The State (Letter to the Editor-South Carolina)
By Rev. Robbie McAlister
May 26, 2015
Some
assume that the only way for a candidate to win in conservative states
is to throw red meat to GOP primary voters in the form of
anti-immigration rhetoric and hardline
stances. Earlier this month, at the “Freedom Summit” in Greenville,
someone actually compared immigrants to rats and roaches. As an
evangelical pastor, I plead with candidates to stay away from such
strategies.
Recently,
I have become involved with the growing evangelical movement to
welcome, love, and serve the immigrants in our midst, regardless of
legal status. Most large
evangelical denominations have urged support for immigrant ministry and
common-sense reforms, and several dozen pastors and leaders in the
Columbia area recently met to discuss the issue.
The
Bible, our ultimate guide, has much to say about immigration.
Throughout the Old Testament, God commands his people to “welcome the
stranger” in their midst, extending
the same protections that citizens enjoy. In the New Testament, Jesus
tells us to offer hospitality, the Greek word for “love of strangers.”
Scripture compels us to see the arrival of immigrants as an opportunity
for evangelism and service, and for partnership
with the many who are already Christ followers.
Our
broken immigration system needs to be addressed. However, most
evangelicals reject the false choice between mass deportations on one
side or open borders and amnesty
on the other. In fact, a recent LifeWay Research poll found that about
70 percent of evangelical Christians in the South support reforms that
would include improved border security and a process whereby
undocumented immigrants could pay a fine and then eventually
earn citizenship. Three times more evangelicals said support for such a
policy would make them “more likely to vote for a presidential
candidate” than said it would deter their support. It’s no anomaly that
candidates who have advocated an earned legalization
process for undocumented immigrants have won every S.C. Republican
presidential primary since 2000.
My
message to the candidates visiting South Carolina would be this: Don’t
try to win votes with extreme rhetoric about immigrants or impractical
solutions to our nation’s
immigration problem. Evangelicals care about immigrants as people, and
we want to have an intelligent conversation about how to reform our
immigration system in a way that helps our economy, secures our border
and provides a way for people to get right with
the law.
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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