I love hearing your perspective, especially your sympathy for those who have come here as foreigners, like yourself, but not legally. I have this feeling that God doesn’t really care about the borders of nations, of course many laws have good reasons and morals behind them, but does God really care about people’s sins of crossing man-made lines in the sand, literally… I don’t know.. I guess that’s not so relevant to my comments here or the whole debate in general, other than I think there are plenty of Christians in America and I suppose anywhere that put the rule of law of whatever country they are from above what Jesus would do. I don’t think Jesus would put up a wall in order to protect our “cultural identity” and other such ridiculous reasons.. anyway, I’m glad to be part of the conversation..

Economically, the whole issue reeks of hypocrisy. Everyone knows that capitalism as a system depends on cheap labor. Every American citizen’s life thrives because of this whether they are aware of it or not. And the fact that America is built on immigrants horrifies me at the lack of sympathy so many Americans have towards this issue.
I’m here on a work visa that cost me $4000 and believe me it was not easy and there is no way our average brother and sister south of the boarder could afford to be here legally. To be here legally you either need to have a lot of money or a lot of higher education which goes hand in hand. So forget the system, it doesn’t work.

I’ve already said too much but good for you Laura for brining this up. I’m currently working with a guy in my small group who is undocumented and it’s revealing to me how unjust this whole system is.

I totally agree with your comments. I am not sure about the wall, because I think it’s a bad symbol and reminds me of the Great Wall, which is a nice tourist attraction, but as a defense strategy, a colossal failure.

I do think were there a relatively painless way for people to come here and work, without a mountain of paper and hoops, as well as the possibility for people to become legal residents if they want, that the wall would eventually become unnecessary, but that would take time.

I feel like the response from so many of the politicians who are viewing this purely as a security issue and grouping all immigration into one BAD, ILLEGAL category are being so narrow-minded about the issue, so black and white, and they are so far removed from poverty, lack of economic opportunity, lack of education, etc, that they cannot even imagine these people who make this illegal move as anything more than criminals.. well, I speed on my way to work every day.. so I guess in that narrow sense, I am a criminal too.. okay.. this is fodder for my next post.. coming right up…

Nevertheless, something must be done about the illegal problem and about
our porous borders. Here’s what I think should be done:

1. Seal our borders. Whether we construct a wall or add border patrols or
whatever, we must get serious about closing our borders and preventing more
illegals from entering without registering.

2. Streamline our immigration policy so that people who want to come here
and work to become citizens can do so without undue delay. ( I assume our
current policy is a cumbersome, beaurocratic mess now, as most Govt policy
is)

3. Streamline a worker permit program so that people who want to come here
to work, but don’t want to become US citizens, can do so as long as there
are jobs available for them, and as long as they obey laws, pay taxes, etc.

4. Then once those things are in place we should encourage/force illegals
who are already here and working to sign up to either a.) work to become a
US citizen or b.) procure a worker permit without delay or c.) leave the US
and return to their homes.