Introduction

         The  Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) has had a massive spike in arrests of illegal immigrants from an average of around 21,000 per month (over the last several months) to 43,000 last month.[1] President Donald Trump’s administration says that number is too low and is expected to use military resources to aid ICE officers.[2] The United States has turned a corner with the immigration story in the United States in the last year. As debates heat up between those who see no problem with leaving the borders open and allowing those who are here the easiest path possible to citizenship and those who feel like both their culture and their ability to make a living are being stolen from them from people that don’t belong here, the Christian is left with the question, “What should we do? What is God’s mandate for the modern Bible-believing Christian?”

            There are Christians on both sides of the political isle that have sounded the alarm recently. On the one side, there are those who are relieved that the federal government is finally removing the millions of illegal immigrants that are trying to start or have already started a new life here in the US. On the other side, there are Christians that are cautioning us for being too cavalier in our response. They claim that we run the danger of not being in tune with the Bible and how God tells us and shows us through examples of how to treat immigrants.[3]

         What makes this debate even more complex is how broad the topic is. We can get lost in the weeds of many topics including current Republican and Democrat platforms, immigration law, employment regulations, border enforcement, deportation processes, path to citizenship, voting rights, and welfare benefits—all of which touch upon the immigration crisis. It is critical that we can get to the main issue for Christians before we get lost in endless ancillary debates. The thesis of this paper is that Christians have a personal responsibility to minister to the illegal immigrant that must take into consideration—in this specific order—our gospel mandate, the ordo amoris, and the law of the land. On the one hand, the church should reject the notion that a Christian must support unlimited open borders or at the very least, Christians shouldn’t support deportation as a general principle. On the other hand, this does not mean Christians get to treat illegal immigrants like lepers, rejecting them outright and calling for the authorities to remove them en masse.

            Specifically, the focus of this paper will stay on immigrants that have not sought the traditional paths of legal immigrant status and do not have the proper documentation that will allow them to stay here for an extended period of time or have made them permanent citizens[4] These immigrants are the ones that, if caught by the authorities, would naturally be deported back to their country of citizenship.

 The Gospel Mandate

             “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations.” (Matt 28:19 NIV) The Great Commission is repeated in different ways all throughout the New Testament. Before leaving, Jesus commanded his disciples to prioritize this directive when dealing with unbelievers. After the Great Commission was given, God reinforces this commandment to Peter by making it clear in Acts 10 that Gentiles were now to be included in the covenant. Paul’s writings also reinforce the gospel mandate. Paul saw himself as an apostle to the gentiles (Rom. 11:13) and hoped to preach the gospel to those in the regions beyond Corinth (2 Cor. 10:16).

            Paul taught that the basis of our faith was acceptance of the gospel (1 Cor 15:1-4). The pinnacle of this teaching is made manifest in Romans 10:14-15: “How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!” God wants all to be saved and the way he has chosen to deliver that message is through the “earthen pots” of believers. God is not a respecter of persons, with the goal of treating everyone the same in Christ (Gal. 3:28) and wants his house to be filled with people groups from all over his creation. We are commanded to go out to the nations. That involves migration, both temporary and permanent. You cannot have missionaries if there is no crossing of boarders and dealing with a people group that are not of your country of origin.

            And if it is true that we are to give unbelieving foreigners the gospel as we go out, it is similarly true if those unbelieving foreigners come to us. This is the exact situation that Peter found himself in Acts 2 when, during the feast of Pentecost, over 3,000 people witnessed the miracle of tongues and heard Peter preach the gospel in their own language. Additionally, Philip meets with the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8 as the eunuch is passing through and Philip’s primary concern is to share the gospel with him. Indeed, in almost every story told in the New Testament, where an unbeliever meets a believer, the gospel is front and center. 

            Furthermore, there is not a lot of scripture in the New Testament that could be argued to directly address immigrants, legal or otherwise, and how we should treat them. The Old Testament and the Mosaic law do address how Jews were to treat the foreigner and gentile. But all mention of gentiles in the New Testament is centered around their need for salvation. This doesn’t solve the ethical dilemma of accepting illegal immigrants into one’s country, but it does set the tone for where the Christian’s intuition should lean upon encountering an illegal immigrant. Should it not be to care about the same things that Jesus cares about—namely, their salvation? 

            In practice, this means that before we consider their legal status and their motivation for coming to the United States, we should be interested in their status before God. Christians need to assume that, like Jesus and the woman at the well, Paul and King Agrippa, or Philip and the Eunuch, God placed us in their lives to share the gospel with them. Our allegiance is to God and his kingdom first. Our citizenship belonged to the holy city before it belonged to our country. 

         While that might ‘preach good’ on a Sunday morning, how do we know that is what God wants? Is there an order to social commitments? We are commanded to love our neighbors, but do we have levels to that love? And how do we know when to surpass those levels in certain circumstances to do the will of God? 

The Ordo Amoris

         In an interview with Fox News, Vice President JD Vance was asked about how he synthesizes his “America first” political philosophy with his Christian doctrine concerning love for foreigners. He said, “You love your family and then you love your neighbor, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens in your own country, and then after that, you can focus [on] and prioritize the rest of the world. A lot of the far left has completely inverted that.” He called this concept an old school Christian concept.[5]

         Indeed, it is a very old Christian concept. It was first articulated by Augustine in The City of God. “But if the Creator is truly loved, that is, if He Himself is loved and not another thing in His stead, He cannot be evilly loved; for love itself is to be ordinately loved, because we do well to love that which, when we love it, makes us live well and virtuously. So that it seems to me that it is a brief but true definition of virtue to say, it is the order of love.” [emphasis added][6] It is not enough to love the right objects, but also to love them in the right order.

         Thomas Aquinas further developed the idea of the order of love by observing how we should love those more to whom we have a closer affinity. “ Consequently, this very act of loving someone because he is akin or connected with us or because he is a fellow-countryman… can be commanded by charity, so that, out of charity both eliciting and commanding, we love in more ways those who are more nearly connected to us.”[7]  

         Esther Reed argues that Aquinas’ ordo amoris falls short because those who are more nearly connected to us are too limited to those people who we know personally. It falls far short of the love we have for fellow countrymen. It is natural for human beings to personally identify with those who are citizens of the same nation-state. Reed borrows from the UNESCO[8] definition of nation-state to build her argument. A nation-state is “an area where the cultural boundaries match up with the political boundaries.”[9] She then takes that definition and marries it to Jeremy Waldron’s reinterpretation of ordo amoris. Waldron says it is more accurate to order the ‘loves’ according to political community based on proximity rather than affinity. She explains, “With Waldron, I accept proximity as the primary basis of political community whilst acknowledging the need to find a path that falls into neither the problematic aspects of modern political liberalism nor the rootlessness of some versions of new cosmopolitanism [a view of human values that transcends nation-state divisions].”[10]

         It is critical to our current understanding of how we treat illegal immigrants that we have a clearly defined ordo amoris. The most critical part of that for our purpose in this essay is to delineate the difference in the love we have between countryman and foreigners. The bulk of the arguments made for a more Laissez-faire attitude toward illegal immigrants camp out on the edges of the ordo amoris. It is much easier to argue for an ordo amoris when it comes to our devotion to God or love for family and immediate community—people that we know personally. After all, we instantly recognize why we prefer our own children over somebody else’s children. However, we do not know our fellow countrymen personally, yet we should still place them in a higher priority than a foreigner.

         There are several reasons why we should do this. First, because we experience the phenomenon of love for our country naturally. For example, when 9/11 happened, for a brief period of time we felt compassion toward people we never met because they were fellow Americans. It is not that we as human beings cannot feel compassion toward someone from a different nation. Rather, we feel a sense of belonging that is unique to us based on an implicit agreement to be governed by the same constitution, laws, democratic process, and living proximity. To a lesser extent we can also share the same primary language, political history, and other cultural markers like music, art, religion, sports, food, and education.

            Another reason why we place our fellow countrymen higher is because by living so close to one another, we must come to some sort of agreement to live at peace with each other and the way we do that is through the law. American law recognizes that we have certain inalienable rights given to us by our creator and to preserve those rights, limits must be set on human behavior—namely behavior that would infringe upon the rights of fellow citizens.

            A third reason why we place them higher is admittedly not as strong of an argument on its own, but important to recognize anyway and that is because we all have to pay taxes to the same magistrates. Sure, no one likes paying taxes and are often a point of contention and disagreement. But those problems are our problems. We have a right to complain about them, call for changes, and so forth because we are the ones that have to pay them. Alongside taxation are the many government-run, taxpayer-funded programs that our fellow countrymen share in both benefit and responsibility.

            Introducing illegal immigrants distorts all three of these reasons why we love our countrymen above foreigners. Illegal immigrants often do not understand our constitution, our laws, our language, and our culture. By coming here illegally they have not agreed to live according to the same laws and therefore fail to agree to live at peace with other legal citizens. And lastly, they do not pay the tax system the same way we do. While they do pay some taxes like property tax and sales tax, they do not pay federal income tax, FICA, and payroll taxes. Yet, it can be shown going back as far as 1993, that many still take advantage of taxpayer-funded welfare, education, and healthcare programs.[11]

         Since the ordo amoris was articulated by later Christian writings, one could argue that it is an extra Biblical teaching. However, as shown below, it is not a later Roman Catholica addition, rather it is a summary of what is taught in Scripture. Let us look at the top of the order of our love and affection: God. Luke 14:26 (ESV) says, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.” Jesus is speaking about himself here and makes a clear juxtaposition between our love for Him and our love for even our closest family members. It is without a doubt that we are expected to love Christ more.

         Next on the order would be our immediate family members. Consider what Paul said to Timothy concerning how a pastor is to lead his family in 1 Timothy 3:5 “ He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God’s church?”  Clearly, the pastor is to care more for his own household before he cares for anyone else’s. Speaking more broadly to the church at large, he says later in chapter 5 “If anyone does not provide for his own, and especially those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.”  Again, this puts the priority of one’s own family above other people.

         After family is the Church, the body of Christ. Paul gives the Galatian church instructions on how to treat each other as believers. He includes things like reconciliation after repentance, bearing each other’s burdens, and reaping a spiritual harvest. He ends this passage by reminding them: “So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.” (Gal 6:10 ESV) The emphasis shows us that we need to pay extra close attention to the church if we are to reap a spiritual harvest.

         Then we get to the ones with whom we have less immediate interaction with and therefore a weaker affinity. The parable of the Good Samaritan is one such example. In Luke 10, the Samaritan has no natural affection for the man who was beaten and left for dead on the side of the road, nor does he have any innate preference for the man on the side of the road. Yet, he helps him anyway. His responsibility to help the man on the side of the road comes strictly from geographic proximity; the man becomes a neighbor just by crossing his path. Had the Samaritan traveled another road that day, he would not have been obligated to help that particular man.

         As evidenced above, the ordo amoris is present in scripture. How does this help the illegal immigrant? It does so in several ways. The first way is that if the Christian is following through on loving and caring for his family and community first, then that Christian will be in a better position to help other people. Our families and our communities would be in better shape to help the outsider. Secondly, when we love our families and communities with an intense, dedicated love, we will also love outsiders that cross our paths with a greater, more intense love. If we haven’t learned to love our spouse and children with a deep, committed love, how are we going to be able to love those who aren’t our spouse or children? Thirdly, if we love our family first, our closest loved ones won’t feel neglected if we spend time, money, and energy helping an outsider. This will mean less strain on important personal relationships and more flexibility to do outreach opportunity arises.

         Without a proper ordo amoris, we end up in hypocrisy and chaos. It ends in hypocrisy the moment we point out that no one is willing to give up their daughters’ and sons’ beds to illegal immigrants. It brings chaos once we treat the foreigner in the exact same way as our fellow citizens. When they don’t pay the same taxes, but receive the same benefits of those taxes, it will inevitably beget bitterness, resentment, and hatred toward immigrants.

Obeying the Laws of the Land

            The primary doctrine to keep in mind when discussing how Christians go about obeying the laws of the land is our heavenly citizenship. As Ephesians 2:19 (ESV) says, “So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God.” As Christians contemplate current events and what is going on with immigration, it is okay to feel dissatisfied with what we see going on around us. After all, we are “longing for a better country—a heavenly one” (Heb. 11:16) James Hoffmeier said it well, “Christians, then, find themselves in the paradoxical situation of being citizens of a heavenly kingdom and yet living in different earthly states, each with its own laws and requirements.”[12] This means any cultural identity that we claim and even take pride in comes in second place to our identity in the kingdom of God. Our earthly cultural markers may be important—critical even—but, they are wood, hay, and stubble next to our spiritual markers in Christ.

            It is also fascinating that our spiritual journey is compared to strangers in a strange land. The temptation here is to try and make a one-to-one parallel to present-day migrants, but that would do damage to the allusion made in the Ephesians passage. The alienation felt from being aliens and strangers in this world is purely spiritual. Consider the context of the passage: Paul spoke of the Ephesians being former aliens and strangers. Earlier in the chapter, he spoke of them being of the covenant of circumcision, but outside the blood covenant of Jesus. The righteousness of Jesus with the justification of God made them citizens of heaven. The cost of this citizenship was steep. Jesus paid the price with His own life. Furthermore, one cannot circumvent the way in which we become citizens of heaven which is believing in Christ with your heart and confessing Him as Savior and Lord with your mouth (Rom. 10:9,10). This process cannot be ignored or put off indefinitely.

            Once secured in this primary doctrine of heavenly citizenship, we can look at the laws of the land and decide how to proceed. The first principle from scripture we need to consider is found in Romans 12:18 (NIV) “If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.” We should always look to keep the peace and not stir up trouble unnecessarily. Furthermore, it says just two verses later “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.” These verses show us how we should respond when we cross paths with an illegal immigrant. We should look for the path that gives grace, keeps the peace, and meets a need with the end goal of sharing the gospel. We should also look for a path forward that respects the laws of the land. We should discourage actions that bypass immigration laws. Even if they have an agreeable motive for being here, if they are here illegally, then they are starting off on shaky ground. 

            Furthermore, asking a believer to purposefully ignore, bend, or break the law when it comes to immigration law does two damaging things to the church’s credibility. First, it demands the believer go against the scripture where it says that we should obey our governing authorities. Just one chapter later in Romans 13, Paul reminds us that God divinely ordains governments to be the peacekeepers. It also explicitly mentions that governments are not to be disobeyed because disobeying them was akin to disobeying God. Romans 13:2 says, “Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment.”  Second, it begs the question: to what end would we want an immigrant to enter illegally and sometimes remain in an illegal state? 

            Before we answer that question, the topic of permanent open borders should be addressed.  Open borders advocates claim that their position goes a long way in easing tensions and providing a superior path to citizenship. However, it would require changing current law and the general mindset toward immigrants. Nathan Smith[13] has given a strong case for an open border society that gives regard to taxation, the cost of deportation, and how to navigate the welfare system.[14] He also believes that his worldview on immigration is in step with Biblical principle and doctrine and has made a case for that as well.[15] Such features of open-border policy under this system could include: return (deportation) deposit, surtax on earnings, mandatory savings account, screening for criminals and terrorists, and a path to citizenship that is earned but easy to understand. “Why restrict immigration, when you can tax it?” Smith argues. 

          Changing the law to open the border is not in-and-of-itself immoral and not illegal. Smith’s more libertarian solution could even replace mediocre laws with better, more comprehensive, and easier to follow laws. However well-intentioned it might be, all it does is push the issue back one layer. Replacing the laws with better laws still means an illegal immigrant must follow them. It gets to the heart of the question, “Why do illegal immigrants enter illegally and want to stay illegal?” 

            Arriving in the United States illegally happens by one of three ways. It happens by “entering or attempting to enter the United States at any time or place other than one designated by U.S. immigration officers (in other words, away from a border inspection point or other port of entry)”. It can happen by “eluding examination or inspection by U.S. immigration officers (people have tried everything from digging tunnels to hiding in the trunk of a friend's car).” It can also happen by “attempting to enter or obtain entry to the United States by a willfully false or misleading representation or willful concealment of a material fact (which might include, for example, lying on a visa application, or buying a false green card or other entry document).”[16] 

          There is a myriad of reasons why immigrants purposefully cross the border illegally. According to the American Immigration Council the following are the most common reasons why immigrants are not motivated to go through the legal process of entering the country:

1. Family-based immigration is limited to certain close family relationships and is numerically restricted.
2. Employment-based immigration requires a U.S. employer to request specific foreign workers.
3. Most people fleeing their home countries cannot access humanitarian protection.
4. Even those who can get in line are subject to long backlogs and waits.
5. There is a limited lottery for certain countries.[17] 

          Except for number four, there are no morally justifiable reasons listed here to break the law and continue to live in an ongoing criminal status.[18] Even the immigrants that are real political refugees should be properly vetted and put on a path to citizenship or be ready to be deported when it is safe for them to return. The rest of these reasons are circumstances of inconvenience, not necessity. No Christian should feel morally compelled to aid and abed an illegal immigrant in circumventing current immigration law.

            Another caveat to bring to our attention is that the reasons given by the American Immigration Council are limited to those illegal immigrants who desire to become legal. What about the millions illegal immigrants that don’t want a path to citizenship, but want to stay illegal? This is where we get into the uncertainty of statistics reporting. The statistics and reality on the ground of current illegal immigrants in 2024-2025 are still in flux. Some reports have shown that the number of illegal immigrants has skyrocketed under the Biden administration—possibly to the tune of 25 million or more. Additionally, reports of local, state, and federal funds that are being used to house and feed millions of illegal immigrants are coming to light. It might take years to untangle the amount of corruption, lies, and deception that is plaguing our efforts to fully grasp the situation.

            The bottom line is that Christians should follow the law with a motivation of love in their hearts. Romans 13:9,10 sums this up nicely, “For the commandments …are summed up in this word: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.” Hoffmeier concludes, “Therefore it is legally and morally acceptable for a government to deal with those in the country illegally according to the nation’s legal provisions. The Christian insists that they be dealt with in a humane manner. Expatriation (as Abraham experienced) in itself is not inhumane, but it must not be done in a heartless manner.”[19]

            In the meantime, Christians should see themselves as trail guides for an illegal immigrant. When we do cross paths with them, treat them with grace and if given enough time share the gospel with them. If given more time than that, help them get on a path to legal immigration or citizenship—a path that does not assume they need to remain in an illegal state. I cannot think of a better way to love our immigrant neighbor than by sharing the story of Jesus with them and embracing them as a (future) fellow countryman by getting on a path to citizenship that does not disrupt the ordo amoris and respects our culture and laws. Hoffmeier shares a story that perfectly encapsulates what this looks like:

         A family from a West African country joined our church some years ago when the father and husband was finishing up a graduate degree. As his program ended, he had planned to return to Africa, but civil strife in his country posed a serious problem. Friends at home urged him not to return at that time. However, his student visa was going to expire. The elders of the church had him see a lawyer who specialized in immigration law to learn about changing the residency status for him and his family. We even covered a large portion of the legal fees. The outcome was that he received the necessary changes and lives legally in Illinois but hopes to return to his country in the near future.[20]

          The above example shows us churches in America have an opportunity for hundreds of people groups all across the world that come to our country to be a gospel witness to them and to help them find the path of righteousness. A path that will honor and glorify God and his word. Let us pray that we can all have such rich opportunities.