Tag: immigration

5 Things About the Current State of Immigration Detention

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Diverse people walking through an ornate courthouse hallway

Matt Soerens with World Relief was asked to comment about the current state of immigration detention in July of 2026. Although immigrant detention is not as much in the news right now as it was months earlier, it is still happening. Tactics and policies have not changed, but ICE has stopped being so public about it.

Was that part of the plan? Did they purposefully introduce a new era of immigration enforcement with tanks, heavy equipment, masks, fatigues, violence, cruelty, and disregard for 4th amendment protections with a public show of fanfare and force to scare immigrants and desensitize the rest of us?

If ICE was previously “in your face,” they have shrunk back into the shadows, though the pace of immigration has actually increased, according to Soerens. In fact, the federal government reports that 46,000 people were detained in the month of July, which is more immigrant detainees in a single month in the history of the United States.

Some things have not changed. The vast majority of people being detained have not committed any crime. The most recent data available at the Department of Homeland Security indicates that approximately 65,000 people were detained as of July 20th, and 71% of them had not been convicted of any crime.

Of course, this means that approximately 29% of the immigrant detainees have been convicted of a crime. What qualifies as a crime, however, is a very broad spectrum of activity that extends from murder down to traffic violations.

Soerens cautions that we should not minimize the importance of locating and detaining immigrants (or anyone, for that matter) who has committed a heinous crime. At the same time, we should not lump in people whose only crime is a misdemeanor traffic offense with hardened criminals.

Soerens, a Chicago area resident, observes that traveling 81 miles per hour on I-294 in the Chicago area is a crime, but it doesn’t get anyone detained, thrown in prison, or worse. If you live in Chicago, you know the speed limit on I-294 is 60 miles per hour, but you will be run over if you are not flowing with the traffic, which often runs 75 miles per hour or more, with people passing you doing 80, 90, or faster.

A significant percentage of the 29% of detainees who have criminal convictions have been convicted of nothing other than a misdemeanor traffic offense – like doing 81 on I-294 or similar offenses. The fine for a traffic ticket is nothing more than an inconvenience for most people, but detention and deportation can be a life sentence for people who have left danger in their home countries.

Some immigrants who are currently being detained have lawful status that was taken away by the current administration. They came here legally under a program that was established for them. In fact, they entered the country precisely because the program was created for them, but now it has been terminated, and they are being deported like people who entered the country without permission.

Soerens says, we don’t know how many people have been detained in this category. We do know that 1.8 million people were present in the United States in January of 2025 with lawful status that has been revoked by the current administration. Many of the people in this category have come from countries with the worst humanitarian crises in the world – places like Haiti and Venezuela. The people who came in through these programs have been vetted. They have had criminal background checks to ensure that they do not have criminal backgrounds, and they are escaping real and present danger.  They cannot return safely to their country of origin – especially now that being returned puts a target on their backs.

With their lawful status withdrawn, these people go into the category of immigration violators, though they did nothing wrong. They become immediately eligible for deportation through no fault of their own.

Reasonable minds can differ about the wisdom and propriety of the programs that were created for these people. But revoking status that was granted that induced them to immigrate to the United States isn’t just immoral; it’s a clear violation of biblical mandates to “let your yes be yes and our no be no.”

In the context of contracts, which is similar to a covenant, we have laws that protect people from that kind of behavior. If one person breaks a contract, the other person has a remedy in the law. In this case, our government broke the contract, and there is no recourse.

In the context of local governmental law (with which I am familiar, having practiced in that area for 35 years),governments can pass new laws that end protections or privileges, but they cannot be applied retroactively to people who relied on them. It isn’t fair to pull the rug from underneath someone who depended on the rug. 

This is such a fundamental rule of law, that it hardly needs any explanation. If a person acts in reliance of the current rules, even if government changes the rules, the change can only apply going forward. It cannot apply back in time for people who relied on the old rules.

In a sense, the fundamental rule of law goes back to the idea of letting our yes be yes and our no be no. That’s the way God works with us. He is not arbitrary and capricious. He makes a promise and keeps it, and he expects us to do the same. We can disagree with the programs that were created and end those programs, but we should not, in good conscience before God, remove the protections that were once given.

Ironically, the people whose lawful status was removed by the present administration become some of the easiest people to detain because the Department of Homeland Security and ICE have all of their information. They have gone through official channels, and they are sitting ducks.

Another thing to know about the status of immigration enforcement in this country is that families are being separated. World Belief participated in a study together with the National Association of Evangelicals to determine the effect of the administration deporting 1 million people each year of the current administration, which is the stated goal. The study shows that 270,000 spouses would be separated because of detainment and deportment, and 900,000 and a million children would lose at least one parent.

Another thing to know about the current immigration enforcement operation is the effect it has on the church. World Belief participated in a separate study with the National Association of Evangelicals and the  Center for Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Seminary. They found that 80% of people vulnerable to deportation are Christian of one stripe or another. If the administration was successful in deporting everyone who is vulnerable to deportation, deportation will affect 1 in 12 households in this country.

The final thing to know about current immigration policy is the great cost.  In 2024, the ICE budget for detention was 3.4 billion dollars.  The big, beautiful bill passed a year ago budgeted 45 billion dollars just for detention.  That figure does not include other operations of immigration enforcement, including the deportation process,  border security, or administrative operations. On top of that, the administration seeks even more money for detention since the budget was passed!

Matt Soerens says that World Relief has never taken the position that no one should be detained or deported.  The border should be secure, and anyone who poses a threat or has engaged in criminal activity of a type that is not consistent with good citizenship should be eligible for deportation, according to Soerens.

The issue isn’t stepping up immigration enforcement against immigrants who have committed serious crimes. The issue is that over 70% of immigrants currently detained have no criminal record. Not even a traffic violation. Yet, we are spending over 10 times the amount of money to detain them, and the administration is asking for more. Even people who agree with the effort to deport people who entered without permission recognize that the cost is unreasonable compared to what is being accomplished.

Regardless of the financial cost or even policy considerations, Christians should be speaking up and petitioning legislative representatives for more humane treatment of immigrants, who are people made in the image of God.  Christians can disagree over the priorities for immigration: enforcement, the kinds of crimes or actions that should warrant detainment and deportation, and the programs that should be offered, but Christians should have no disagreement over the humane treatment of immigrants.

We do not detain hardened criminals, including murderers and rapists, in the conditions that currently exist for the detention of immigrants. Immigrants should not be treated like hardened criminals, and they should not be treated worse than hardened criminals – unless we don’t really believe that all people are made in the image of God.

It isn’t the degree of criminal activity that should warrant humane treatment; and it isn’t whether a person is a citizen or a legally documented alien that should warrant humane treatment. All human beings are made in God’s image – whether murderers, rapists, speeders, or immigrants. If we really believe that, then immigrants should be treated accordingly, and not rounded up, herded, and detained in unsanitary and overcrowded conditions with little or no medical attention for those who need it.

The current state of immigration enforcement and detention in the United States does not reflect God’s righteousness and justice, the foundation of God’s throne. They do not reflect the most basic of biblical principals: that all people are created in God’s image. As Christians, we need to advocate for God’s justice and righteousness, regardless of what we feel about immigration issues politically.


Podcast Episode: Belonging Across Borders

God’s people have always been aliens and strangers in the world

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Stone gateway with a dirt path leading through it toward mountains at sunrise

Pip: If you’ve ever wondered whether the Bible has anything to say about the immigration debate, Kevin Drendel has been following the threads of the biblical fabric on the theme of immigration since 2014 — and the answer turns out to be: quite a lot, and none of it comfortable.

Mara: This episode covers three territories: migration and exile in the biblical narrative, what it means to hold citizenship in heaven over any earthly nation, and how the command to love your neighbor keeps expanding past every boundary we try to draw around it.

Pip: Let’s start with the biblical record on refugees — because it turns out the shepherd-king himself was one.

David, Ruth, and the Refugee Thread in Scripture

Mara: The anchor post here traces a thread running from the exile of Adam and Eve all the way to Revelation 7:9 — and one vivid stop along the way is David, a man on the run from a king who wanted him dead.

Pip: David dodging spears, hiding in the wilderness, and eventually crossing into enemy Philistine territory — David was not always the quintessential insider, the golden boy of the faith. He was once a refugee.

Mara: In that dilemma, “David thought to himself, ‘One of these days I will be destroyed by the hand of Saul. The best thing I can do is to escape to the land of the Philistines. Then Saul will give up searching for me anywhere in Israel, and I will slip out of his hand.'”

Pip: Some commentators criticize that David’s move as a failure of faith. They have a point — but what would any of us would do if people in power were hunting us down.

Mara: That’s where the law-versus-grace tension surfaces. David’s asylum claim, by modern legal standards, would likely be denied — his persecution wasn’t tied to race, religion, or membership in a protected group. Many real refugees today face the same wall: fleeing cartels or generalized violence, with no qualifying category under current law – no clear path to safety, security, and a permanent home.

Pip: And the number of refugees in the world are not small. Over 123 million people displaced globally, 1 in every 67 people on earth, with the average refugee spending about 17 years inrefugee camps.

Mara: The post on Ruth develops the same thread from a different angle. Ruth is a Moabite — a foreigner — who embodies every category of vulnerability Scripture pairs together: widow, orphan, and foreigner. And God chose her story, not an Israelite’s, to sit at the center of His redemption narrative.

Pip: Ruth ends up in the royal lineage that runs straight to David and then to Jesus. The foreigner isn’t a footnote; she’s load-bearing.

Mara: The post on Moses and identity adds another layer. Moses names his firstborn son Gershom — meaning “foreigner in a foreign land” — because that is how he understood himself, raised Egyptian but Hebrew by birth. That outsider identity becomes the foundation for the Mosaic law’s repeated command: love the foreigner, because you were foreigners in Egypt.

Pip: And then People from Beyond closes the loop. Abraham himself is called a Hebrew, meaning “one from beyond” — a man who never owned the land he lived in – though it was the land God promised him – because he knew it was not his ultimate destination.

Mara: David says it plainly near the end of his life, in 1 Chronicles: “We are foreigners and strangers in your sight. Our days on earth are like a shadow.” The displacement isn’t incidental to the story. It is the story.

Pip: Which raises the question of what that identity is supposed to do to us — and that’s where citizenship comes in.

Heaven’s Citizens, Earth’s Sojourners

Mara: The post on foreigners, neighbors, and citizens opens with a single line from Leviticus 24: “You are to have the same law for the foreigner and the native-born.” The post observes that Law is not meant to be merely punitive — if the law binds the foreigner, the same law also shields the foreigner.

Pip: Equal protection as a theological claim, not just a civic one.

Mara: Philippians 3:20 puts it plainly: “Our citizenship is in heaven.” The post on Jubilee and kingdom identity traces how that reorientation was built into the Mosaic law from the start — the Jubilee instructions in Leviticus 25 remind Israel they are temporary dwellers – tenants, not owners, because “the land is mine,” says the Lord.

Pip: And the post on the New Testament theme of embracing citizenship in heaven makes it personal — through the story of a woman who grew up a Christian minority in India, felt the sting of foreignness again as an immigrant in the United States, and found in that double displacement a clarifying gift.

Mara: Her experience reframes minority status not as a problem to solve but as the natural condition of anyone whose primary allegiance is to a kingdom not of this world. The danger, as that post frames it, is belonging too comfortably to any earthly nation.

Pip: That’s the tension that keeps appearing in Scripture — and the neighbor question is where it gets practical.

The Boundary That Keeps Moving

Mara: The post on insider logic opens with the backstory to the Good Samaritan. Second Temple Jews read “love your neighbor as yourself” as applying to fellow Hebrews — the qualifying phrase “among your people” in Leviticus 19:18 gave them cover.

Pip: Sixteen verses later, the same chapter extends the same love to foreigners. They just stopped reading.

Mara: Jesus removes any remaining ambiguity in Matthew 5: “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies.” The post calls this the perfection of love — a progression that starts with self and family, moves outward to neighbors and strangers, and doesn’t stop until it reaches enemies.

Pip: Our natural inclination is to draw the circle tight. The Bible keeps redrawing it larger.

Mara: And that’s the throughline across everything here — from David in the wilderness to Ruth in the fields to the command to love without limit. The question isn’t whether God cares about the foreigner. The question is whether we’re reading closely enough to notice.

Pip: Displacement, identity, the boundary of neighbor love — these aren’t separate topics. They’re the same argument made from every angle of Scripture.

Mara: And the posts keep returning to the same pressure point: how we treat the vulnerable stranger is a litmus test for who we actually think we are before God. This theme runs throughout the Bible, from Adam and Eve to Revelation.

Pip: More to come from Navigating by Faith — next time, we’ll see where the thread leads.

David Was a Refugee and Asylum Seeker

Lessons from David the refugee and asylum seeker

kevingdrendel3 Comments
Five men dressed in ancient clothing sitting around a campfire with a dog

If you have followed my blog for any length of time, you know that I have written often on the theme of migration (aliens, foreigners, sojourners, and strangers) as it appears in the Bible. Now that I am aware of it, I am amazed at the amount of time devoted to it in God’s revelation to us. It is a rich and deep vein of gold with significant Gospel implications.

I began reading to determine how God views immigrants back in 2014 during the Syrian refugee crisis. I wrote Immigration: The Strangers Among Us in the fall of 2014 to share what I found.

Since then I have noticed how central this thread is to the Gospel and the whole biblical narrative from the beginning (the exile of Adam & Eve from the garden) to the end (the gathering of people from every nation, tribe and tongue before the throne of Jesus in Revelation 7:9). In my daily reading recently, I noticed another segment of that thread involving David before he was king. When you see it, it’s obvious.

David Was a Refugee

David rose quickly to prominence after killing Goliath. He was initially taken in by King Saul because of that success, but Saul became jealous of David as he had more and more success in battle andas a leader of men. God rejected Saul, though he remained King, and David was anointed as his successor.

Jealousy drove Saul to want to kill David. His first attempt is chronicled in 1 Samuel 18:10-11. Saul tried to pin David to the wall with his spear twice, David dodged him and escaped. Saul tried a different tactic – to send David into battle after battle, hoping he would be killed by enemy forces. (1 Samuel 18:17, 25) When those efforts failed, Saul ordered his son, Jonathan, and his attendants to kill David, but Jonathan would not do it. (1 Samuel 19:1-2)

With Jonathan’s help, David fled into the wilderness to preserve his life, but Saul pursued David with an army of men. David was on the run from Saul from 1 Samuel 19 through 1 Samuel 26 until Saul died in battle with the Philistines.

Today, we would call David a refugee because he was displaced due to violence. Over 123 million people have been displaced today because of war, armed conflict, persecution, human rights abuses, and generalized violence, according to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR). About 60-70 million refugees are displaced inside their own countries. The other 40+ million refugees have crossed country borders to escape the violence that threatens them.

In 1 Samuel 21:10-15, David fled across the border to the Philistine city of Gath, which ironically was the hometown of Goliath, the giant that David killed. The Philistines were obviously enemies of the nation of Israel, but David was desperate.

Not surprisingly, the Philistines recognized David and were suspicious. David feigned insanity to save himself from potential hostility (1 Samuel 21:10-15), and he returned to hiding in the wilderness of Israel.

Being a refugee is a desperate circumstance. Like David, many people are caught up in local, regional, or national violence and do not have safe places to go in their home country. They face danger at home and abroad. People in David’s position are vulnerable. They look for safety, protection, and welcome wherever they can find it.

The things David experienced as a refugee and asylum seeker play out for millions of people in our world today. In fact, more people are displaced today because of violence than ever before, according to the UNHCR Global Trends Report published in 2024. That number doubled in the last decade, leaving 1 out of every 67 people in the world displaced today!

This is obviously a sad state of affairs, but I am more interested in what God has to say about these things. There was a time when I didn’t know. Since 2014, I have become increasingly aware of the way scripture views people in refugee status, and today I will trace what can be found in the life of David when he became a refugee and asylum seeker.

Continue reading “David Was a Refugee and Asylum Seeker” →

Why I Write About Immigration Issues

The truth is complicated, but God’s heart is certain

kevingdrendel1 Comment
Mexican Border

I have friends who keep me honest, and I am grateful for that. They don’t always agree with me. In fact, they often disagree with me on various things, but they remain my friends, and I remain grateful for them.

Anyone who follows me on social media knows that I am virtually fixated on the issue of immigration right now. It may seem like a new thing—that all of a sudden I have become woke, liberal, or progressive. Some people who don’t know me well, I am sure, think that about me. The truth is more complicated than that.

I am a lifelong Republican and conservative by nature. I’m also a follower of Jesus, though, and I find that Jesus defies modern political categories and stereotypes. If Jesus looks to me like a Republican or Democrat, “my Jesus” probably is not the real Jesus, and my politics have likely influenced my view of Jesus.

Many people might look at my posts on immigration and feel like I have abandoned all sense of patriotism and national pride. They might think I have become a hater of the United States of America. Again, the truth is more complicated than that.

I grew up with a love for my country and a strong sense of patriotism and pride. I was educated, like most people my age, on the goodness of the United States of America, celebrating Christopher Columbus and Thanksgiving this time of year with idyllic depictions of pioneers living in harmony with Native Americans as our forefathers lived out their manifest destiny in keeping with a divine mandate from our creator to form the greatest, freest country on earth.

I still believe we live in the greatest, freest country on earth, but the truth is messier and more complicated than I once believed. I am grateful for a strong sense of the goodness of the United States of America I learned as a child, and I appreciate the positives in that idealized memory of America. But it’s more complicated than that.

Humanity is nothing if not messy. We are fallen, sinful creatures. We know that, but our idyllic, comforting images die hard.

The pioneers displaced the Native Americans who were here long before us. They were pushed out of their ancestral lands. They were marched in a “trail of tears” to godforsaken territories where they have had to scrape out a meager subsistence ever since then in the literal dust of the barren, rocky places to which they were consigned.

Slavery is a pox on our idyllic history. That it was supported, promoted, and defended by Christians who sought comfort in the Bible while they exploited, oppressed, and dehumanized people for the color of their skin (and wealth they could generate) is a testament to the utter bankruptcy of human beings – even religious ones.

Let’s be honest about this, also: religious people who use their religion to justify their unjust ways are not doing anything different than non-religious people who are unjust. It’s just more insidious for the fact that they contort love of neighbor to love of self.

I have learned to be honest and not to look away from these contrary images of our history and our past. God calls for repentance, and repentance requires honesty. Repentance and heart change are the only proper response to the evil of idolatry and injustice.

Honesty does not mean I do not love my country, and it does not mean that I am not thankful for being born here. I still believe that the good we have brought into the world is not any less good. It’s just complicated, and I want us to live up to the ideals we ascribe to.

In case you could not tell, I am not an idealist, though I certainly do have idealistic tendencies. Not that I am any different than anyone else. We are complicated and complex creatures; human beings. Despite the polarized simplicity of social media that pigeon holes us into two-dimensional, stereotypical ideologues, people and societies are complex.

On the issue of immigration, my “awakening” happened more than a decade ago – in 2014. During the Obama administration, as I watched the Syrian refugee crisis unfold in the news, I realized that didn’t have a robust biblical view on the subject of immigration. I have written about this often, so please bear with me if you have read what I have written before.

Continue reading “Why I Write About Immigration Issues” →

Are We Alien and Strange Enough in Our World?

Are you looking for a heavenly country?

kevingdrendelLeave a comment

Aliens and strangers in our world: that is an apt definition of Christians. We are made for more than the present heavens and present earth that we live in. Though we are born of perishable seed, we have been born again of imperishable seed, and we look forward to the day when we, like the acorn, will die so that we may rise again.

I say these things as I think about the chaos, or law and order, of our times, depending upon your perspective. I see it as chaos from the perspective of the immigrants who have come to the United States for a better life. It is just law and order from the perspective of the person who defends the current immigration laws of our country.

Of course, it isn’t that simple. Slavery was once legal in our country. Is it really just law and order? Or is it something else?

Our ancestors came here for a better life. Unless, of course, our ancestors are Native American. My father’s ancestors came here in 1846. they entered a commercial port in New York City before Ellis Island existed and before there was any process in place to receive immigrants. My mother’s ancestors came here long before that.

When I was young, we celebrated the pilgrims and other sojourners who came here for a better life. Seeking a better life for ourselves and our families, our children and our children’s children was the American way. We were proud of the pioneer spirit brought people to our shores.

It’s also a bit more complicated for Christians, as we believe this world is not all there is, as I often say. Followers of Christ know that a place has been prepared for each one of us. We know that storing up treasures on this earth is a futile and fruitless endeavor at the end of our days. The only thing that ultimately matters are the treasures we store in heaven – if, indeed, we are actually people of faith.

We store our treasures in heaven by following the narrow path, by taking up our crosses and following Jesus. We do this by laying down the desires of our own flesh, and living for the love of God and the love of our neighbor.

To those of us who are clinging to the rock of this country, who are trying to defend the law and order that protects our comfort, our future, and our way of life, I say, you are clinging to the wrong thing. In fact, it really isn’t really a rock at all.

A nation is actually shifting sand. Like the sands of the great civilization of Babylon that lies today in deserted ruins, on a wind-swept dessert expanse without inhabitant. A nation is an empty and parched hope that turns to dust. People, however, have eternal value.

As I look at the way the present administration of this country is carrying out the agenda of President Donald Trump, I am saddened all the way around. I am not unpatriotic. I am not empty of all nationalistic pride, but the older I get and the more deeply I commit to Jesus, the more I identify as an alien and stranger in our world. My citizenship is not ultimately in the United States of America – or in any worldly nation. My citizenship is in heaven.

And as I turn down another stretch in this journey of my life, I am learning to be more focused on life after life, which is the life that Jesus urges us to focus on. The kingdom of God, which is not a kingdom of this world, is a foretaste of the next. That is the aim of people of faith.

By faith Abraham made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country. Isaac and Jacob did the same. They were waiting for “the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.” (Hebrews 11: 9-10) All the people offered to us as examples of faith in Hebrews 11 welcomed the promises of God from a distance as “welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were “foreigners and strangers on earth” (Heb. 11:13) because they were longing for a “heavenly country” (Heb. 11:16) – not an earthly country.

So, as Christians on either side of the modern immigration issues, we cannot lose sight of our heavenly home, of that city whose architect and maker is the Lord. We longingly wait for the new heavens and the new earth that will come down and that day when the Lord, Himself, will dwell among us. That is our destiny and that is our destination.

Nations come and go. The grand monuments to our national identities will become like the Babylonian ruins, the heavens and earth will fade away, but a person who is born of imperishable seed lives forever. What, then, is a nation? Nations do not last.

We live by faith in the hope of the new Jerusalem where people from every tribe and nation and tongue will gather before the throne of the Lamb, crying, “Holy! Holy! Holy! Lord, God Almighty!” No human eye has seen nor mind conceived what is the greatness of the world that lies in store for us.

Why cling to the comforts and the privileges and the things that we can accumulate in this life when we are promised a life we cannot even imagine? Perhaps it is because we have a hard time imagining it. Yet, that is the substance of true faith – the certainty of things hoped for.

We should ask ourselves as we look at the great examples of faith God chose to parade before us in Hebrews 11 whether we would be honored to be counted among them? Or whether we think they were foolish to be tortured, jeered at, flogged and imprisoned for such a hope? They are commended for their faith in the promises of God they didn’t receive in this life.

Perhaps, the immigration issue separates sheep from goats. The laws and order of this country that wall out a field that is ripe unto harvest for the imperishable seed of the gospel are of illusory value to the person of faith. Are we willing to gain our country at the loss of our citizenship in heaven?

That is a question we all must ask ourselves. Even if we do not ask that question, though, we are all deciding which side of the wall we are on in the decisions we make daily. Are we aliens and strangers in our world? Or have we chosen the world as our portion?