Immigration: Who Is Our Neighbour?

Prabhu Guptara

Considering this vexed question properly involves three different perspectives—Divine, national, and individual.

1. God uses both economic necessity and political circumstances to accomplish his purposes—even though both the economic necessity and the political circumstances may arise from human stupidity.
   
   
2. In the teaching of Jesus, each nation has the right to form its own policies (about immigration, as about everything else). Where rules are unjust, or discriminate in favour or against a particular people group, then it is right, as in the case of all other unjust laws, to agitate and even act against such rules (people will differ both in theory and in practice regarding how far it is right to go in opposing any such laws).
   
   
3. All the research indicates that people do not generally want to move out of their established network of local relationships—and are either (not as frequently as we think) tempted by bright lights and the prospect of gold, or are (much more usually) forced out of their natural nexus because of psychological, economic, or political circumstances. Having moved outside their nexus, they naturally have to build a new nexus, and it is difficult to return to the old nexus.

Does the above throw any light on whether the US should or should not change its legislation in relation to immigration?

The following questions and answers may be of use:

1. Is current US legislation non-discriminatory? My answer: No; there are different “immigration quotas” for different countries, and these are politically determined.
   
   
2. Have US policies helped to create political turmoil in certain countries, with a subsequent increase in applications for immigration from those countries? If so, it would seem only just for this to be recognised—and this ameliorates the force of Question 1. However, it should be clear that considering this matter properly involves thinking about not merely immigration, but also wider political questions. Is it right to use immigration quotas as an instrument of even a just foreign policy? For the present, pass.
   
   
3. Have US policies helped to create economic hardship or turmoil, with subsequent increase in the desire for immigration from those countries? As in the case of my second question, if this has been the case, it is only just for this to be recognised—and this would also ameliorate the force of Question 1. And, as in the case of Question 2, considering this matter properly involves thinking about not merely immigration, but also wider economic, financial, and monetary policies.

What about illegal immigration? This is clearly wrong, but it is worth asking why illegal immigration occurs, who it benefits (apart from the immigrant), and why most attempts to stop illegal immigration are directed against the immigrant, rather than against those who aid, abet, and profit from illegal immigration. This matter is tied to the wider field of “black money” and the international systems for turning that into “white money”—including drugs, prostitution, protection rackets, tax havens, and so on.

All that naturally forces on our attention the global dimensions of migration—which brings in its wake the question of internal migration within every country. Putting these together, we see that increasing migration is a worldwide phenomenon, and we need to ask what economic, political, or other processes are creating this undesirable trend against the biblical ideal of “everyone in his own house and under his own fig tree”? Can international challenges be tackled merely nationally?

Finally, does any of the above reduce in the slightest the call to love our immigrant neighbours as we love ourselves?  

Prabhu Guptara is a Senior Fellow of the Trinity Forum. He lives in Switzerland. His personal website is www.prabhu.guptara.net, and he blogs at www.prabhuguptara.blogspot.com. This article is offered entirely in a private capacity.

4 Responses (comments are closed) • Provocations, Society, Mon 02 Oct 2006