Immigration and the Word of God. [vanity]

Question. I am doing a study on the return of the Messiah and His government. So far it's pretty exciting, but I am noticing a pattern. His government is based on truth, justice, and righteousness. One of His major pet peeves is oppression of the alien. Is America guilty of this? Has it always taken 10 years or more to become a citizen and/ or should this be changed?

I don't know why it takes so long, believe there should be a vetting period, and know that all government programs are inefficient, so looking for secular and religious answers. The churches taking in the illegals may be doing so under false ideology.

I do believe the first law that should be changed is the anchor baby law. Just because you are born within the borders should not make you a citizen. If a baby is born on an American military base, are they citizens if their mother was a non-citizen? Also think all citizens should have to pass the same civics test as an immigrant before being permitted to vote.

Were the aliens in the Old Testament those who converted to Judaism? That would answer the question. I know the Jews were not to associate with pagans, so that must be the answer.

Let me add some perspective to soconpubbie's post:

....if a stranger dwells with you in your land, you shall not mistreat him.
The stranger who dwells among you shall be to you as one born among you, and you shall love him as yourself; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.
-- Leviticus 19: 33-34

The "do not mistreat him" verse instructs the behavior of the (existing) residents of the land, but the Mosaic Law itself equally applied to anyone and everyone that occupied land within Israel's borders. So once the theoretical immigrant/stranger "dwells with you in your land" i.e. sets foot inside Israel's borders (legally or illegally), the Israelites and other residents were not to mistreat him - and the stranger was now voluntarily submitting himself to live according to the Mosaic Laws (including any that might govern citizenship and government handouts) by virtue of occupancy, just as the Israelites and other residents were subject to them. Further, this immigrant was now expected to learn and know all of those laws for himself:

...when all Israel comes to appear before the LORD your God in the place which He chooses, you shall read this law before all Israel in their hearing.
Gather the people together, men and women and little ones, and the stranger who is within your gates, that they may hear and that they may learn to fear the LORD your God and carefully observe all the words of this law,
and that their children, who have not known it, may hear and learn to fear the LORD your God as long as you live in the land which you cross the Jordan to possess.”
-- Deuteronomy 31:11-13

From an Old Testament point of view, moral assimilation was expected to follow physical immigration. Thus, the question of how citizens should treat immigrants can only be answered once we determine what to do when confronted with a lawbreaking stranger within the gates.

Alex, I use the NASV because I thought it was the closest to the original texts but read a dissertation against that claim just this morning.

NASV = New American Standard Version? That was my go-to translation until about ten years ago, and I'm still a big proponent of it. I'm using the NKJV and the ESB these days.

I’m thinking that we are not in New Jeruselem, we are in the United States of America. Therefore we deal with an imperfect world where international affairs resembles nothing so much as feral cats carving up territory. If we need more people, or if some humanitarian crisis is afoot which threatens to wipe out entire groups, then we exercise our best judgment to take in more people. Trying to say you have to pass a test after you were born here is also unjust because it is arbitrary and besides, what happens to the people who flunk? No, you take the good with the bad just like in families.

Another Bible study on illegal immigration
Clearly, then, what it means to be a “stranger” is to be a foreigner. In the case of the children of Israel in Egypt, they were invited and, at first anyway, were honored guests. Later, they would be oppressed by a generation who “knew not Joseph.” But they were certainly not trespassers. They were certainly not in Egypt illegally. They were certainly not breaking the laws of the land by being in Egypt. In fact, they were commanded not to offend their hosts in any way (Genesis 46:28-34).
http://www.wnd.com/2007/11/44777/

Hispanic American blasts illegal immigration
Mexicans are not the ”New Israel and the U. S. is not their Promised Land”
http://www.wnd.com/2008/01/45494/

Why amnesty is not compassionate
It seems He scattered the world’s population and created the diverse languages in an effort to subvert man’s efforts to unite in a global kingdom under a false universal religion. Interestingly, one of the prime motivations of those behind the promotion of borderless societies is this very same notion of regional government and global government and the breakdown of nationalism. What was wrong at the time of the Tower of Babel remains wrong today. That should be clear to anyone and everyone whose standard of morality is the Bible.
http://www.wnd.com/2013/06/why-amnesty-is-not-compassionate/

Immigration and Christian duty
The same God who commands that we treat aliens and “strangers” with righteousness and justice also clearly defined the physical borders for the nation of Israel, in detailed geographical terms, in Numbers 34. Israel, then and today, would not exist without borders?and neither will America.
http://www.wnd.com/2007/06/42154/

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