating any laws.
Speaker 1 00:41:26 Like don't look to Roman 13 for the reason that you should not serve immigrants. It's harder for our brothers and sisters are themselves undocumented immigrants. They're just a little bit trickier. Um, but I do think it's also, you know, we often go to Romans 13 on what to tell immigrants who are unlawfully in the country. Romans 13 also has something to say to citizens, which is in a democratic form of government, uh, being subject to the governing authorities means fixing laws that are not functioning well. We were supposed to be an experiment in self-governance and that's, you know, I think, um, you know, often this is an opportunity that's where advocacy is really important. And I, I started by saying, we shouldn't start our conversation with politics. I firmly believe that, but as we start with the Bible and allow that to put us into ministry with immigrants, learning from immigrants, reading the Bible, you know, in a way that informs our views, that then does have a role in shaping public policies.
Speaker 1 00:42:20 Um, and part of that is saying, how do we both honor law, but also keep families together, both of which are biblical imperatives. How do we, um, you know, be fair to both us citizens, but also to immigrants who are equally made an image of God, how do we like, yes, we can expect our government to maintain secure borders. That's an appropriate thing for government to do. Um, but also create a path towards legal status for those whose who'd go through that process of earning permanent legal status and citizenship. So we really think that the Bible can help us find solutions that doesn't need to be a either, or it can often be an end. We do multiple things and expect our government to do multiple things even while, you know, our role is as Christians is to love our neighbors, whether or not the government figures out the policy questions. Okay.
Speaker 0 00:43:05 All right. That's good, Matt. As we bring our time to a close, I've got kind of two last questions. I'm just going to, I'm going to ask them both and let you, and let you wrap us up there. The first is you have this conversation all the time. You present this material, you have this conversation, this is your, this is your job. So, um, so it's, it's kind of the, it's kind of the, what question did I not ask? Like, is there something left in you that's burning or something left in you that you think this always comes up or this, or maybe even better, this never comes up, but this is what people need to know. Right. So kind of, what would you leave us with? And then if you have any, besides world relief, um, evangelical immigration table and the book, if you have any other resources that I could list in the notes for this episode, that could, um, that could help people, uh, you know, educate themselves and become more informed on the topic.
Speaker 1 00:44:01 Yeah. Those are both great questions. Um, you know, I think one thing I would say, and maybe it goes to both the questions in some ways, it's just, I would so often the questions that come up on issues of immigration. Um, and I was talking to, I've heard this from my friend, Danny Carroll, who's an old Testament scholar and has another book on immigration, a great book called the Bible and borders. And earlier one called the Christians of the border. And we were talking about this. We both do a lot of these sort of events with Christians, with pastors. And it's so rare that we get a question about the Bible. Like the questions are always about security, economics, legality, maybe why aren't they learning English kind of cultural assimilation questions, um, our integration, however you want to frame that, but rarely is it a question about the Bible?
Speaker 1 00:44:53 And I think that actually underscores the main point, which is if not even thought about the system issue. And even after we give an hour long, talk on this, what the Bible says about the sick questions, they're still not about the Bible. And I think really, you know, that goes to one of the tools that I would definitely recommend is that something we we've done with evangelic immigration table years ago, but it's just been an ongoing good resource. And that is if people go to evangelical immigration table.com/i was a stranger, we have a 40 verse Bible reading guide, and you can also find it on YouVersion Bible app. So it's, um, bible.com I guess, um, it's at 40 Bible verses it, doesn't tell you who to vote for what those verses even mean. Like you can determine that for yourself. And when people get sort of defensive about being asked to read Bible verses, I think it's actually a pretty good sign that, um, there's something kind of a hard issue there.
Speaker 1 00:45:41 Um, but we've had a lot of people do that study. We've had members of Congress do that study and come back and say, wow, I didn't know the Bible said anything about this. And that begs the question, how you grew up in the church. Not another Bible says anything about this, which I think is unfortunately quite common. Um, but I, I think that's a great resource that we've discussed a lot of use out of. Um, and, um, we would definitely encourage you to do that again, decide for yourself what you think those passages mean. We're not here to indoctrinate people, but let's start the conversation in that place of what does scripture say, and then look for opportunities before you form strong opinions about immigration issues to actually know immigrants. I mean, that's been very transformational for me. We've tried in the welcoming, the stranger book to really underscore the stories of immigrants, um, and keep those quite central.
Speaker 1 00:46:24 Um, but you know, maybe that volunteering, we have a bunch of Afghans arriving right now in the United States. And if you call, what are they for? You actually go better, go to our website because we're responding to a lot of phone calls right now, and it's easier to kind of centralize through the website, but, um, or whatever the resettlement agency in your community, there are a lot of volunteer needs. Um, a lot of financial needs as well, and that won't necessarily be as relational, but where your treasure is there, your heart will be also. So let's invest the people in, uh, in the more deeply in these questions. Um, but yeah, w we'd definitely encourage people to look for those opportunities to volunteer, to connect relationally, um, to help serve other people, but also to learn from them and to understand the situation before we form strong opinions about public policies.
Speaker 0 00:47:08 Wow. That's great. Thank you. Thank you so much. And I actually just looked up that, um, 40 days of scripture and prayer and, um, yeah, that's fantastic. Lots of links on there and, um, beautiful ways to even share that on social media to encourage our friends and family, to start to look at those as well. Um, that's beautiful. Thank you so much, Matt. This has been really rich for me. And so I pray it is to the people who listened to it as well. And yeah, that we will just respond, respond to the call that God is making on our lives to welcome the stranger.
Speaker 1 00:47:45 Yeah. Thank you so much for having me appreciate it.
Speaker 0 00:47:49 The links for all the resources mentioned in today's episode can be found in the show notes, music and podcast production by Seth. <inaudible> be sure to give us a review on iTunes and subscribe at your favorite podcast listening app, you can also visit us at that. Makes total sense.com
