Immigration is back in the news again. The courts are still
trying to force the Trump administration into reuniting families, even though
the “parents” have disappeared and left the poor “children” behind. It’s a
little hard to return the kids to the adults who can no longer be found. That
should tell you a lot about the situation.
I’ve been really irritated these past few weeks with the mainstream
media and the constant bombardment of partisan politics. (It’s as if the actual
issue was less important than the opportunity to bash the President.) I waver
between anger at the outright lies and misrepresentations of the news outlets
and amazement at the stupidity of the masses who so readily believe and spread
the false stories.
A picture of a boy in a cage designed to show how awful our
country has become. Oh wait, that’s just a cropped section of a photo from a
whole different event. Here’s a bunch of pictures of kids behind chain-link
fences in detention centers, separated from their families by the Trump
administration. Oh sorry, those are from 2014 when Obama was in charge, but
what the hell, we’ll use them anyway. And there’s never any attempt to admit to
mistakes. When’s the last time a reporter actually wrote a retraction just
because the truth came out and his story proved completely false? Not that it
would matter after the photo or story has been retweeted and shared and copied
and pasted a million times.
I used to have a work friend who was a diehard Liberal. He
loved to engage with me about politics and we had many a lively discussion. The
best part was that we could honestly state our opinions, then laugh and go back
to work and still be friends. He would frequently argue that as a Christian I
should be more compassionate or caring when defending his liberal policies,
often sarcastically asking “What Would Jesus Do?”
We’ve both moved on to other jobs since then, but I can’t
help but imagine the fun we would have talking about immigration. I’m sure that
he would berate me for not showing enough Christian compassion for all those
poor children being forcibly separated from their parents. I would have to
remind him that many of those adults aren’t really the parents of the
particular kids with whom they were apprehended. While illegally crossing into
our country, I would probably add.
He would feel compelled to ignore my arguments and insist
that somehow we are cruel and inhumane for locking up children in cages. I
would laugh at the unproven absurdity and we would go back and forth disputing
the actual conditions under which the children are being kept. Eventually, he
would change the topic to the fact that regardless of the conditions, we are
separating families. I would counter with the fact that across our country, children
are routinely separated from their parents under a variety of circumstances,
particularly when the adults are being taken into custody for committing
illegal activities.
At some point, he would hit me with his favorite argument.
Aren’t Christians supposed to be loving and compassionate? Shouldn’t I “suffer
the little children to come unto me” and all that? Wouldn’t Jesus expect me to
welcome all those children and do everything I could to help them?
His questions always spurred a great deal of soul searching
on my part. From a practical standpoint, I usually argued that Christians, like
everyone else, must have before we can give. I would tell him that a country
that is trillions of dollars in debt can’t save everyone. On a smaller scale,
most Christian friends I know would gladly give more to charitable causes if
they had more to give. (Most of us would also prefer to choose for ourselves
rather than have the government decide where our tax dollars should be spent.) I
may not be a Bible scholar, but I do have opinions based on what I do know and
believe. Honestly, I don’t think it is Biblical to allow your own family to
suffer and starve, so that you can feed and provide for strangers and refugees.
I do feel
compassion for the children, and adults, who are honestly seeking refuge from
unsafe, or even dangerous conditions in other parts of the world, but again,
the reality is that we can’t save everyone. We just don’t have the resources.
And if we can only save some, shouldn’t we start with the ones in our own
backyard, so to speak. The American foster care system is full of children who
have been separated from their families for one reason or another. The homeless
population in our country is growing and includes tons of homeless children. There
are also a growing number of homeless American veterans who certainly deserve
all the help we can provide.
Before we try to go out and save the world, maybe we should
work on saving the ones in need all around us.
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