Thoughts on Immigration

This post represents an honest attempt to reconcile my personal responsibility as a Believer with what I believe our Federal policies should be, as it relates to immigration. These are muddy waters to be sure, but I am a huge fan of nuance and so this felt like a good time for a blogpost.

I simultaneous hold these two beliefs:

a) As Christians, we are called to love our neighbor, to care for and provide for the poor and for the widows among us (using the terminology of Scripture).

b) A sovereign nation must uphold border security laws as well as regulate Immigration because a nation with no borders (or border security) is not a nation at all. To be considered "sovereign" necessarily means that a country is enforcing border laws, because it implies that there is a border and not just an imaginary line.

What I'm For:

I am 100% in favor of legal immigration and I believe our country should absolutely support those who immigrate to the United States through legal channels. We should offer them all of the public assistance that we are able to, to aid their start here in America, especially those coming here to escape oppression and persecution. We are one of the most generous countries in the World and it is because our people are, by and large, very welcoming of immigrants in this country.

What I'm Against:

I'm categorically against illegal immigration, that is, immigration NOT through legal channels. I don't believe our country should offer illegal immigrants any social programs and if our government can find them, I think they should be deported (if you are deported, current US Law forbids you to return for 10 years). Additionally - if someone immigrates to this country legally but then commits a felony here, they should also be deported. Being given a visa or residency status in the United States is not right, but a privilege and requires something of the person receiving it, namely adhering to the laws of our land. I assume this is the case in every other country in the World.

Where this Clashes:

At my church, I'm involved a care ministry that ends up serving a number of immigrants. It wasn't necessarily something that we set out to do when we started the ministry, but because our area is a location where World Relief ends up housing many immigrants and asylum seekers, this is a subset of the community that comes to us for assistance. I love serving in this ministry and I have enjoyed getting to know people from this community as well as serving them on a monthly basis. Many of them have harrowing stories to tell about how they came to the United States, fleeing real horrors in the countries they came from.

In our last leadership meeting, a few people mentioned that this community is fearful right now, particularly of deportation. While the knee-jerk reaction might be to blame President Trump, it was actually President Biden that signed an executive order, on July 4th, 2024, which put an end to the legal process of seeking asylum. What IS different about President Trump's administration is that they are actually actively deporting illegal immigrants and this is the reason for the fear on the part of asylum communities. Regardless, this community is living in genuine fear of deportation at the moment.

Motives in Government

More than what people actually do or say (outward behavior), I've always been more curious about why people do what they do (motivations). I think it's why I'm fascinated by true crime; it's not about the crime so much as what motivated the person to commit the crime. Anyway - the last couple of weeks have been fascinating to me as I've watched the political Left respond to President Trump's executive orders and, in particular, the efforts of DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency).

In the past week or so, the focus has intensified on the cuts to USAID. If you haven't looked it up, I encourage you to go on over to usa.gov and look up the USAID page. Right at the top, it states the mission of the agency saying, "The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is the principal U.S. Agency to extend assistance to countries recovering from disaster, trying to escape poverty, and engaging in democratic reforms." It has a yearly budget of $40B and previously employed about 10,000 people. Here are some of the more egregious things the USAID has funded with our tax dollars:

- $30M since 2018 sent to South Africa to study the transmission of HIV among sex workers and transgender people. (source)

- $1.5M sent to a Serbia group called 'Grupa Izadji' to advance diversity, equity and inclusion in Serbia's workplaces and business communities by promoting economic empowerment of and opportunity for LGBTQI+ people in Serbia

- $2.5M to Vietnam for electric vehicles. To date, there has been one battery station built, saving 260 gallons of gas

- $25,000 for an opera in Colombia in order to 'increase transgender representation in the arts'

- $32,000 to Peru for a transgender comic book program

- $45M to Burma for DEI Scholarships (source)

- $1.2B in awards to "undisclosed recipients"

- $20M for a new Sesame Street show in Iraq called "Ahlan Simsim"

This list continues on and on, but these were the things I could find with just a simple Google search. If you want to see more, go here: https://datarepublican.com/award_search/?keywords=USAID

What President Trump/DOGE are not cutting (contrary to what the shrieks on the Left are saying):

- Welfare programs

- Head Start programs

- Medicare/Medicaid programs

- Or really any program that directly benefits individuals in the United States. Karoline Leavitt expressed this directly, multiple times, during her press conference on January 29th (full transcript). To directly quote, "if you are receiving individual assistance from the federal government, you will still continue to receive that."

What is DOGE?

I've already shared what it stands for - the Executive Order that created it can be found here, it's not long. At it's core, it's a repurposing of a government agency that already existed called USDS (United States Digital Service). Originally this was an agency created (under Obama) to make government software better. The establishment of DOGE is also temporary - 18 months to be exact. Their clearly stated mission is no different that the USDS mission was - to modernize software and IT systems within the govt. However - it stands to reason that in the process of modernizing software and IT systems, a lot of waste and fraud will be exposed...which is obviously then shared with the Commander in Chief (or his Cabinet).

The Backlash

There have been so many articles about how people are going to die as a result of either the cuts, or to the 90-day pause on USAID funds. What's weird to me, in just a cursory overview of those articles, is how the budget of the USAID agency suddenly seems to me much larger than $40B. One article claims, "all of a sudden, more than $60B of program for the world's most vulnerable people just stopped." Huh? How? And how are some of these programs, like the ones listed above, helping? It's a truly absurd piece of faux-journalism, you have to read it to believe someone could make these claims. But anyway - back to the claims that people are going to die...how can any of these media outlets make that claim when they don't really know what USAID funds are being used for? Furthermore, this is an audit and 90-day pause on these funds...not necessarily indefinite. This seems to fall under the category of 'reasonable' when it comes to a new President understanding how US Taxpayer dollars are being spent. USAID is just the first place where spending will be under the microscope...we, as taxpaying US Citizen, deserve to know, in some transparent way, how our tax dollars are being spent. I don't expect to agree with all of the ways that money is being spent, but it's not 'out of bounds' to want to know, or to want that information to be public. Even if you disagree with Trump and Musk on what should be cut -- shouldn't they at least be able to share what taxpayer dollars are being spent on?