Pastors to Rubio, Scott: Lead the way on compassionate immigration reform | Commentary

ORLANDO SENTINEL | FEB 21, 2021

Over the past several years, Christians have — fairly or not — often been assumed to support harsh anti-immigrant policies.

The reality is that most evangelicals support immigration reforms that both welcome immigrants and protect our borders. And now, President Biden has made reforming our immigration laws a top priority, which we and many other Christians celebrate.

But a proposal by itself will not change the situation for the immigrants in our communities; that will take bipartisan cooperation to pass a bill through both houses of Congress, and we are praying that Sens. Marco Rubio and Rick Scott will lead the way.

At the beginning of 2020, a family that has lived in our community for years faced deportation

The mother, Martha, and her son, Samuel, (pseudonyms) were introduced by an area school board member who heard of their predicament. As a migrant farmworker years ago, Martha arrived in Florida legally, married and gave birth to Samuel.

After Martha had a second child, her husband died suddenly, leaving Martha to care for two small children alone. Her visa had expired some time earlier and, with their below poverty-level income, they did not have enough money to cover the costs of renewing their visas, let alone hiring an immigration attorney to help.

Martha was moved into deportation proceedings. She attended every one of her hearings, trying to appeal her case because her children were U.S. citizens. Samuel was excelling in school but had serious health issues, including asthma. With the disarray of the Trump administration’s immigration chaos, her petitions were denied and she was ultimately deported, taking her U.S. citizen children with her.

The sort of reforms that we believe are both consistent with biblical principles and — importantly — could actually earn the bipartisan support necessary to pass into law are reforms that avoid the extremes of either amnesty or mass deportation.

Instead, we need a way for immigrants, who came unlawfully to the U.S. as adults, to make restitution for violating the law by paying a fine (which is very different from amnesty) and then have the chance to earn permanent legal status and eventually citizenship.

Dreamers, who were brought to the U.S. as children and did not make the decision to violate an immigration law, should be exempted from such a fine and have an expedited path to citizenship. These are the principles that thousands of Christians have called for in an Evangelical Call for Restitution-Based Immigration Reform.

In the midst of an economy ailing from the pandemic, some might presume that we simply cannot afford to welcome more immigrants, or to allow those already here to legalize their status.

But the pandemic has actually demonstrated the vital role that immigrants already play on the front lines of our economy. From doctors and nurses to agricultural workers and meat processors, we’ve relied on their presence and should allow them the opportunity, to earn permanent legal status.

In fact, almost all economists acknowledge that the net economic impact of immigration for the U.S. is positive. A smart economic policy can be a key part of our economic recovery.

Christians are broadly supportive of reforms that both improve border security and provide an earned legalization process, including the payment of a fine, for undocumented immigrants. A LifeWay Research poll found that 68% of evangelical Christians said they would support such a proposal, and a Fox News poll of 2020 voters found that 71% support allowing undocumented immigrants to apply for legal status.

Scripture commands us to pray for our leaders, and we are committed to praying for President Biden, for Sens. Marco Rubio and Rick Scott, for Florida’s U.S. representatives, and for all those with the influence to help get a bipartisan immigration bill over the finish line.

Dr. Joel Hunter is chairman of the Community Resource Network. The Rev. Joel Tooley is lead pastor of Melbourne First Church of the Nazarene and is a consultant with the Evangelical Immigration Table.