I’m with Michelle – I am way past being able to trust this president and can not escape the impression that everything that he does is just politics. He scares the daylights out of me.

No hyperbole is too overblown to employ in her screed, is it? Why can’t pundits address the salient points of an argument instead of resorting to jingoistic chest thumping?

Overall I think the biblical case is for being more welcoming and hospitable to immigrants. I don’t think that means you can’t have borders and immigration laws, but I think scripture definitely tilts toward openness. I am also heartened that conservatives are apparently following their scriptural understanding despite the blow back this might have in some political circles.
I will also say this though, I don’t think hospitality to immigrants, etc. necessarily means blanket amnesty as some have proposed. We can favor humane immigration reform, including border enforcement and Arizona type laws simultaneously.

Someone has to pounce. What’s so wrong with Malkin doing it? What’s wrong with doing it at all when it comes to bad ideas? It’s important to note she points out the problems with the logic being used by BHO and also the euphemisms being employed by political liberals.
I like her objections.

@Aaron and others,
This whole situation is politics at best. When President Bush invites evangelicals to the White House he is reaching out to his core beliefs, when he talks about this being a nation of “immigrants” and the values this country was founded on he’s upholding the virtues of this great nation. Insert President Obama and the whole script flips. It’s sad.
As for me I’ll hold firm to the fact that Jesus said “My Kingdom is not of this world” and rejoice that God extends his grace to the immigrant, the middle east, the Palestinian, The Jew, and even unto me.
Finally, according to scripture I am both a stranger and an alien. Fortunately I was born in the U.S. otherwise I might be deemed illegal.

I think what pundits who oppose immigration overhaul fail to grasp is that the immigration system is broken. a solution is more than border security, which is only a piece of the brokenness. We need to examine all aspects of the immigration system in order to responsibily deal with it.
–family reunification
–border security
–employment verification of status
–obtaining visas
–temporary work visas
–obtaining paperwork and background checks
This is a very complex and multi-faceted matter with real people facing real bureaucratic issues when seeking to obtain paperwork. This political issue should not be reduced to merely enforcing borders. Genuine human beings with children and families are being impacted in seriou ways. Most of whom are not criminals.
We need better laws that address immigration thoughtfully and comprehensively.

In these type of dilemmas, I try to remember that there is a spiritual point-of-view and a worldly point-of-view.
There seem to be a couple of apparently conflicting facts: [1] as Christ’s disciples, his primary admonition to us is to love others the way he loved us. That should translate into caring, concern. [2] he also tells us to abide by the laws of the land unless they prohibit us from exercising point 1.
In the immigration debate, generally, we seem to think these are mutually exclusive points. I don’t think they are. We should be treating illegal immigrants well, remembering they are equally children of God. And we should be encouraging them to follow US law, rather than ignore or violate US laws.

“Michelle Malkin, ever ready to pounce, disagrees with Obama’s speech
Translation: “Michelle Malkin, whose politics I do not agree with, disagrees with Obama’s speech.”
One of my pet peeves is the tendency to cast dissent as irrational by labeling it as ranting, pouncing or screaming.
“Why can’t pundits address the salient points of an argument instead of resorting to jingoistic chest thumping?”
What points did you find salient? All he said was that the system is broken, and that he wants to find a middle way to deal with the problem. It’s nebulous fluff. How can you criticize Malkin for taking on the fluff when there wasn’t anything else there?
Also, what was particularly jingoistic about her piece? People use that word without knowing what it means. It doesn’t just mean conservative.

The rational side of this debate comes down to fairness and enforcing the law (we are a nation of laws and no one is above the law). I have more friends than I can count who are legal immigrants and played by the rules. I happen to believe that many of the rules are quite silly – such as the length of time it takes and the overblown bureaucracy – but that’s a separate argument. The rules are what the rules are. It is completely unfair to allow people who have essentially cheated to be let off the hook.
The political side of this comes down to votes and keeping the party happy. One side is against this type of reform mainly to keep their base happy, and the other is for amnesty to keep their base happy.
We need to remember our roots and the reason the USA are so successful and just enforce the law and make tweaks where needed. The fact that this is coming up now, 6 months before an election, is a sign that one side or the other sees an opportunity to shore up votes or take them away. It has nothing to do, really, with doing what’s right for the legal or illegal immigrants or the citizens. If it did things would be a whole lot different.
My 2 cents.

Who is Richard Land, and Samuel Rodriguez?

What part of “illegal” do people not understand? This nation might have immigrants in its roots, but they were ones who came here via the established system. Many an individual was turned back to the boat he sailed in on if his health or his history gave sufficient reason to “enforce the law”. Many, if not all, were required to provide a name, a reference, of someone already here who would vouch for them, provide help for them. It was not an invasion of people who paid no taxes and drained the national budget for their welfare. I am 68, on Medicare, and already seeing cuts affecting me and my wife due, at least partly, to a system overburdened by this problem. I am also well aware of my Christian responsibility to “hear Christ” in all that I am and all that I do. I can have compassion and even understanding for people, but that doesn’t change your, mine, or their obligation to the law as it is.

kevin s,
Fair enough to say I disagree with her politics, but a reasonable person would also say she’s always ready to pounce on the left.

I must be in the middle:
The Left is mad at me for quoting from Malkin.
The Right is mad at me for saying “pounce.”
My, my, the captcha says “of madmen”

Scot, #13
Take heart… for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
I once received two emails on the same day over the same blog post. One said that I was obviously a conservative, the other told me that I was a closet liberal.

From a Christian perspective, I can see the value of being hospitable and showing kindness to strangers. The theme of immigration runs throughout the Bible, and the only attitude advocated is either one of God’s people being open and kind to immigrants, or of God’s people themselves being immigrants, refugees, or captives, and being showing solidarity (without compromise), to the society of their host culture (e.g. Jer. 29:4-7). From a Christian perspective, there is also the injunction to be submissive to the laws of the land (Rom. 13:1-7). However, as far as I can tell, there is no hint of God’s people being instructed to advise the higher powers regarding how they should go about enforcing their own laws.
From a strictly political perspective, I can see valid points on all sides of the argument. But, from a Christian perspective, the only point I see is being hospitable and kind, and reaching out with the hope that all people may come to the knowledge of God’s grace.
I believe there are some political issues that are not Christian issues. And, when we try to make them into Christian issues we run the risk of perverting and compromising the gospel.
As I see it, immigration reform is a Christian issue inasmuch as it addresses ways that we can best be hospitable and show kindness to the strangers in our midst. Beyond this, it is a strictly political issue, and should not be addressed from a “Christian” platform.

Although I don’t necessarily agree with all he said, Mark Roberts did a good series on the issue.
http://blog.beliefnet.com/markdroberts/illegal-immigration/2010/06/index.html

Wow. My own “alien” experience was a common one: changing schools during middle school. The whole thing was so painful, though, it actually was a real formational experience for me with God. I remember during that period when I discovered the refrain in the books of Moses that Israel was commanded to remember their “alien” experience to help them treat the future aliens among them and their descendants rightly. Everytime there was a new guy on a team or in our class, from middle-school on, I remembered being the outsider and made a point to welcome new kids.
I see more rhetoric on both sides of the immigration debate than I’d like, but I have to believe that even though 80 some percent of the people in this country were born here, God would like us all to remember, really remember, the times that we or those we love or came from were once aliens.
And theologically, as Christians, we believe that we were all legally excluded from God’s kingdom forever. Legally banned forever, and not just because of of some immigration policy, but because of our own moral failures. It’s only because a member of the community of God with perfect standing took our criminal, alien status upon himself that we could be welcomed in. Christians are the ultimate illegal immigrants enjoying amnesty. That’s our whole story for crying out loud. And the whole, “but that’s spiritual/God and this is physical/human” really doesn’t help me much. I see lots of parables from Jesus that make me think Jesus would like us to do translate our spiritual experience into physical dealings with each other.
I find the second writer’s tone to be calloused and nothing worth celebrating, especially by Christians, considering the value and hardships of the people involved.

I’m a longtime reader, first-time commenter.
I’ve written more about Hybels’ role in introducing Obama in a post on Sun-Times Media’s What Do We Believe? blog. I would appreciate feedback from Jesus Creed readers. The post is:
http://blogs.pioneerlocal.com/religion/2010/07/bill_and_baracks_immigration_a.html

The US created it’s own unauthorized immigrant situation. The rate of immigration has stayed roughly the same over the last several decades. There were a lot of unauthorized seasonal laborers in CA, AZ, and TX. Then the border with Mexico was militarized. This did not change the rate of unauthorized immigration, but it did change a seasonal migrant population affected 3 states into a permanent population affecting all 50 states as migrants spread out and settled in for the ride. Migrants were also less willing to be without family members, and so family were also brought and stayed in the US. The militarization of the border has also lead to many more people taking risks and dying (not to mention an enlarged human trafficking industry and its associated problems). (For evidence and documentation of the above, see Douglas Massey’s book: Beyond Smoke and Mirrors: Mexican Immigration in an Age of Economic Integration.)
If the US has had had a guest worker program for seasonal workers and had not militarized the border, we’d not likely be in the mess we’re in. Because the US’s border policies created these unintended consequences, the US should make adjustments:
1. be humane to those that have settled here, including pathways to legal status.
2. de-militarize the border.
3. set up a huge but well-regulated guest worker program.
4. provide well-regulated but reasonably large legal ways to enter and exit the country.
None of this implies a free-for-all immigration situation. Rather, a regulated but humane movement of labor.

You know, I don’t have an illegal alien problem. I see lots of Hispanics around, but it’s not a problem. I think illegal aliens generally work hard, pay more taxes than they receive in benefits, and risked their lives to get here.
I will say that if I were born in Mexico, I am free man and ambitious enough that I would move here if it meant a better life for my family, whether us citizens liked it or not. I have a right to improve my lot in life. You have a right to stop me.
I think we have a crime on the border problem. But I don’t think that’s caused by hardworking men and women trying to better themselves. I think it’s caused by Mexican drug cartels chasing the money and the guns on this side of the border. Legalize and tax cannabis to move those revenues inside the country, and make dealers at gun shows follow the same rules as dealers in stores, and the cartel dries up and blows away.

What, precisely, was the function of Hybels et al… at this thing?
Bromides, talking points, esoteric calls to action, and, oh, by the way, here’s some random religious dudes.

And in a more broader sense than my right to better myself, it has always puzzled me why some forms of capital are welcome to move freely across borders why others are not.
Capital in the form of money goes with the wind to whatever country offers a higher return. For capital in the form of products and goods, free trade across countries without restriction seems to be the ideal.
Yet capital in the form of human labor, humanity if you will, is restricted. It is treated differently. Jobs move overseas. People cannot.
We seem to allow capital created by man and mammon to flow freely because it makes us more money. We seem to prohibit the free movement of the thing created by God because we’re afraid it will cost us money.

While I used to be on the anti-immigration side of this debate, today I just can’t fathom how Christians could be so insensitive to the “least of these” and accepting of FUD and lamentations from not-so-better angels. To even cast the term “illegal” at a human being seems unconscionable to me. How can a child of our Heavenly Father be termed “illegal”. It’s eliminationist rhetoric, pure and simple, designed to denigrate and dehumanize.
I love my country, but my primary allegiance is to Jesus Kingdom, where “citizenship” is for all, not just confined to those of specific geographic borders and/or nationalistic tilt. And while I agree that American citizenship shouldn’t be cheapened and available to any comer, that doesn’t mean those who are not citizens should be treated like unwelcome vermin.

While I’m not sure what function Hybles served in introducing the president, I’m glad that he did. His introduction served to humanize the very people that seem to be demonized- illegal immigrants. We need to put faces to the people that we are trying so hard to keep out and/or take back. The general outcry that I have heard from those who are for the law are, in my opinion, insensitive and ignorant. If they knew, and I mean really knew, some illegal immigrants who came here to lead a better life for themselves and their children, would we not re-consider this law? However, at the same time, I wonder how I would feel if I knew someone who’s child had been kidnapped in Phoneix. Certainly the issue is complex, but I can’t help but think that Arizona has simply gone too far.

Kevin,
You fashion Hybels (along with Anderson and Rodriguez) as unwilling dupes. They are far shrewder than that. They are significant leaders in the Christian church and I would expect you would respect them for how God has used them in our age. And, on top of that, it just might happen that they agree with Obama against Arizona. And it may be not that at all; it may be that they want to minister to all those who are in our country, including legal and unregistered. I have met Rodriguez, Hybels is my pastor, and I have intense respect for Anderson. In my view, you are out of line in disrespect.
Disagree, that’s fine. But don’t insult.
I wrote a book about Jesus’ ethic of love, called The Jesus Creed. I believe it is our first duty to love these men, and Obama as well, for who they are and to respect their choice as human beings. Our disagreement is to be contained within those parameters.

I lurk here periodically but I feel like I have to confess that much of the response to the immigration issue has me hot. I’m particularly incensed about the fetishization of “legality” which people deploy when talking about this issue. It’s not that we’re a nation of immigrants. Most of us literally just woke up here. We didn’t make some highminded choice to be “legal.” Our presence here is not some noble commitment to “legality.” Demanding it of others in the way that Arizona has (and any other states that decide to crack down on it inevitably will) all under the guise of some pious commitment to “abide by the laws of the land” reeks of hypocrisy. One wonders if an (albeit loose) analogy can be drawn to Acts 15 and James’s argument that one should not lay on an Other a burden we nor (in many cases) our ancestors even had to (much less COULD) bear.
There is nothing cruciform about demanding people do more than we have had to, especially when they are in a position of desperation and we sit in a position of comfort, certain of our national status. There is nothing incarnational about demanding submission to our current, inconsistently enforced, bureaucratically lethargic immigration laws and agencies. There is nothing Christ like about these kinds of responses. The church should not allow itself to be sucked into the kind of demonizing, dehumanizing discourse that surrounds all this talk of “illegals.” They are people. The issues are complex etc., etc. but we need to expend our energy trying to come up with creative, effective ways (up to and including “amnesty”) to integrate people in desperate situations into our society rather than this “illegal go home” or “secure the borders” nonsense.

Perhaps Obama invited evangelicals as cover because he remembers how many of us savaged President Bush II when he tried to pass an immigration bill.

My how believers can get heated with each other over American politics. As if we weren’t just strangers passing through on our way to the City of God, we so easily get mucked down in the City of Man. Thank you Scott for striving for a third way through the mess of left and right division that believers allow to divide Christ’s Body so intensely.
I really like the examples Greg Boyd puts it in his book “The Myth of a Christian Nation” about how Christians just “do” the Kingdom instead of taking the the well-worn routes of left and right ‘kingdom of this world’ politics. Jesus’ Kingdom is not of this world so why should we all behave and try to think like we are of this world if we have indeed been translated into this Kingdom of Light. Paul tells us to not be conformed to the patterns of this world but to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. Maybe we should shed those things which lead to anger, animosity and division among our brothers and sisters and embrace love, relationship, mercy and solidarity which are the currency of this Kingdom

How many people who oppose the Arizona Immigration Law, actually live in a border state or city. I am a Hispanic and was born and raised in Texas. I live in a border city in south Texas that is 15 minutes away from the US-Mexico border. This region has changed drastically over the 15 years that I have lived here. It has slowly been taken over by wave after wave of immigrants coming in from Mexico. Today you cannot go to a business establishment with out having to talk in Spanish to an employee because they do not know or have trouble talking in English. Even in job postings for employment require you to fluently write and speak Spanish. And this just isn?t for businesses but for warehouse stocking jobs as well. A good example of this take over was during this years World Cup. On the days that Mexico about every 1 of 3 people around the area as well as the local University were wearing a Mexico jersey. And on the days America played I did not see one person wearing an American jersey. This new generation of immigrants are not crossing the border to make a better life for themselves such as the past but to reap the benefits of the state such as welfare and food stamps. I see immigrants use food stamps to pay for food at the meat market yet they drive off in brand new 4×4 trucks, while my wife and I live check by check while attending school and can barely afford to by food. I can not even fix my car that I have had for 8 years because I do not have enough income. And we are not able to receive the same benefits that illegal immigrants do when we and our families have paid taxes for generations. The crime rate has gone up significantly as well. There are people breaking into private homes and murdering the inhabitants. There are random carjackings that happen and the drivers are left for dead on country roads. These crimes are easily committed because the criminals take refuge in Mexico for a few days then enter the US again. Not only Mexicans are crossing the border but radical Islamic terrorists as well as other terrorist organizations and gangs. I am tired of hearing people speak about it being a civil right to cross the border into the US. Well it is our civil right to protect the sovereignty of our Country. The United States of America is the only country in the world that does not protect its borders from invasion. The only reason why the democrats want amnesty is for the votes. They do not care for the consequences that will happen to our great country with any policy they enforce. This is a nation that is being divided by a President who hates the Greatness of America and denounces Christianity. In 2007 Obama declared that the USA was no Longer a Christian nation. In 2009 President Obama canceled the 21st annual National Day of Prayer Ceremony at the White House Under the ruse of ?not wanting to offend anyone?. Yet on Sept 25, 2009 from 4 am to 7 pm he held a National Day of Prayer for the Muslim religion on Capitol Hill. And now there is an Islamic group that wants to build a Mosque on ground zero were the tragic events of 9/11 happened where we were attacked by Islamic Terrorists. Every day we are receiving another slap in the face by the President and his regime.

I think I can agree trying to become a US citizen is perhaps too difficult and that’s where our reform can begin.
However, if we can’t see the political motivations behind BHO’s position, then we deserve what we get. BHO knows he needs the Hispanic votes and he also knows many illegals vote. He also knows amnesty will never pass Congress and he also knows not all Democrats are carrying water for him on this. But BHO is committing another blunder. He is forcing people like Sen. Russ Feingold to address the issue in his re-election bid. Feingold doesn’t want to address it because he knows he will most likely lose support of his own. BHO is hooting himself in the foot with this. This is because he has Rahm Emmanuael as chief advisor which is an automatic liability. BHO is communicating a cynicism that is sick at its core.
BTW, I am not sure I understand the fixation we have with Mexicans and illegal immigration. Most illegal immigrants are from Asia and India (between 55% and 65%).
I am not against immigration. I am against illegal immigration. I am also very much against our President’s cynicism. It’s wrong and it’s out of line and it has nothing to do with hospitality.
Hmm…Captcha says “excretes”. I won’t say anything else.

I am beginning to see a pattern emerge with the President that disturbs me. He first declares that something is “broken” and therefore we (he) needs to fix, or “reform” that broken thing. This mantra was used for health care, our financial sector, and now immigration. I know from experience that there are aspects of our immigration system that could use some reform, but the system is not broken. In fact, it works fairly well for the over 500,000 new citizens who take the oath each year.
The Fed should enforce our laws with both integrity and compassion, fix that which is indeed broken, and above all stay well within it’s Constitutional boundaries of reach and power.

Jeb Bush and Robert Putnam recently (convincingly, in my view) argued that it’s quite wrong and historically short-wighted to think immigrants from Mexico are somehow more of a threat to American identity than other historical immigration waves.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/02/AR2010070204359.html
Malkin is attacking a strawman. As if the only alternatives are draconian enforcement of the law with no regard for how it is actually working (we put up two signs on the Mexican border: DO NOT ENTER and HELP WANTED) and some kind of totally porous border policy that no one is serious proposing.

Christianity always demands that injustice be alleviated. When it comes to the U.S.-Mexico situation, the worst injustice is on the other side of the border, namely the corrupt Mexican govt. that rides the rich on the backs of the poor and drives them over the border. Find out the surprising answer at http://go.to/megamerge

I take comfort that I also find myself squarely in the center on this issue. Which leads me to a conclusion that I have heard few people espouse. Why are the only choices deportation or citizenship? Why don’t we just declare a period of amnesty so that we can document all of the folks who are undocumented. We don’t have to make those folks citizens any more than other foreign guest workers are citizens, but they wouldn’t have to live a shadow life while they are here. Especially since most of those folks just want to live and provide for their families as best they can. Seems like a win-win to me. Sovereignty respected, families and opportunities preserved.
This, as most issues are in the US, are victims of political centrifugal force. (from the Latin “to flee from the center”)

“You fashion Hybels (along with Anderson and Rodriguez) as unwilling dupes. They are far shrewder than that. They are significant leaders in the Christian church and I would expect you would respect them for how God has used them in our age. And, on top of that, it just might happen that they agree with Obama against Arizona.”
I’m sure they agree with Obama against Arizona. I would be rather absurd if they did not. That doesn’t answer my question. What purpose does their appearance at this event serve?
It does not strengthen the argument Obama will eventually be making for amnesty. They are not subject matter experts on immigration. None has (so far as I know) articulated their own political positions on this issue. It’s just a photo-op.
More importantly, how is this any different from what the religious right has so often been accused of doing, namely lending their spiritual gravity to a political issue? Doesn’t this sort of nebulous thumbs up give the president a free pass to pursue legislation that may or may not be God’s will?

“Why don’t we just declare a period of amnesty so that we can document all of the folks who are undocumented. We don’t have to make those folks citizens any more than other foreign guest workers are citizens, but they wouldn’t have to live a shadow life while they are here.”
What do we do once we document them? The lack of documentation is not the issue, in and of itself.