April 18, 2024
NOTE: This column has been updated from an earlier version.
One of the most heralded and misunderstood issues facing Americans today is the immigration crisis down at the Mexican border. Read the commentary on our website Media Separated from Reality at Border, by Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, to get an honest appraisal of the situation that prevails at the American-Mexican border whereby children are being separated from their parents.
We lament the thought of children being separated from responsible and loving parents under any circumstances. God’s plan is for families to stay together in healthy, wholesome domestic units.
Franklin Graham called separating children from their parents at the U.S. – Mexico border “disgraceful” and “terrible.” Justin Wise, writing for The Hill, quoted Graham, “I blame politicians for the last 20, 30 years that have allowed this to escalate to the point where it is today. We are a country of laws, laws need to be obeyed, no question about that, but the situation we have today is a result of our lawmakers in Washington over generations ignoring this.”
Oklahoma Senator James Lankford told CBS News on June 20 that the “default” for the Trump administration and any immigration legislation should be that families stay together, as lawmakers continue to work on ending the controversial policy.
Lankford specified, “Lawmakers must also come up with a solution for dealing with families seeking asylum at the border, as opposed to those who are illegally entering. "The issue is: do we allow individuals to be able to choose voluntary return? Keep the families together while they're making the decision – if they choose voluntary return, then they can make a return back before charges are actually filed."
The United States is in a catch 22 situation with a significant segment of the population wanting to extend grace to immigrants and another significant portion of the population wanting to abide by the established law. It appears to be impossible to have it both ways.
Some contend that the children that have been separated from their parents are held in the most modest, almost deplorable conditions, but that may not be entirely accurate.
The New York Times reported that 1,500 of the immigrant children are being kept in a renovated Walmart and described the facility like this: “Where there were once racks of clothes and aisles of appliances, there are now spotless dorm-style bedrooms with neatly made beds and Pokemon posters on the walls. The back parking lots are now makeshift soccer fields and volleyball courts. The McDonalds is now the cafeteria.”
However, the clean and comfortable accommodations do not make up for the separation of children from their parents. God placed us in families and families need to be together.
We need to pray for our President and our national legislators, because they are faced with the challenge of keeping immigrant families together, keeping the law of the land and being good stewards of taxpayer’s money.
If we abandon the law or refuse to uphold it, we foster an antinomian society that will surely lead to ruin. If we dole out money carte blanche we will fail to be good stewards of our financial resources and will become as dependent and impoverished as those who look to us for help and hope.
In the midst of these great challenges there are abortionists who decry the separation of children from their families. For example, Planned Parenthood, the leading abortionist organization in the country, also weighed in on the issue by Tweeting on Father’s Day: “In our hearts and minds today: all the fathers and parents who have been separated from their children at borders. Keep families together.”
Those who kill babies by the hundreds of thousands every year have little credibility when they voice their concern about children being separated from their parents at the border. That kind of hypocrisy has the tongue of an angel and the heart of the devil.
However, noble men and women are trying to weigh all the elements of the issue in the balance and propose a fair and equitable solution. They deserve our prayers and support.
I like the solution offered by Georgia Senator David Perdue and other senators that will fix the current law so families will remain together while parents go through immigration proceedings. This plan will: (1) keep families together while adults are prosecuted for illegally entering the U. S.; (2) increases bed space in family residential facilities; and (3) authorizes hiring an additional 225 immigration judges to quickly process cases. This plan both keeps families together and enforces our laws.
