When Immigration Goes Bad

 When immigrants appear at the border, Church leaders urge us to welcome them. Invoking the parable of the Good Samaritan, and reminding us that we are all neighbors, they invite us to ask ourselves: “How can we help them?”

That’s a good question: a question that Christians should ask.

But it is not the only relevant question. We might also ask:

“Why are they here?”
“What do they want?”

The recent video footage from the Spanish territory, Ceuto, illustrates the need to ask all three questions. Ceuto exposes the failure of the one-dimensional response.

Just try asking all three key questions about Ceuto:

1. How can we help?
In Ceuto, where the number of migrants swarming in overnight nearly equaled the population of the little Spanish enclave, the answer is straightforward.
Ordinarily, we would say that the residents could not welcome the immigrants without sacrificing the well-being of their own community.
In this case – however - the calculation was even simpler.
The people of Ceuto could not possibly provide food and shelter — let alone jobs and prospects for a decent standard of life — for 50,000 or more people arriving instantly, with more likely on the way.

2. Why are they here?
This leads us to the next concern. Did they actually WANT all that?
“They had no intention of staying here; they simply wanted to cross,” Archbishop Emilio Rocha Grande of Tangier told the Vatican News service. In fact, the vast majority of those who rushed into Ceuto went right back across the border before nightfall (with some tragic stories caused by them left in their wake)
After all, every wave that comes ashore leaves change and upset behind.
It seems they were not searching for job opportunities, although virtually all of them were young men, apparently healthy and capable of honest labor.
Ordinarily, when a large group of young men makes an organized foray across a border into sovereign territory, their action is recognized as an invasion. In this case the invaders were not armed, but they didn’t have to be; the Spanish authorities offered no resistance.
As they teemed over Ceuto the young men — who, remember, did not intend to stay — were jubilant. Why? Because they had done it.
Writing in the European Conservative, Ali Bordbar Jahantighi remarked: “A border invasion celebrated as a victory implies that the authority of the receiving state has been defeated.”
They intended to show they could do it whenever they wanted … not neccesarily to stay.
This time.

3. What do they want?
With the first wo questions examined, we turn to the third.
Archbishop Rocha Grande suggested that the young migrants,“...are carried away by the images they see in the media and on social networks that portray Europe as an earthly paradise.”
One might be tempted to say that they wanted a better life for themselves and their families — a common enough human aspiration and one that is certainly a falll-back excuse in todays world — except that in the case of Ceuto, the migrants left their families behind.
These young migrants were also not seeking to escape war or famine or abject poverty....the other reasons usually claimed for human migration.
The archbishop said this, precisely:

“It is important to understand that Morocco is not currently a poor country, in the sense that people are dying of abject starvation.
It is, in fact, a country experiencing strong economic growth. However…young people feel that the economic opportunities created by development remain out of their reach. This creates frustration.”

The frustration we are speaking if here is frustration of WANT...desire.... of expectation. It is a frustration that says, “I am not being handed what I see and want. So I will take it.”
The Good Samaritan in the Bible came to the aid of a man who was beaten senseless and left to die... a man in genuine need of succor. Christians can and should acknowledge and act on the the obligation to help those who flee the threats of starvation, persecution, imminent death.
Meanwhile, acknowledging that those who are simply frustrated in their wishes for what others have gives them far fewer claims on our sympathies.

Ali Bordbar Jahantighi described a reasonable outlook on immigration:

“It would protect genuine refugees facing persecution, starvation, deprivation, death. But it would not treat the mere physical arrival as sufficient grounds for permanent membership in the state and its welfare.”

In Europe, and in the US today, liberal welfare policies offer incentives for young people to realize short-term benefits. Those benefits may, or may not be, for families still behind, may not be for the impoverished societies they desert, and certainly may not be for the new communities they exploit.
In other words, not for the common good as the default response.

The European Conservative writer, himself an immigrant, concludes: “Europe may choose to support an extensive welfare state. It may choose extremely open immigration. But it cannot indefinitely maintain both without producing fiscal strain, political conflict, and declining public trust.”

A charitable and prudent immigration policy should address these same three questions about people seeking entry into our country:

How can we help?
First, by our prayers—not prayers that the government will do something, but prayers that people in need will find the help they need, and if necessary we, as individuals, will supply it as best we can.
Next, through evangelization, since the message of the Gospel is the greatest gift we can offer.

Why are they here?
We cannot be blind to the cultural conflicts brought on by mass migration, and especially the threat of militant Islam. Europe, in particular, has experienced Muslim invasions in the past; the threat today is less organized and does not come on horseback, armed with sword and spear - but it is no less serious.

What do they want?
Some immigrants wish to enter our society, to obey our laws, get on with their lives and to become productive members of our communities.
Others want to profit from our hospitality without offering anything in return. Still others wish to do harm to us and to overthrow our society.

We can and should ask what they want from us, what they expect.
But we should also ask what we want and expect from them.
Only when we ask and answer all three questions will we be able to design a rational and morally responsible immigration policy.

With edits from an original an article by Phil Lawler...
 https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/ceuto-failure-liberal-immigration-rhetoric/