A funny thing happened to me one evening recently. I received a text from a number that was not in my contacts. The texter introduced himself and said he was from “VBC”. He said he emailed me, but I didn’t respond, so he was sending me a video of the child I sponsor from Uganda with a link for me to click.
I didn’t know the person. I didn’t get an email, and I don’t sponsor a child from Uganda.
Since scamming people is a billion dollar industry, I was cautious,. I do sponsor a child from Africa, but she lives in Ethiopia. The initials, “VBC”, are the initials for the church I go to, so I didn’t just delete it. I looked up name of the texter, but I couldn’t find his name in the directory.
I wanted to respond positively if he was a brother in my church, but I didn’t know him. What if someone hacked into the church directory? What if they found just enough information to make it sound good and to get me to click on a malicious link?
I texted him back and asked what email he had for me. The email he sent back was one letter off. He also sent an email with a shortened version of my former wife’s name, but it isn’t the shortened version she uses. It was close, but wrong. He had just enough of the right information for me to think it was legitimate but just enough of the wrong information for me to pause.
Finally, I texted the campus pastor, and he confirmed that the man was from VBC (but a different campus). He also did go to Uganda where the church has an ongoing missionary presence.
Then, I remembered: there is a young man in the church with exactly my first and last name. I have only met him once because he is a distant relative, and he goes to a campus of the church that is furthest from the one I go to. With this information, I called the man who texted me, and we had a good a laugh.
My name isn’t common. We both sponsor children in Africa. We both were marred to women with the same first name (different nicknames). The similarities were uncanny, but the differences signaled the need for caution.
I was thinking about this after doing my routine reading the next morning. The reading plan focused on James’s letter “to the twelve tribes scattered among the nations” (James 1:1), and it posed this question:
Have you ever been confused about who sent a text, email, or note?
In light of my experience the previous night, I realized that God might be talking to me! The follow up questions ask whether not knowing who sent the message confuses the meaning and whether knowing who the sender is changes our understanding.
The answer is definitely, yes and yes! I was confused when I wasn’t sure who sent me the original text, and knowing it came from a trusted source changed everything.
The context in which this story and my thoughts arise this morning is the confusion in the church caused by Donald Trump and his sidekick, Elon Musk. I have seen red flags since 2015 and reason for caution. The topic has been much on my mind, because some Christians champion these men and defend everything they do, and other Christians don’t.
It seems to boil down to who you trust and whether we should ignore look the other way at the things that seem a little “off”.
What are we to think? Can we trust them? Do we know who they are? Do we ignore the red flags? Perhaps, more importantly: Do we know who we are?
I am afraid I can’t get very deep into this subject without writing a tome, and I have already written much, so I want to stick with the context out of which this experience and these thoughts flow. Specifically the controversy over Elon Musk’s comment to Joe Rogan: “The fundamental weakness of western civilization is empathy.”
Many things are said about judging, and confusion persists about whether Christians are to judge or not to judge. I wrestled through the seeming conundrum a number of years ago and came up with 8 Important Points About Judging and Judgment. I didn’t realize, then, how these principles tie into the way we should look at immigration.
In very brief summary, Jesus said, “Judge not, that you be not judged” (Matt. 7:1), and followed immediately with the statement, “For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you.” (Mt. 7:2) He was not telling us not to judge; he was telling us to be careful how we judge. This is critical.
The statements in Matthew 7 cited above are the set up for the short parable of the person with a log in his eye trying to take the speck of his brother’s eye. The parable ends with Jesus telling us first to take the log out of our own eyes; then we can see accurately to help take the speck out of our brother’s eye.
Paul riffs on this theme Jesus preached when he said, “If we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged.” (1 Cor. 11:31 NKJV) Paul also picks up on something I missed for years in the log and speck parable. In that parable, Jesus is talking about “judging” our brother (by helping take the speck out of his eye, after I have taken the log out of mine).
Who we judge is just as critical as how we judge. When I first discovered this, I was surprised. I and most Christians I know had it all wrong. Paul says:
“What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside?”
1 corinthians 5:12
Jesus only talked about judging our brothers, and Paul makes it clear this means people in the church. We have no business judging people outside the church. “God will judge those outside.” (1 Cor. 5:13) (This is why we need to preach the gospel to them!)
One take away from this is that any time we feel compelled to judge someone else, we should always first examine ourselves. We should always be careful how we judge, because we how we judge others is how we will each be judged. We should never judge people outside the church – because Jesus came not to condemn, and neither should we; he came to save them.
Notice these themes that Jesus preached:
We will be shown mercy as we show mercy to others (Matt. 5:7)
We will be forgiven as we forgive others (Matt. 6:15); and
We will be judged as we judge others (Matt. 7:2);
Consistent with what Jesus preached, the themes of judgment and mercy are tied together by James:
“{J]udgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment.” (James 2:13)
When James adds that “mercy triumphs over judgment,” he is highlighting a standard that is based on God’s character. God desires mercy and not sacrifice (Hosea 6:6); God desires mercy, which is why Jesus came to call sinners to himself (Matt. 9:13); and God desires us to be merciful as He is merciful. (Luke 6:36)
So many people view God as an angry God who is full of wrath and judgment. Nothing could be further from the truth. “The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.” (Psalm 103:8) “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end.” (Lamentations 3:22)
God is just because he is merciful! Biblical justice is characterized by mercy. Thus, justice without mercy is not biblical justice:
“Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you; therefore he will rise up to show mercy to you. For the Lord is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him.”
Isaiah 30:18
But what does this have to do with judging neighbors? Why did James ask the rhetorical question: “Who are you to judge your neighbors?” This question ripples back to the question, “Who is my neighbor?” The context in which God told us to love our neighbors is a good place to start with answers to these questions.
I became an adult in 1978. I actually met the first George Bush at a political rally in Iowa in 1980. I supported Anderson in the primary because of his anti-nuclear stance, but Ronald Reagan won the primary. The first presidential election I voted in was 1980 when Reagan was elected to the White House.
By 1989, I was in law school (married with three children). I don’t remember Ronald Reagan’s exit speech from the White House. Life was pretty full for me then, but I have heard it since then, and I read it again tonight. These words I have copied from that speech as it is published on the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum website:
“You know, down the hall and up the stairs from this office is the part of the White House where the President and his family live. There are a few favorite windows I have up there that I like to stand and look out of early in the morning. The view is over the grounds here to the Washington Monument, and then the Mall and the Jefferson Memorial. But on mornings when the humidity is low, you can see past the Jefferson to the river, the Potomac, and the Virginia shore. Someone said that’s the view Lincoln had when he saw the smoke rising from the Battle of Bull Run. I see more prosaic things: the grass on the banks, the morning traffic as people make their way to work, now and then a sailboat on the river.
I’ve been thinking a bit at that window. I’ve been reflecting on what the past 8 years have meant and mean. And the image that comes to mind like a refrain is a nautical one — a small story about a big ship, and a refugee, and a sailor. It was back in the early eighties, at the height of the boat people. And the sailor was hard at work on the carrier Midway, which was patrolling the South China Sea. The sailor, like most American servicemen, was young, smart, and fiercely observant. The crew spied on the horizon a leaky little boat. And crammed inside were refugees from Indochina hoping to get to America. The Midway sent a small launch to bring them to the ship and safety. As the refugees made their way through the choppy seas, one spied the sailor on deck, and stood up, and called out to him. He yelled, ‘Hello, American sailor. Hello, freedom man.’
….
The past few days when I’ve been at that window upstairs, I’ve thought a bit of the ‘shining city upon a hill.’ The phrase comes from John Winthrop, who wrote it to describe the America he imagined. What he imagined was important because he was an early Pilgrim, an early freedom man. He journeyed here on what today we’d call a little wooden boat; and like the other Pilgrims, he was looking for a home that would be free.
I’ve spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don’t know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, wind-swept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here.”
Ronald Reagan’s shining city is the United States of America that I grew up with. Tall and proud, blessed by God, and teeming with people in a grand melting pot from every nation in the world. The harmony and peace were not always evident, but freedom stood firm against any assault.
“And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here.” My ancestors entered those doors at various times between the late 1700’s and late 1800’s with the will and heart to make better lives for themselves.
Many people come here today with the same hopes and dreams, but our windswept shores were rocked by 9/11, and “the freedom man” was cowered. We have retreated behind self-protective ideologies and our light is waning behind the walls of our fear.
Perhaps, my favorite band over the past several years or more is Watchhouse (formerly Mandolin Orange). I am a sucker for a good mandolin solo, and Andrew Marlin is a virtuoso of tasteful mandolin solos sprinkled effortlessly and seamlessly at the right times over compelling melodies, poignant harmonies and simple but profound lyrics.
One of my favorite Watchhouse songs is Wolves. It tells a new story. I will leave the embedded video of a live performance of the song with the lyrics to follow and some hope that we can find the harmony to our the values that once made us a better nation.
There she stands, so tall and mighty With her keen and watchful eye And the heart of a mother Holding out her guiding light It’s a hard road to travel It’s old rock from end to end The sun, it rises on her brow And sets upon the great expanse
Everything’s so great, can’t get better Makes me wanna cry That I’ll go out howling at the moon tonight
There she stands, so tall and mighty Her gaze facing the East At her back our doors are closing As we grin and bare our teeth On the wind the wolves are howling She cries to draw them near Well turn around, turn around my darling Oh, the wolves are here
Everything’s so great, can’t get better Makes me wanna cry But I’ll go out howling at the moon tonight Yeah, I’ll go out howling at the moon tonight
The Parable of the Good Samaritan has a backstory in Hebrew Scripture I previously didn’t know, and it relates to our present times. Specifically, it relates to the issue of immigration.
The context of the parable is a question put to Jesus by an expert in the law: “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus turned the question back on the expert, asking, “What is written in the law? … How do you read it?”
It’s interesting that Jesus does this. Maybe he wanted the legal expert to think it through for himself, rather than repeat what others have told him.
The expert answered, “’Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”
Jesus affirmed his response, and said, “Do this and you will live.”
But, the expert in the law wasn’t satisfied with that answer. He asked Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?” This is where the backstory begins. To understand the backstory, we need to know where in Scripture the law expert was pulling his answers from and what he (and Jews of his time) likely thought about them.
The story of Gladys and Nelson Gonzalez, an Orange County couple who were deported to Colombia after living in the United States for 35 years, raises concerns about the complexities of U.S. immigration law and the human cost of its enforcement. The Gonzalez’s case exposes the tension between the rule of law and the values of compassion and mercy, values that lie at the heart of Judeo-Christian ethic.
Gladys and Nelson Gonzalez fled Colombia in 1989, seeking asylum from violence, drugs, corruption, and instability. According to news reports, the couple hired attorneys to help them, but those attorneys were eventually disbarred. (See Fox News LA) The news reports don’t provide details on the disbarment or on the long and winding process that came to an impasse in 2021.
During this time Nelson Gonzalez (59) found work in a laboratory as a phlebotomist, and Gladys (55) remained home to care for three daughters who were born and raised here: Gabby (23), Stephanie (27), and Jessica (33). They paid federal and state income taxes for 35 years. They paid into a Social Security and Medicare system that would never benefit them. If they owned a home, they paid real estate taxes, and they paid sales taxes, gasoline taxes, etc. over that time period.
Gladys and Nelson Gonzalez regularly checked in with ICE, and they were granted extensions. They didn’t hide, and they faithfully stayed in contact. Gladys had just been granted another extension when ICE showed up for what seemed like a routine check in, and everything changed. As reported by the local news outlet, KTLA:
“They were put into handcuffs by their wrists and ankles and treated as criminals before getting to these detention centers,” Stephanie Gonzalez told KTLA. “All they said is they extended their stay, even though every year they’ve had permission to be here and they’re law-abiding citizens who show up and are doing their duty to check in with immigration and say, ‘Hey I’m here. I’m not hiding or doing anything wrong.’ Then they just arrested them like that.”
A spokesperson for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement told The Orange County Register simply that the couple had “exhausted all legal options to remain in the U.S. between March 2000 and August 2021,” and they were in violation of immigration law. The news reports don’t explain the details of the legal process or why the attorneys were disbarred.
As an attorney myself, I can say with some degree of confidence that the attorneys they used were not good attorneys. Attorneys don’t get disbarred over mere incompetence, though attorneys who get disbarred are often incompetent, too. Attorneys get disbarred for taking their clients money and doing nothing, missing deadlines and court dates, embezzling client funds, violating court orders and other serious professional misconduct.
Immigrants like the Gonzalezes who leave their home countries because of desperate conditions usually have meager resources. Many of them spend their life savings just to get here. They seek asylum because they don’t know any other way forward, but proving eligibility for asylum is often very difficult. Without a competent attorney, the path is fraught with danger.
To be eligible for asylum, a person must be present in the United States. Such a person, by definition, doesn’t have legal status (yet), but petitioning for asylum requires a person to be present in the US.
Therefore, they must come here at the mercy of the process. They risk everything to seek asylum. It is the desperate path to legal status.
Eligibility for asylum requires evidence of persecution or “a well-grounded fear of future persecution“ from the government of their country of origin or from a group the government is unwilling or unable to control. The persecution must also be based on race, gender, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group.
For most asylum seekers, the only evidence they have is personal testimony. Other evidence is left behind in the country of origin. Most people without resources don’t have access to medical records of injuries or psychological trauma, police reports, court documents, or other official records that remain in their home country. The witnesses to their trauma are also not present to testify for them.
Attorneys charge upwards of $500 an hour. Costs can run into the thousands, but most asylum seekers have limited resources. They spend spent their life savings just to get here, often falling victim to the coyotes who prey on the vulnerable.
The immigration system provides no help. Asylum seekers do not have a right to attorney, so many people try to navigate the unfamiliar bureaucratic maze alone. Others are exploited by people who don’t know what they are doing and/or are just in it for the money.
People who are “only” escaping violence, corruption, poverty, and drug culture don’t qualify for asylum, even though no person I know would want to raise a child in such an environment. Run-of-the-mill desperate circumstances do not qualify a person for asylum. A person must be persecuted or face a well-grounded threat of persecution based on race, gender, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group to qualify for asylum.
People who manage to escape actual persecution or threats of persecution without injury maybe found to have insufficient proof. A judge may deny asylum because they suffered no harm or because the judge didn’t find their testimony credible enough. Language barriers don’t help.
The process is complex and can take years, and everything hangs on one determination. The movie, Between Borders, streaming now on Amazon. etc. does a good job of depicting the problems of proving eligibility, even by people who qualify. The outcome of the movie is heartwarming, but that outcome is nothing but fiction for many asylum seekers.
If a judge denies the petition for asylum, deportation is the result. An appeal is possible, but an appellate judge will only reverse the decision (generally) if the trial judge didn’t follow the process or made some other technical error. Appellate judges almost never overturn a trial judge’s factual determination. Handling an appeal, is a technical and unforgiving process, and many people fail because they do not understand the process.
You can theoretically obtain an order withholding removal, but only if you prove “certain harm” would occur if you return to your home country. If your couldn’t convince the trial judge of a “well-grounded fear of persecution in the future”, you aren’t likely to prove “certain harm” on appeal after asylum is denied.
Other countries won’t take you, so must go back to your home country. Typically, you must wait ten years or win the lottery before you can come back and try again.
Other paths to legal status exist, but they require luck or years of planning and legal resources. Without a sponsor (who generally must be a parent or spouse and have sufficient resources), a person must rely on the “Green Card Lottery.”
Only people from eligible countries (which change from year to year) can apply for the Green Card Lottery. “Winners” are chosen at random. Millions apply for the lottery each year, but only 55,000 visas are awarded. My research indicates that the number of lottery applicants has exceeds 22 million, depending on the year. At 22,000,000 applicants, one quarter of one percent (0.25%) of the applicants obtain a visa this way.
The details of the Gonzalez case are not reported in the articles I read. All we know is that, despite their efforts and the appeals they filed, they were not granted legal status. Despite that, they had been granted extensions, and they were given an extension immediately before they were suddenly and summarily deported.
Their case highlights a fundamental problem with current immigration law: it is inflexible and lacks common sense. It is cumbersome, bureaucratic, and full of pitfalls. Without good legal counsel at the start, the an immigrant is often unable to navigate the course well.
They system also fails to account for the human reality of people who come here seeking asylum. They don’t typically have resources, or they would try another way. They don’t have knowledge of the system. They have to pass a gauntlet of crooks who only want to take advantage of them.
If they make it into the country, the process can drag on. Even for 35 years. Meanwhile, people like Gladys and Nelson Gonzalez have children; they find jobs; they pay taxes; and they become productive members of American society. This is where common sense prevail.
Gladys and Nelson Gonzalez had no notice they would be deported. They had just received an extension when ICE showed up for what they thought was a routine check in. Instead, they were handcuffed and shackled in front of their children and grandson and hauled off to a prison in Louisiana.
The Gonzalez story is not unique. Many immigrants live in the shadows, contributing to their communities, paying taxes, and raising families, yet they remain vulnerable to deportation due to complications and missteps with the process to obtain legal status. We don’t usually see their faces, and we don’t usually hear their stories, other than the occasional news report with minimal facts and an impersonal tone.
I met a young woman a number of years ago who volunteered in the legal clinic I run. She dreamed of going to law school from a young age. She is one of the most exceptional people I have ever met, so I have maintained contact with her.
She explained that her parents traveled fluidly back and forth from Mexico to the US for stints of work. They didn’t need a passport to cross the border at that time, so they came and went to obtain temporary work and return home.
She was born in Mexico. Her parents were in the US when 9/11 happened. They were caught on this side of the border when travel restrictions were imposed, and they couldn’t foresee how things would change. They had a son; they continued to work, and to wait, and to hope things would go back to the way they were; and years went by.
Her father is entrepreneurial and started several businesses. The IRS was happy to give him a tax number and to receive his taxes. He employed many people, and he became a mentor to other would-be business owners.
This young woman knows no other home but the US. She has no connections in her home country. She is as Americanized as you and me, but she grew up under a dark cloud with the specter of deportation hanging over her head.
She knew she had to keep her head down. She could not call negative attention to herself. She excelled in school with a purpose, knowing that she would never qualify for a scholarship. Her parents would never receive Social Security or Medicare, though they paid into it for decades.
She graduated high school in three years with a perfect GPA, and she was on a pace to graduate from college in three years with a perfect GPA when I met her. Since that time she has graduated from college, and she graduated from law school.
In Law School, she worked in immigration clinics. She landed a job with a high-end estate planning law firm, but her heart was in doing immigration work. Even though she took a significant pay cut, she left the posh position and became an immigration attorney.
She is a “Dreamer” – children born out of the country who are raised here. She has married a US citizen, but the immigration landscape is dangerously potted with landmines, especially now. Even birthright citizenship (which is in the US Constitution) is up in the air. Her parents still live under a cloud of deportation that grows darker with each passing day.
I write this blog mainly for Christians and people who sense Jesus knocking at their door. I find myself increasingly writing to the Church in America, and specifically to my tribe – evangelicals – in recent years as the polarizing vortex of politics is blowing the country apart. Evangelicals and other segments of the American Church are not immune from the polarizing forces.
I might have remained in my own ignorance of God’s heart for the stranger if I had not decided one day in 2014 (during the Obama administration) to do a deep dive into Scripture to develop a biblical view of immigration. I realized at that time that I didn’t have a biblical view of immigration as I struggled to find solid footing in the gale of the political winds at that time.
Since then, the gale has increased to hurricane force winds. If you are a Christian, and you don’t have a solid, biblical view of immigration, I implore you to do your own deep dive. A study around the time I wrote my first article indicated that only 13% of Evangelicals said the Bible is the source of their views on immigration. My own study changed my mind in 2014.
If you do your own reading of Scripture, you may not come out where I have, but I believe every Christian who takes his/her faith seriously should ground their views solidly in the Bible first, and not in the politics, culture wars, and social media influences of the day. If you want to consider what I have I found focusing on “strangers” and “sojourners” in the Bible – words in the Bible that describe people we call immigrants today – a link is in the image below to the articles I have written describing what I found.
Navigating by Faith 