Jesus and the Dream Act

The Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act (The "DREAM Act") is a piece of proposed federal legislation in the United States that was first introduced in the United States Senate on August 1, 2001[1] and most recently re-introduced there and the United States House of Representatives on March 26, 2009. This bill would provide certain illegal and deportable alien students who graduate from US high schools, who are of good moral character, arrived in the U.S. illegally as minors, and have been in the country continuously and illegally for at least five years prior to the bill's enactment, the opportunity to earn conditional permanent residency if they complete two years in the military or two years at a four year institution of higher learning. -Wikipedia

How should we view the Dream Act as followers of Jesus?

As I think about this, my position can change depending on what “hat” I am wearing at the time. For example, if I strictly view it as an American, there could be a position that says, we are nation of immigrants and the influx of quality, energetic workers will bring needed human capital for the next generation. But others would argue that the economy is in such a shape that we cannot “afford” these new people when our own people are looking for work. (Recently labor numbers show the US with over 9% unemployment.) In more prosperous times, immigrants bring needed inexpensive labor. They help to harvest our crops, manicure our lawns. But we are, after all, a nation of laws, is another response, “shouldn’t they have to get in line like everyone else”. And the reality is that unskilled laborers do not have a legal line in which to line up.

It is complicated by many factors.

So if I am wearing my “hat” as a follower of Jesus, how does that change my perspective? I have also lived and worked in Mexico, and with Latinos in the US. I know some of them. They have names, faces, trials, joys and dreams. So how are we view our immigration crisis from a worldview that is informed by the Bible, God’s own word? One passage that has helped me to see beyond the internal political struggle of this phenomenon is found in Acts Chapter 17. Paul, the man whose life was transformed by Jesus on a road to Damascus, was addressing a crowd with no Biblical literacy, and yet he wanted them to know about the same God who had invaded his life and being just a few years before:

[24] The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, [25] nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. [26] And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, [27] that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us,
(Acts 17:24-27 ESV)

Besides the obvious monotheistic vision that Paul was introducing to this polytheistic people, he also planted the Greeks into a world that God had made and has dominion over. Furthermore, this God is not like the capricious gods of Greece, nor is He at all "needy". He then answers some of the big questions that philosophers from all ages have asked:

Who am I?
Where do I come from?
Why am I here?
What is my purpose for being here?

Who am I? I am made by God, and related to all mankind by the first man.
Where do I come from? I am made in God’s image, and given life by God.
Why am I here? I am here, because God determined my lifetime and the boundaries of where I should live - where I am supposed to live.
What is my purpose for being here? I live here in order to seek to connect with God. I live in Mesa, Arizona, right now, so that I might reach out to God. Every person who finds themselves on this side of the border, or on the other side, is there for the same ultimate reason. God has allowed them to be here, in order to seek and to find him.

But when you ask most people who are now here illegally, why are you here? Their answer will likely have an economic impulse to it. They came to make a better life. The North held a promise of work that would take care of their family's needs. So when you consider their reasons, from a Biblical framework, where would supplying for one’s family’s need stack up Biblically? Witness the Apostle Paul’s directive to protege Timothy:

[8] But if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.
(1 Timothy 5:8 ESV)

That seems pretty high!

As you survey the broad scope of Scripture, you will see God’s loving care for all peoples, tribes and nations...

From His commands to Israel in the Law:

[33] “When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. [34] You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.
(Leviticus 19:33-34 ESV)

To His concern for the ethical treatment of the of the poor among us:

[6] But you have dishonored the poor man. Are not the rich the ones who oppress you, and the ones who drag you into court?
[8] If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing well.
(James 2:6, 8 ESV)

Jesus, Himself when disputing with the legalists of his day unpacked the commandment to “love your neighbor as yourself”, by using a despised people who lived next door to the Jews as his example of the exemplary neighbor in the parable known as “The Good Samaritan”. If Jesus were writing to 21st century American Christians, I can imagine a parable of the “Good Illegal Alien” helping out when the preacher and the politician had gone to the other side of the road.

We ought to consider those who Jesus identifies with. When introducing his own ministry to the world, look at who he comes to bless, ultimately sacrificing His life as a ransom for many…

[18] “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives
and recovering of sight to the blind,
to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
[19] to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.”
(Luke 4:18-19 ESV)

Good news to the poor. Liberty for the prisoner. Vision for the blind. Freedom for the oppressed. Think, for a moment, whom that might be in our context...

As followers of Jesus, we need to consider his full counsel when we dealing with complex policy ideas like the Dream Act, and even comprehensive immigration reform. In the case of the Dream Act, we are talking about young people, made in the image of God, whose parents brought them here as children. They would like to serve or get an education. They would like the opportunity that we have for simply being born here. They are not more deserving or less than we are, just here in our midst. Desiring, dreaming of that which has inspired hundreds of other waves of immigrants coming here—a chance to make something of their life.

From a Divine point of view, do you really think, God is most concerned with propping up a flawed inequitable legal patchwork, we call 'immigration law,' or do you think He is more concerned with real hurting people, image-bearers, with dreams and hopes just like we have? They might just meet God in the process.

With that “hat” on, I submit that we should support the immediate passage of the Dream Act.