Love Hurts Christian Americans are conflicted on the issue of illegal immigration: torn between compassion for poor, struggling newcomers and respect for the Rule of Law.   On this Labor Day, permit me to venture beyond the realm of public policy and political campaigns to discuss a topic appropriate to the day: labor. Specifically, the labor of those who come to this country illegally to build a better life for themselves.   Christians, who are American citizens, face a seeming conflict between faith and politics on the subject of illegal aliens. As Christians, we have compassion for our fellow man, especially for the poorest among us. As Americans, we must preserve sovereignty and respect for the rule of law.   A believer in American-style capitalism could argue that the best way to help the world's poor is not to let them into the United States, where they could kill the golden goose of wealth creation, but export capital investment to their native countries. Furthermore, true compassion would never let illegal aliens into our country only to break their hearts and hopes by deporting them.   Yet preserving the Rule of Law by enforcing laws and maintaining the sovereignty of the United States won’t be perceived as compassion. It will be seen as greed and prejudice. Billions of people around the globe will hate us for it.   The challenge for Evangelical Christians is immense. How will American Christians be seen on mission trips when they come preaching unconditional love, but say, “You can’t come live in our country"?  Stay here, where, if your country actually gets itself together to harness the power of capitalism, you will see almost nothing in your life? Your children will have more hope, but that will be very little indeed. It takes time to build the wealth to be shared – without killing the Golden Goose. How can Evangelical Christians turn to the illegal aliens already in the U.S. and say, “We love you. We want you to worship in our churches with us. And be deported.” American Christians could point to Jesus' saying, "Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and unto the Lord what is the Lord’s.” Except in our Republic, we the citizens delegate our powers as individual Caesars to elected officials. The government is "us". On a personal level, who can look at the faces of immigrants working themselves ragged to get ahead and say, “Go?”   The “Save (Fill-in-your-city/county)” movement in Virginia puts the issue on local governments and the Commonwealth. We can’t blame the nasty Feds for enforcing our laws – as if they would. So, the responsibility for keeping illegal aliens out, and, possibly, deporting some who are here, is ours as Virginians. Frankly, I support the movement to end illegal immigration. Totally. Completely. Period. Then, start deporting the convicted criminals and see how long that takes before you deport the whole 20 million or so.   Yet, as true as my words are about how to build economies worth living in, I know that condemning others to live through that experience rings as a hollow witness. It doesn’t matter to the immigrants that my family has risen up from poverty, coming from the frontier where we had nothing except what we built ourselves, and from a devastating war that destroyed the capital accumulated over many lifetimes. I’ve earned wages since I was 15, but I didn’t earn my way to middle class. My ancestors did. My grandmother died at the age of 23. She got sick in a farm house with a dirt floor. Yet my father went to college and was an Army Officer. I went to college and two graduate schools. My kids have college degrees. Every year, there are young Virginians who graduate from college as the first ever college graduates from their entire extended family.   There are young Virginians who earn technical certificates – whose graduation means more to their family than an Ivy League ceremony means to a family of old Yankee money. I’ve seen this with my own eyes. This is going to be a tough path. I’m all for a large, legal immigration – million plus every year with preference for our Mexican neighbors and relatives of other immigrants here now. I’m not caught up in the sentimentality of "we are a nation of immigrants," yet I’m awash with the pain of making others find a different way out of their poverty than the quick, easier, simpler fix of illegal immigration. My youngest daughter has a funny story about a Poquoson High School trip to New York City. At Ellis Island, her sweet Yankee teacher asked earnestly why they weren’t looking up their ancestors on the monument. The girls smiled back, “None of our ancestors came through here." They’d been in Virginia for a couple of hundred years when this place was built. In other words, I could care less that any of my, or your, ancestors were immigrants. I care that most of the immigrants I see here now are wonderful people. They are making the most of life for their families. The criminal exceptions are the exceptions that should be dealt with by our "Justice" system.   Many immigrants sacrifice much today for the sake of their families tomorrow. They learn English, adopt our values and take our foundational ideas as their own. They make great Americans – great Virginians. Just as it is hard for Evangelical Christians to tell Muslims how much they love Jews and must fight Islamists while trying to win them to Christ, it’s going to be tough love, hard truth to illegal immigrants.   Interestingly enough, in Africa and Latin America where the Christianity of the colonists was questioned, there is a phenomenal wave of Christian evangelism today. Perhaps it just takes time for the Truth to be heard on its own terms. Truth is. The Truth sets humankind free. Let it be so with us.   -- Sept. 4, 2007