Evangelicals Jump Into Immigration Debate

There have been occasions in the past when evangelical leaders have jumped into political arguments, and not always wisely.  For instance, the time a bunch of prominent evangelical leaders decided to take a stand on global warming, something none of them knew anything about.

Today there's another effort by evangelical leaders, this time on the issue of immigration reform.  It's somewhat of a mixed bag of good and bad:

Calling for a “just, rational” effort on immigration reform that begins with secure borders then proceeds with a comprehensive plan to citizenship for illegal immigrants, leaders of the nation’s largest evangelical organizations released a letter Tuesday they hope will jump-start the debate on immigration.

The letter is notable in part for calling Arizona’s new law on immigration misguided while blaming the federal government for not defending the state’s dangerous border with Mexico, which is mired in a violent drug war.

“We must first secure our borders before we can implement a broader just assimilation immigration policy,’’ states the letter, signed by a group that includes Richard Land, head of the Southern Baptist Convention's public policy wing, and Mathew Staver, dean of the Liberty University School of Law.

“Secure borders are not closed borders,” the letter adds. “We must return to a rational immigration policy that acknowledges that we are both a nation of immigrants and a nation of laws. It is our obligation to provide a just solution to those people who are currently undocumented under the present policy.

“That solution is neither amnesty nor mass deportation. A just, rational policy would put otherwise law-abiding undocumented persons on one of three paths: one path leads to pursuing earned legal citizenship or legal residency, one leads to acquiring legal guest-worker status, and one leads back across the border including a swift process for the deportation of undocumented felons.”

Calling the Arizona law "misguided" is just plain ignorant. The Arizona law is nearly a mirror of current Federal law that's been on the books since 1940. Arizona, unlike the Federal government, decided to enforce it.  Self-defense is not "misguided".

Otherwise, their letter has some merit. The first priority must be controlling the border. Without that any efforts at reform are meaningless, and any possibility of an amnesty or other program giving a shortcut to legal status would just open the floodgates of an uncontrolled border.

Evangelical leaders certainly have the right to add their voice to the debate.  I just wish they didn't follow the politically-correct line by bashing Arizona.