Christian Post Urges Trump To Give Amnesty To Illegal Aliens

Richard Land was once the predecessor to Russell Moore, who was an obvious liberal activist using the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention to advance a Democratic agenda. However, the shift between Land, Moore, and now Leatherwood is a matter of liberalism becoming more obvious. Richard Land remains an active liberal voice in conservative Christian media, and his recent column at Christian Post where he is an executive editor, might as well have been from the Soros-backed Evangelical Immigration Table or Sojourners.

In a column titled, “This is the critical question for immigration reform” Richard Land makes an emotions-based argument for amnesty for illegal aliens.

First, the American people will not accept immigration reform that allows significant numbers of people (such as the “dreamers”) to stay unless they are convinced that the federal government is going to control the border. Control means we decide who comes in and who goes out and we have verified who they are and where they are. Controlling the border does not mean “closing” the border. We need immigration to keep our economy growing, but in “controlled” numbers of people with skills and without criminal records.

President-elect Trump is right to begin with emphasizing deporting any illegal immigrants with criminal records here or in their own countries. The President-elect was also right to say that he wanted to find a way for the “dreamers” to stay. Who are the “dreamers”? They are people who were brought here by their parents, usually as young children and many of them have grown up here and have little, if any, memory of their native countries. Under DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals), children who were brought here as children before June 15, 2012 have “temporary status” for “deferred action” from deportation. DACA is currently under Supreme Court review.

The principle at work in DACA is that we normally don’t punish children for their parents’ crimes and the parents are the ones who broke the law by bringing their children to the U.S.—the children did not bring themselves.

DACA is an unconstitutional Obama-era measure to create an otherwise nonexistent distinction between illegal aliens who invaded this country over the age of 18 and those supposedly under the age of 18. Richard Land ironically argues for family separation by insisting that DACA recipients, so-called “dreamers” stay which ultimately rewards the parents for having invaded the nation. But the foreign children are not the only recipients of Richard Land’s proposed amnesty.

So what should we do? I would suggest that we pass legislation that gives those in the United States illegally three months to come forward, register, undergo a background check, pay a fine, and apply for legal status. If they have been law-abiding residents both here and in their country of origin, if they have paid their taxes, and if they have been productive members of society, they would begin a ten-year probationary period. If they stay out of trouble with the law, pay their taxes, and demonstrate that they can read, write, and speak English, they can earn permanent legal status—not citizenship.

The penalty for having entered illegally is the forfeiture of the opportunity for citizenship. If they desire citizenship, they would have to leave the country, apply for reentry, and begin the legal process anew.

Some would object that this is “amnesty.” It is not. Amnesty is what President Carter granted those who dodged the draft during the Vietnam War by leaving the country. President Carter let them come home with no penalty or fine of any kind. (I would have let the draft evaders come home, but I would have required them to spend two years working in Veterans Hospitals taking care of the young men who took their place.)

Richard Land argues that denying invaders the ability to vote or serve on jury duty while conferring all other benefits of citizenship, for a price, is not somehow amnesty. This is amnesty with a lot of extra steps. It also denotes a low view of citizenship and a view that America is nothing more than an economic zone. Land then reiterates full amnesty for so-called dreamers.

When it comes to the “dreamers,” I believe we should put forth a pathway to citizenship, whereby if they successfully navigate the ten-year probationary period and the other requirements listed above, they could apply for citizenship in the U.S., the only country they may have ever known.

Richard Land gives a sob story of a dreamer to sway the reader while ignoring several practical issues such as a population of amnesty-granted invaders having children with a legal system that grants them citizenship based on a faulty interpretation of the US Constitution. But when America is just an idea, it doesn’t matter.

Finally, we should remember that all of us are the descendants of immigrants unless we are Native Americans. And all of the immigrant groups that have come to America have enriched our culture with their unique contributions to our vocabulary, music, cuisine, etc. How much more vibrant is American culture as a result of our fellow Americans of, for example, Irish, Italian, Asian, Polish, and African-American origin?

Richard Land concludes by touting the liberal myth that America is a nation of immigrants. However, America is a nation of conquerors, settlers, colonizers, and explorers. North America had all the ingredients for a great nation to emerge, and our ancestors forged one.

We must always remember that America is still the only country in the world not based on blood or ethnicity but on allegiance to America’s founding principles. Anybody can become an American in a way that someone cannot become a Frenchman, a German, or a Japanese.