DUTY DOESN’T ASK HOW YOU FEEL, IT ASKS WHEN, HOW & IF YOU WILL STAND!!!

First of all, I have been trying to study what the Bible says, if anything, about immigration. I want to try to follow what God says about any subject versus a political party, pundit, or individual looking for followers. And certainly, there’s always the chance that whatever is said gets viewed through someone’s personal filters and taken in unintended ways. What’s said below seems Biblically accurate as far as what I’ve been able to discern. If you have insight otherwise, please let me know.

Soooo, What Does the Bible Actually Say About Immigration?

I am well aware that whatever I say will cause consternation among some people I care about.  I am friends with illegal immigrants and their family members, and I am advocating for reforms that would grant many of them legal status.  I even wrote a letter to the President asking to adopt a family to keep them safe.

I am also friends with people who would read that sentence and conclude that I am a compromised liberal who cannot be trusted on immigration because my heart is too soft and my thinking too sentimental.

Let me be clear about where I stand.  I am deeply passionate about truth.

I am deeply passionate about justice.  I am deeply passionate about compassion and love.  And I am far angrier to see the Bible abused for political purposes than even to see a judge sworn to uphold the Constitution shredding it instead for their political beliefs. God’s Word rules my life.  Abusing it for politics is not a minor error.  It is deeply wicked and vile.  If you are not a Christian, this entire post may not matter much to you in reading my immigration thoughts and sentiment. If you are a Christian, I urge you to read what I am writing here carefully, and mark and avoid the wolves who are abusing the name of God to teach things He does not.

One of the most common moves in the modern immigration debate is to invoke Jesus.

#1. “Jesus was a refugee.”

#2. “Christians must support open borders.”

#3. “Opposing illegal immigration is unbiblical.”

Almost all of this is wrong.  Not wrong in nuance.  Wrong in substance.

Let us begin with Jesus.  Jesus was not an illegal immigrant.  He was not undocumented.  He did not cross borders in defiance of law.  When Joseph fled Herod with Mary and the child, they traveled within the Roman imperial system. Judea, Egypt, and Galilee were all provinces under Roman authority. There is no evidence they violated Roman law. There is no evidence they hid their identity. There is no evidence they lived by fraud, theft, or deception.

Now, we know one thing with certainty.  Jesus committed no sin.  That alone tells us that whatever occurred in Egypt did not involve identity fraud, lawbreaking, theft, or exploitation of others. Scripture explicitly says he was without sin.  This “refugee analogy” collapses immediately.

Now consider the Old Testament.  The word most often translated as stranger or foreigner is sojourner.  The sojourner was not a citizen.

He was not entitled to the inheritance of the land.  He did not shape the law.  But he was protected.  Again and again God commands Israel to treat the sojourner with dignity.  Do not oppress him.  Do not cheat him.  Do not abuse him.  Do not deny him justice.  This is where many people stop reading.  But the same law that protects the sojourner also draws very clear boundaries.  The sojourner lives under Israel’s law.  He is judged by Israel’s courts.  He may not bring foreign gods into the community.  He may not practice idolatry.  He may not corrupt Israel’s worship.  And most importantly—he does not become part of Israel unless he assimilates.

Ruth is the clearest example.  She does not say, “Your land will be my land but my god will remain my god.”  Rather, she says,“Your people shall be my people, and your God my God.” (Ruth 1:16). That is not tolerance.  That is assimilation.  She enters Israel by adopting Israel’s God, Israel’s law, and Israel’s people as her own.

There is no biblical category for permanent resident outsiders who reject the moral law, reject the covenant, and reshape the host nation while claiming its protection.  I also find it deeply ironic that many of the same people who constantly invoke Nehemiah for their church and government partnerships are vehemently opposed to building a border wall.

It is sad, and in a laugh or cry sense almost hilarious, that those who abuse Scripture reference a book about God commanding the rebuilding of a wall for protection and provision while insisting Christians may only build longer tables.

In my life experience these are often people who live in gated communities and personally interact with immigrants only when paying them below market wages to work on their mansions.  The biblical pattern is consistent.

Dignity without dissolution.  Mercy without surrender.  Compassion without cultural suicide.  The Bible never commands nations to abolish borders.  It never commands governments to ignore law.  It never commands societies to accept unlimited migration from incompatible moral systems.

It does command something else.  To remember that every human being bears the image of God.  To treat outsiders with justice and restraint.  To refuse cruelty.  To reject hatred.  To protect the vulnerable.  But it also assumes nations exist.  Laws exist.  Boundaries exist.  Covenants exist.  Cultures exist.  And that joining a people requires joining their moral order.

You cannot use the Bible to argue for a society that welcomes immigrants who reject its constitution, reject its laws, and reject the moral foundations that make liberty possible.

That is not compassion.  That is abdication.  Romans 13 Is being Abused.  One of the most frequently misused passages in the modern political church is Romans 13.  It is invoked selectively.  It is applied asymmetrically.  And it is almost always wielded to protect power, not to restrain it.  For four years we were lectured relentlessly from this chapter.  Submit to lockdowns.  Submit to mandates.  Submit to school closures.  Submit to suspended worship.  Submit to coerced medical decisions.  We were told resistance was rebellion against God.  Many of the same public theologians who said you were immoral for questioning masks, immoral for declining injections, immoral for worshiping in person, now suddenly discover the right of resistance when the subject becomes immigration enforcement.

The contradiction is not subtle.  In 2020 and 2021, Romans 13 meant unquestioning compliance.  In 2025 and 2026, Romans 13 now apparently means states and cities may openly defy federal law if they claim moral motives.  Both cannot be true.  Romans 13 does not teach blind obedience to any authority at any time.  It teaches ordered authority.  “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God.” (Romans 13:1). But Paul immediately defines the purpose of that authority.  “For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad.” (Romans 13:3). Civil government exists to restrain evil and reward good—not to redefine good.  Not to abolish law.  Not to nullify higher authority.  Not to declare itself sovereign.

This is where the doctrine of lesser magistrates matters.  A lower authority may resist a higher authority only when the higher authority commands what God forbids or forbids what God commands.  That is the entire doctrine.  It is the theology behind the Reformation.  It is the theology behind resistance to tyrants.  It is the theology behind protecting worship.

It is not a theology that permits selective lawlessness.  Federal immigration law does not command sin.  It does not require idolatry.  It does not require murder.  It does not require injustice.  It simply requires enforcement.

A state or city that refuses to enforce federal law is not protecting conscience.  It is nullifying law.  And Scripture is explicit.  “Whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed.” (Romans 13:2)  When states declare themselves sanctuaries in open defiance of federal statute, they are not acting as righteous lesser magistrates.  They are acting as rebellious ones. 

The analogy to the civil rights movement is particularly dishonest.  Segregation laws commanded injustice. They violated the image of God.

They denied equal protection under law.  Immigration law does none of those things.  It does not deny dignity.  It does not deny personhood.  It does not deny legal process.  It distinguishes between lawful entry and unlawful entry.  That distinction is not racism.  It is the foundation of sovereignty.  To claim that enforcing borders is the moral equivalent of enforcing Jim Crow is not prophetic.  It is manipulative.  Worse, it teaches Christians to despise law itself.  And when Christians are trained to see law as oppression whenever it inconveniences them, they are no longer fit to govern a free society.  Romans 13 is not a weapon against lawful government.  It is a warning to those who would dismantle it.