The Current Immigration Crisis- separating children

Right & Wrong
Post Reply
User avatar
TK
Posts: 1477
Joined: Mon Aug 25, 2008 8:42 pm
Location: North Carolina

The Current Immigration Crisis- separating children

Post by TK » Wed Jun 20, 2018 12:55 pm

HELP!!!!!!

Thanks for listening,

TK

User avatar
robbyyoung
Posts: 811
Joined: Tue Sep 17, 2013 2:23 am

Re: The Current Immigration Crisis- separating children

Post by robbyyoung » Wed Jun 20, 2018 2:34 pm

Well, Kirstjen Nielsen (DHS Secretary) provided an excellent synopsis on what is really going on at our southern border during yesterday’s press briefing. First of all, Trump’s administration is doing what the law states, and no one is being abused. It is true, Trump’s zero tolerance policy by default will criminally charge all adults crossing the border illegally and therefore separate so-called families. But that’s the penalty for breaking our laws. Thus, the separation occurs when the adult(s) is referred for criminal prosecution (for a variety of reasons) whereby the child cannot obviously join the parent in federal prison. All the non-prosecutorial cases are held in detention centers to await deportation. The myriad of kids you see in pictures are mostly unaccompanied and are smuggled in by various groups. There are no parents or guardians to reunite the kids with once detained. So, we take care of them until we figure out what to do next.

President Obama bragged about how kids were being separated in order to discourage adults from crossing the border illegally. But, google sure is efficient and effective in making it difficult to find that clip! But, it was aired by Fox News yesterday :lol: . The Trump administration should relentlessly press Congress to do their job if they do not like the current immigration situation. Until then, uphold the law and continue to discourage lawlessness. Incidentally, most of the kids are far better off in our custody bar none. We are indeed the merciful ones by upholding the law and saving children from monsters and unspeakable horrors.

Trump's "zero-tolerance" policy is nothing short of a strainer, i.e., smugglers, gang members, drug dealers, and monsters of all sorts must go through the criminal process, but the kids are protected from the misery or potential misery of their true abusers. Will non-violent parents who simply broke our laws by crossing the border be affected, sure. They will endure separation, for a time, and probably not go to jail, reunite with their kid(s) and get deported. In the meanwhile kids are being protected and cared for.

Blessings.

User avatar
TK
Posts: 1477
Joined: Mon Aug 25, 2008 8:42 pm
Location: North Carolina

Re: The Current Immigration Crisis- separating children

Post by TK » Wed Jun 20, 2018 2:44 pm

Robby I’m right there with you but social media is blowing up with Christians (many who I know well including my sister) crying about how Jesus would never do such a thing and can’t we just love everyone etc etc.

Some are citing the OT passages about being nice to sojourners but my study of those passages pertain to those who have been invited to live with the Israelites (ie they were legally there) and they were in essence converting to Judaism by having to keep holiness and dietary laws etc. The idea behind those OT statements was to prevent discrimination against those who have been accepted into the community.

This is one of those issues where the scriptures(NT especially) suggest that the policy is a bad one, but where my gut says it is exactly what needs to be done st least for now.

Abraham Lincoln said something along the lines that the best way to get rid of a bad law is to enforce it stringently. That seems to be all that Trump is doing- enforcing a bad law.

User avatar
Paidion
Posts: 5452
Joined: Mon Aug 18, 2008 10:22 pm
Location: Back Woods of North-Western Ontario

Re: The Current Immigration Crisis- separating children

Post by Paidion » Wed Jun 20, 2018 5:49 pm

Trump's supporters stand behind him and justify his every action, no matter how cruel or foolish. For over 150 years there have been excellent relations between Canadians and U.S. citizens. But now (according to Trump) we Canadians are treating our neighbours to the South "horribly".

https://globalnews.ca/video/4283279/tru ... y-on-trade

Also, we Canadians are accustomed to smuggling goods across the border.

https://globalnews.ca/video/4284645/tru ... -smugglers

And, of course, any news source that reports ANYTHING negative about Trump, is "false news."
Paidion

Man judges a person by his past deeds, and administers penalties for his wrongdoing. God judges a person by his present character, and disciplines him that he may become righteous.

Avatar shows me at 75 years old. I am now 83.

User avatar
TK
Posts: 1477
Joined: Mon Aug 25, 2008 8:42 pm
Location: North Carolina

Re: The Current Immigration Crisis- separating children

Post by TK » Wed Jun 20, 2018 6:43 pm

That’s “fake news” Paidion. ;)

User avatar
steve
Posts: 3392
Joined: Thu Aug 21, 2008 9:45 pm

Re: The Current Immigration Crisis- separating children

Post by steve » Wed Jun 20, 2018 7:49 pm

Hi TK,

I have no first-hand information about what really is going on at America's southern border. I depend upon broadcast and cable news and talk shows for my information on what is happening.

If I am not misinformed, it seems that there are 12,000 children being detained without their parents, of whom five-out-of-six arrived at the border without their parents (they were simply loaded by their parents onto trains and buses in Honduras, Guatemala, etc.), and given a "morning after" pill to take in the not-unlikely event that they will be raped along the way. The other 2,000 have parents who were arrested for illegal entry (that is, they are in jail). Almost everyone in jail, in this and every country, goes there without their children. It is hard to know what else to do.

The suggestion that everyone showing up at the border with children should simply be "waved on through" does not commend itself to me either on scriptural or moral grounds.

First, because many of the adults traveling with the children are not related to them, and are hoping to use the children as a ticket into the country.

Second, because many of those adults, and the children they are bringing with them, end up in the sex-trafficking trade, or else in the MS-13 gang.

Third, because parents who try to break immigration laws with their children in tow are the ones separating themselves from their own children, by committing a crime that will wind them in prison—just as a bank-robber separates himself from his children by choosing a course that winds him in prison.

Fourth, those who try to come in through the lawful portals of entry, claiming refugee status, are not separated from their children while their case is being considered—it is those who are avoiding those legal portals, and only claiming refugee status after being arrested for illegal entry.

Some of these "facts" may be wrong, but they come from the most reliable-sounding border authorities I have heard.

As for this policy violating the New Testament principles, I do not know of any such violation. First, because the New Testament does not ever address government officials, either to recommend or to condemn law enforcement policies. Second, when the New Testament does address issues of government, it addresses the governed (not the governors) and enforces the duty of the governed to submit to the laws.

At this point, I believe our immigration officials are acting within the laws of the land, and cannot be condemned by Christians until such laws are changed. The changing of laws is the duty of the legislature, not the President. Mr. Trump has not been making new laws. The controversy at the border is over his "zero-tolerance" for violations of laws that were in place (and selectively enforced) during the Obama Administration. Enforcing laws is the defined duty of the President, in the U.S. Constitution), which every President, with a hand on the Bible, takes an oath to enforce. Keeping your oaths is certainly a biblical principle. Enforcement of law is also the duty of rulers in scripture.

Whatever else may be said about the question of New Testament standards, those seeking to cross the border illegally are the ones in violation of the New Testament teaching about submission to authorities.

The Old Testament does command Israel to be kind to immigrants. We can safely assume that there was no global rush of foreign multitudes pounding at the gates of Israel to come in and to be absorbed as productive members of the society. Those who wished to do so were expected to observe Jewish culture, not foreign culture (i.e., they could not bring their idolatry with them, unless they hoped to be stoned to death). Any such influx must certainly have been a trickle, at most, and posed no serious threat to the enforcement of standards and laws in Israel.

On the other hand, when millions of internationals illegally storm the borders of any country, many of them violent criminals with hostile intentions, this is not an "immigration" issue so much as a hostile invasion by foreign enemies. When the Syrians, Moabites, Edomites, Philistines sought to enter Israel on those terms, they were repelled with the full approval of the Torah.

The complexities of the present immigration debate hinge on whether one views millions of foreigners as immigrants or as invaders—who are illegally entering this country—many of them to continue breaking our laws as a way of life, or to join gangs, or to change the culture by voting-in radical leaders who despise our laws and our culture. No doubt both assessments are justified, in different cases. This is why there is no simple solution, either biblically or legally.

User avatar
TK
Posts: 1477
Joined: Mon Aug 25, 2008 8:42 pm
Location: North Carolina

Re: The Current Immigration Crisis- separating children

Post by TK » Wed Jun 20, 2018 8:13 pm

So glad you responded Steve. Amen.

User avatar
darinhouston
Posts: 3112
Joined: Tue Aug 26, 2008 7:45 am

Re: The Current Immigration Crisis- separating children

Post by darinhouston » Thu Jun 21, 2018 6:39 pm

TK wrote:So glad you responded Steve. Amen.
And amen!

Post Reply

Return to “Ethics”