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The Arkansas legislature finished their work and managed to sidestep some of the mean-spirited bills that annually pop up
targeting our more vulnerable neighbors. This year's "turn Arkansas into Egypt" resolution proposed to make it a misdemeanor
knowingly to harbor or transport an illegal alien. Beware to the Catholic nun who might open her door to give a bit of food
or medicine to Jose, Maria and their infant Jesus.
At least this year's wasn't as cruel an attempt as former Senator Jim Holt's bill to deny medical support to children brought
here by their undocumented parents, a bill that then-governor Mike Huckabee, a Baptist minister, decried as "un-Christian."
Every session we get some of this Pharaoh legislation seeking to oppress our resident aliens the way the ancient Egyptians
did the immigrant Hebrews until God intervened to help.
I have a free-market friend who describes the immigration situation as a problem created by the government. He says it is
governmental interference in the law of supply and demand. Our vital and energetic free enterprise economy has generated
a need for more labor than the domestic market can supply. Instead of allowing free trade to happen so that qualified, willing
workers can legally immigrate to fill this business need, the government has interfered by mandating an artificial quota system
that limits the flow of labor capital. If it weren't for persistent and creative people finding ways to work around the government
quotas, he says our economy would be a bust. Our prosperity is dependent upon the estimated 11-million undocumented persons
who are supplying our labor demands, he claims.
Maybe he's right. A study released last week shows immigrants in Benton and Washington counties contributed $6.1 million
to the state budget's bottom line in 2004.
It is virtually impossible for a willing common laborer to immigrate legally from Mexico to the United States. We have a
fairly generous policy toward doctors and engineers. But we need workers. According to the National Immigration Forum, there
are 5000 visas available each year for general workers from Latin America to enter the US legally. Our economy has been successfully
absorbing about 300,000 a year. It takes about 10 years for most laborers to immigrate legally. Waits can be as long as
22 years. This is a broken system.
Good people who want to work to make a better life for themselves and their families would like to come to this country legally
to help us meet the labor demands our economy generates. Our ineffective immigration policies prevent them from doing so
legally. Humane immigration reform could change this. Create a sensible immigration policy that is realistic enough to restore
the rule of law. You can't enforce an unrealistic law. Give undocumented immigrants a reasonable path to earn citizenship.
Work with families, not against them. Yes, this is a family values issue. Immigrants have families too. We are a nation
of immigrants. We can do this better. And walls are for the Soviet Union, not America. The alien who resides with you
shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.
(Leviticus 19:34)
If some of our representatives want to introduce some immigrant legislation next session, instead of trying to punish people
who are trying to help other people, how about punishing people who are actually hurting other people? How about something
which will address the swindle common around here when an employer refuses to pay workers and then threatens to report them
to immigration if they insist on their due? How about employers who force workers to sign that they won't claim workers'
compensation if they are injured on the job, or employers who intimidate workers when they are hurt? Employers who threaten
or cheat workers by taking advantage of their vulnerable immigration status are oppressors like the Pharaoh of Moses' day.
We know what God thinks about that.
Listen! The wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out, and the cries of the harvesters
have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. (James 5:4)
You shall not withhold the wages of poor and needy laborers, whether other Israelites or aliens who reside in your land
in one of your towns. You shall pay them their wages daily before sunset, because they are poor and their livelihood depends
on them; otherwise they might cry to the Lord against you, and you would incur guilt. (Deuteronomy 24:14-15)
It's cruel, un-Biblical and un-American to victimize those who are already victims of our dysfunctional immigration system.
God never likes it when we pick on the vulnerable.
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