I didn’t grow up around immigrants or refugees. When undocumented immigrants started coming across my news radar a few years ago, I was confused. I figured a person could just go to the Secretary of State’s office and apply for citizenship and be on their way, so why weren’t these immigrants doing just that?
I genuinely praise God for a newfound education into the immigration system. I’ve been convicted about the aggressive way I’ve recently approached this issue and have apologized and grown from that. What I hope to do here is help others who are asking the same questions I was a few years ago by offering some factual and gentle information:
4 Misconceptions:
1. “I’m not against (Mexican) immigrants, but they need to do it legally. If they do it illegally, they are criminals and their punishment is deserved.”
There is no legal way for the vast majority of Mexican immigrants to enter the United States and there is no legal way for the vast majority undocumented Mexican immigrants to become documented. There is no line to wait in. What immigration advocates are lobbying for is not a removal of border policies or restrictions, but an overhaul of the current laws to make them humane, just, and up-to-date with our contemporary culture and economy. This should be an encouragement to everyone and celebrated that activists want secure borders too, as it often feels like there is so little common ground out there.
When most European immigrants came to the United States (like mine), there were no laws on the books regarding immigration that would have prevented them from coming. So there wasn’t a “legal” channel versus an illegal one, they could just come! A lot has changed since then…
Five ways an immigrant from Mexico can become a legal, documented resident of the United States:
- Have a family based sponsor. A sibling who is already a US citizen can file a petition in the United States. There a ~20 year wait, of course if you have a sibling who is already a US citizen.
- Have a spouse who is a US citizen. (A spouse who is a Lawful Permanent Resident (green card) requires a 2 year wait)
- Employer sponsor. Only 5000 of these can go to someone who is not “highly skilled” (i.e. master’s degree, etc.).
- Flee as a refugee. Which you can’t be qualified for if you’re from Mexico.
- Diversity Visa Lottery, which you can’t apply for if you’re from Mexico.
So an undocumented immigrant from Mexico can find a US citizen to marry or get one of the 5000 employment visas able to the poor in Mexico. Meanwhile, we have 11 million undocumented immigrants currently in the United States, many of whom are working. These numbers show that our economy’s need for immigrant work, as well as the amount of immigrants already a part of our American community and economy, do not match. The law (only 5000 visas allowed) has not kept up with the realities of our economy and culture.
The idea behind Comprehensive Immigration Reform is not to open the borders up to everyone, it’s to have a legal way for people to immigrate here and to have a number of visas that meet the needs of our labor economy.
For more on Comprehensive Immigration Reform:
www.EvangelicalImmigrationTable.com
advocacy@wr.org – Subscribe to World Relief’s immigration advocacy updates
2. Muslim refugees are a terrorist threat and need extreme vetting
This list is from World Relief’s CEO Tim Breene’s article, “Separating Facts from Fear in the Refugee Vetting Process.” Breene is referring to the existing vetting process:
- The refugee admission process is the most thorough of all entry processes into the U.S.
- We do know who these refugees are. They go through a multi-step process that generally lasts anywhere between 18 months to 3 years, and includes fingerprinting, biometrics, retina scans, and multiple interviews by different agencies, including the United Nations, State Department contractors, and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. World Relief—the organization I lead that resettles refugees—receives a thorough biographic report compiled by the U.S. State Department on each refugee we receive before they enter the country.
- The effectiveness of the process is demonstrated by the fact that, of the roughly three million refugees admitted since 1980, none has ever killed a single American in a terrorist attack.
- The Cato Institute’s research puts the annual risk of a refugee-committed terrorist killing on U.S. soil at 1 in 3.6 billion.
- Nothing within this executive order would have prevented 9/11, nor the more recent attacks in San Bernardino or Orlando.
- At least 5,700 fewer persecuted Christians will be allowed to come to the U.S. as refugees in Fiscal Year 2017 than in Fiscal Year 2016 as a result of the order’s dramatic cut to the overall number of refugees allowed, despite the president’s stated concern for persecuted Christians.
- In the past decade, the U.S. has never received more than a fraction of one percent of the world’s refugees annually, and it has received more Christian refugees than those of any other faith background.
- Of the 19,324 Syrian refugees admitted to the U.S. since 2012, 47% have been children thirteen years of age or under, while just 13% have been men aged 21 through 40.
3. Immigrants and refugees commit lots of crime
From a USA Today data analysis of undocumented immigrant violent crime rates:
…(from) the Center for Immigration Studies, which opposes any kind of plan to grant legal status to undocumented immigrants and regularly testifies in Congress against them.
“There’s no evidence that immigrants are either more or less likely to commit crimes than anyone else in the population,” Janice Kephart, a CIS researcher, said last week on the PBS NewsHour.
This isn’t to say immigrants and refugees don’t commit crimes. People commit crimes. But spreading stories about individual crimes committed by immigrants or refugees in an attempt to show that all immigrants or refugees are like this isn’t helpful or fair. There are plenty of crimes committed by white people that could be spread around, but would not indicate that all white people were this way.
4. Immigrants and refugees steal American jobs
Most immigrants are being employed in jobs employers are unable to find American citizens to work in.
Immigrants also create jobs because they are consumers as well.
Labor jobs taken up by immigrants create more jobs “up the job chain” for American citizens. For example, if immigrants are milking cows, it creates jobs at the ice cream factory down the street.
Immigrant labor in picking fruits and vegetables allows for produce prices to be cheaper for all Americans. If immigrants weren’t picking these, this produce would likely just be grown in other countries.
Three-quarters of the time undocumented immigrants get taxes taken out of their paycheck, paying $15 billion into our Social Security system (which they can never access).
One more note that’s important to make is that Comprehensive Immigration Reform needed to happen long before Donald Trump took office. The immigration system is a mess, but it’s not the fault of the immigrant, it’s laws that need to change.
The heart of this issue that is overlooked is that abused, oppressed and neglected people are running from terrorists, extreme poverty, and genocide and are seeking “refuge” in the United States. This is different from simply pursuing the American Dream (not that that is criminal either, as that’s what our European ancestors were doing). When hearing a story from an undocumented immigrant or a refugee, we realize we would do the same thing they did to save themselves and their families.
We need border security to keep drugs out and to moderate the amount of people who want to come to our country for reasons of convenience. But to clump these folks in with those running for their lives doesn’t help anyone. The refugee vetting process is already in place for this, and the immigration process could be in place if we created the legal vetting process needed (Comprehensive Immigration Reform), rather than simply saying ‘no’ to everyone, which is what is currently in place. Undocumented and incoming immigrants would jump at the opportunity to get a visa (and eventually citizenship), and in jumping at this opportunity would allow the needed vetting process to take place. It would be fine to deport people who didn’t apply for a visa, if visas were readily available to them. Without visas available (without a way to get documented), immigrants will continue to go “unvetted,” which isn’t helpful for the immigrant or American society.
Related posts:
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Noah, I always find your blog posts very informative for the most part, and I find it very interesting to see the statistics on refugees as it correlates to terrorism, but don’t you think the so called “immigration ban” is a little blown out of proportion? It was supposed to be a temporary ban to review vetting processes.
Hi Danny, thanks. I think the point being made regarding the immigration ban is the vetting process for refugees didn’t need to be drastically reviewed (that’s what the stats speak to). It’s been very successful for a very long time. The ban, and a lot of the fear-based rhetoric around it, isn’t needed because we didn’t have a problem in this area. Other countries have had this problem, but it’s because they don’t have the vetting process the US has had for a long time. So while yes it’s definitely ok for our government to review our vetting process, that should always be done continuously, a ban isn’t necessarily to do this. A ban like that is a “stop the bleeding” measure, but in our case, there wasn’t any bleeding. So I think that’s where the emotion comes from — because it’s hurting a lot of people unnecessarily, with nothing productive to gain from it.
Your cornerstone argument is not accurate; “There is no legal way for Mexican immigrants to enter the United States and there is no legal way for undocumented Mexican immigrants to become documented.” That is simply not true. (You’re repopulating fake news.) My Mexican American cousin can show you her Mexican husband and prove to you that he does exist…and it didn’t take 12-20 years. He’s now a patriotic American that is living in Michigan. He Loves America! and he LOVES THE DETROIT LIONS!!!!! (I KNOW…the LIONS?!?!!!) LOL!
Your premise is faulty and therefore the rest of Point#1 is questionable. A four year old article from the Washington Post has been buried on this topic but a good resource:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/study-legal-mexican-immigrants-become-us-citizens-at-a-lower-rate-than-others/2013/02/04/a3751d30-6f0a-11e2-ac36-3d8d9dcaa2e2_story.html?utm_term=.c8dcd6ce3166
Did you talk to any Mexican Americans before you “penned” your defense of “There is no legal way for Mexican immigrants to enter the United States”?
Hi Mark, thanks for the comment. I don’t think it’s fair to say my cornerstone argument is not accurate, looking at it in context. I was obviously not saying there was no, 0%, way for a Mexican immigrant to become documented because I then list the ways that an extremely small percentage of immigrants can become documented, for example those who marry a citizen or those who get a very rare work visa. So while I don’t have an official percentage handy, for argument’s sake let’s say 0.05% of Mexican immigrants have a legal way to become documented. I will change the way I worded my sentence to give clarity and avoid confusion, I appreciate your feedback on that. But the sentence which was actually my cornerstone argument still stands, “there is no line to wait in.” There is an assumption that Mexican immigrants can just “get in line” and become documented. This is not the case unless you marry a citizen or have one the very rare work visas given to you, so for the very vast number of Mexican immigrants, there is no line to get in.
The 12-20 year wait number I got for how long you’d have to wait to have a spouse or sibling sponsorship go through is from the interview I did with Matthew Soerens, US Director of Church Mobilization for World Relief, an Evangelical organization. He’s been working full time since 2006 on resettling refugees in the US and on legislative work around these issues, so he’s definitely an expert on these matters. I will ask him to clarify his 12-20 year statement that he made, and how someone like your cousin’s husband didn’t have to wait this long. There is likely a logical explanation for this, rather than saying my premise is faulty and questionable, which is big conclusion to jump to based on one example. It’s not a faulty or questionable premise: what’s happening is a vast majority, again let’s say 99% of immigrants can’t get documented…we can’t point to the 1% who can and say the legal process is a good one. Or act like the 99% (or 90% or whatever it is) have the same legal opportunity as the percentage who are getting documented, because that simply isn’t true. Like pointing at them like they are just lazy or criminals or some other racial stereotype which isn’t true about the vast majority of them. That’d be acting like these 90-99% of undocumented workers are simply unwilling to become documented. That is absolutely false. I’m talking absolute truth, absolute fact, that is not the case for the vast majority of them. Sure there may be a few outliers who don’t want to be documented, but the vast vast vast majority want documentation. Why would anyone want to live in fear of ICE and fear of being deported away from their citizen children? We as a whole need to talk to immigrants, not believe the headlines about them or one-liners from politicians.
The article from the Washington Post you linked to is insightful, but is a different topic than what I am writing about. That article is referring to legal permanent residents who are slow in becoming citizens. Legal permanent residents are those who already have their green card. I am talking about the 11 million undocumented immigrants who almost all have no legal way of getting a green card or visa. These 11 million are trying to get their “legal permanent resident” status, but do not have a line to wait in to do so, so they have to live underground as undocumented instead, in all the fear and anxiety that this brings.
Does this clarify what I was saying?
“There is no legal way Mexican immigrants to enter the United States…” sorry, that seemed to be the premise. I don’t have an answer or a position for those that are here illegally or “undocumented”. That’s not my fight…nor do I think it would make a difference if I had a position.
Hi Mark, I heard back from Matthew about your question. I may have misinterpreted what he said in the interview, but there’s a distinction between sibling and spouse. So it sounds like the other way, besides the 5000 work visas, an undocumented immigrant can get documented is to marry a citizen. I’ll update this in the post:
I think the clarification that the vast majority of Mexican immigrants have no option to migrate lawfully is important, as there certainly are some who can. There are many, many ways to come lawfully to the US—with some longer lines and some shorter—but most who would like to immigrate do not actually qualify for any of them. But some do.
The wait time for a sibling of a US citizen is currently (per this visa bulletin for March 2017) between 13 years (for most countries) to 20 years (for Mexico) to 24 years (for the Philippines, the worst case scenario). A spouse of a US citizen, however, is considered an Immediate Relative, and thus there’s no quota on visas and no wait time beyond the 6 months to a year it takes to process the paperwork. The spouse of a Lawful Permanent Resident is capped, and the wait times are about 2 years (that’s an improvement over some years ago, when these cases regularly took more than 5 years).
We’ve made a simplified game of US immigration law which is at the back of this small group curriculum: http://evangelicalimmigrationtable.com/cms/assets/uploads/2015/03/WelcomingTheStrangerLearningGroupCurriculum.pdf. It might be a helpful exercise to encourage this person to go through (we also address this in the Welcoming the Stranger book in more detail).
Similar topic…
HERE’S SOMETHING FOR YOU & TYLER TO DEBATE: (YOU ARE WELCOME. 🙂
You didn’t talk about tax dollars for education, health care, housing, welfare, etc. either. to illegal immigrants OR legal refugees. You can’t pretend this is a non-issue just because you’re not fiscally responsible. What if some of those dollars went into the inner-city to help our community?
FACT: I’ve only witnessed a “handful” (< 5) of refugees that became homeless at the City Rescue Mission of Lansing in the past 14 years. Why is that? What about the 2,000+ people I see every year that come through the doors of the Mission that are citizens of the United States? Somehow, it seems evident, that refugees (assuming "legal" immigrants) are well funded.
I doubt 100% of refugees/immigrants are independently self-sufficient. Why is it that 2,000+ U.S. citizens are unable to qualify as "independently self-sufficient" and eventually find themselves homeless? Is it possibly because our priorities as tax payers and politicians don't allow it? My neighborhood kids need better schools, less vulnerable housing, safer neighborhoods, etc. But there is very little debate in the media on that (multiplied by how many cities?!)
In comparison, numerous refugee families are doing very well in my neighborhood and they are welcome here. They have quality housing and will be a solid fixture in our community for the indefinite future. However, in the same light, we have lost at least four U.S. citizen families recently because they are housing and economically unstable. There is very little help for them…"time to pack up and find somewhere else to stay…a different school…a shelter…etc..etc.."
I don't intend to insinuate that "legal (or illegal) immigration refugees" could completely fund inner-city improvements. However, I am suggesting that there could be a better balance in our city…OUR CITY. I hope we don't accommodate one type of "people group" and break our arm, patting ourselves on the back, and neglect all others. (There…I'm done! 🙂
Hi Mark, this is a good question. Honestly you should come to this educational event we are putting on as there will be many experts in this field who can better answer this question than me: https://www.facebook.com/events/1265821076838738/ we are having a Q&A panel at the end with questions from the crowd (people will text in their questions).
In my interview with Matthew Soerens, I know he mentioned statistics on the amount of resources undocumented immigrants pour into our economy, including the one I used in this article…the $15 Billion they have paid into our Social Security system which they can never access, but will pay out to US citizens. As well as other resources they contribute such as the goods they purchase, jobs they provide up and down the job the job chain, etc. I will ask him to chime in on your question if he has time.
There’s one underlying point that I think I’m able to make regarding my knowledge of refugees. A refugee is an official status given through the UN, and only the highest priority get resettled permanently to a third country. Other websites can link this out in greater detail, but essentially an official refugee has to be fleeing genocide, or threat of being killed because of their religion or race, etc. — they flee first to a neighboring country, which is where you see the UN refugee camps set up. I know the Bhutanese refugees we befriended and ministered to at Crossroads for several years lived in a Nepalese refugee camp for many years. The teenagers in that group were born in the Nepalese camp and had never been to Bhutan. So it was like 12-18 years these families were living in a literal camp, tarp tents and all. So then a small percentage from that camp gets placed in a “third country” which is their permanent residence, and that group gets divided up all over the world. I know the US only resettles around 0.5% of these folks globally.
Here’s a copy and paste job from https://www.state.gov/j/prm/releases/factsheets/2017/266447.htm
Who exactly is eligible for refugee resettlement in the U.S.?
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is responsible for providing life-saving assistance to refugees around the world. Many of the world’s refugees are unable to return home or permanently integrate into the country where they have sought refuge (known as the country of first asylum). For a small number, generally less than one percent, UNHCR identifies those refugees who are most in need of resettlement to a third country — typically more developed countries, further from conflict regions, such as the United States.
UNHCR uses six criteria to determine if a refugee is an appropriate candidate for third country resettlement. For more information on UNHCR standards and criteria for determining resettlement as the appropriate solution for refugees, please refer to the UNHCR Resettlement Handbook, available online here.
We will have a speaker, Liz Dong, at our educational event who will be specializing in this question, she works for the Evangelical Immigration Table and World Relief.
Ok now back to my underlying point, I think it’s very important as Christians we acknowledge the difference between someone “seeking refuge”, literally running for their life from a genocide, or ISIS, or whomever, many of these being persecuted Christians by the way, many many many of them, and that we as Christians need to fight to be people who welcome these folks in. And you know how big my heart is for the urban poor here in the US, but I would be fine to say that our finances should be even more available to these people running for their lives, the trauma of escaping genocide, etc. There are more layers than that but I think that’s a main point: we must take into account the severity of their situations and see it as a biblical mandate to welcome this type of stranger, i.e. the Good Samaritan and many other places.
With domestic urban poverty, there are huge systemic things we are up against (i.e. generational poverty, et al) whereas a lot of these refugees don’t have that barrier. Some of them were doctors or professors or business leaders in their home countries, before ISIS or the Congolese guerillas or whomever came through to wipe them all out (remember we are talking the massive rape of women and children, slaughter, etc., this is some of the worst stuff on the planet), so they become refugees, running for their lives, and a few of them end up in the US. Some of them are very highly skilled, but almost all of them have a huge work ethic for survival as well as peace, because of all they’ve been through. So it shouldn’t be surprising that we see some of them living comfortably (or maybe “stable” is a good word to apply to a larger amount of them), while our domestic poor continue to toil despite the help they are receiving.
At the end of the day, it’s not an either/or but a both/and. I believe the either/or mindset is set up by politicians to get us fighting about this stuff and getting us to only apply parts of the Bible, but not all. I don’t think it’s a competition and I don’t think God cares what citizenship a person has, especially once they’re on our front door (Again, Good Samaritan parable is good example of this)
All this to say, this is a great question, I hope my answer is somewhat helpful and honestly, this would be a great question for the ACTUAL experts on this topic. I am just a passionate Bible lover honestly, who’s trying to (As humbly as I can, and not always been successful at being humble) relay information from people who are experts in this field and who have invested lots of life on life time with refugees and immigrants.
Thanks for your response. I do agree that we can’t lump “refugees” with legal, illegal, and/or undocumented aliens in our country. I clearly wouldn’t close the door on people that you mention above; i.e. fleeing for their lives. But every person should be subject to the governing authorities; especially Christians who live by this example. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. We can help with our politicians and political process but opposition to the law doesn’t glorify God either; for our lawmakers/supporters are God’s servant for our good.
Sorry I can’t make the forum on Wednesday, I would have liked the interaction. Mark.
Thanks for the reply Mark. I’ve been feeling convicted about when I said “absolute truth” in my last comment. I’m trying to avoid language / attitude like that and I apologize for it.
The Romans 13 argument is a tricky one! I did a blog post on it, this was prior to my “apology post” when I realized I needed to stop using such emotionally laded language. I think I”m going to rewrite one that hits on a similar theme, looking at Romans 13. Here’s the one I already did: http://www.atacrossroads.net/are-we-to-be-subject-to-the-governing-authorities-when-their-laws-go-against-gods/
In a nutshell, Christians who harbored Jews in Nazi Germany were breaking the law, as were Christians who helped slaves in the underground railroad, or Reverend Dr. King with Jim Crow Laws in the Civil Rights Movement.