The Undocumented Immigrant

Among the psuedo-Christians who are really nominal Christians at best, holding asininely to conservative American political ideology and then to Christianity only or partly because it is ostensibly "American", there is a conditioned fear or hatred of foreigners.  Despite how irrational this is independent of Christianity, as stereotypes are universally false by logical necessity [1], the Bible scathingly conflicts with what these people assume is true inside and outside of the Biblical worldview.  Somehow, persons from this or similar groups actually seem to think that the Biblical Yahweh would in almost any regard truly favor the United States.  Even if America was wholly superior by Christian standards to other countries in the sense of moral standing, it is still incredibly far from living out the moral-theological philosophy many of its citizens pay lip service to in Christianity.

The conservative philosophy of immigration reflects this.  Not only is being ultimately anti-immigrant in any capacity irrational (in that there is no amoral basis for this stance other than arbitrary, subjective dislike) and Biblically unjust, as I will easily demonstrate below, but the errors are compounded when it is really foreigners/immigrants of certain skin colors or from specific countries that are dismissed, loathed, or suspected.  More precisely, it is brown-skinned people from below the southern border of the United States that are most often discriminated against by people who fear or demonize them, adding a necessarily racist component.  Nevertheless, one person's worldview, personality, moral character, and so on do not necessitate the same for another person of the same skin color or nationality, and there is no logical connection between skin color or nationality and an individual's rationality, righteousness, or individualistic psychology.  It does not follow that a person of any race or nationality "is" a certain way other than being of that race or nationality.  Also, the same acts by or against them, if the issue truly is the act itself, are not more or less just or unjust.

What the Bible says about foreigners is perfectly consistent with these logical truths, and the verses below are just some of the many that make such affirmations:

Exodus 12:49--"'The same law applies both to the native-born and to the foreigner residing among you.'"

Exodus 22:21--"'Do not mistreat or oppress a foreigner, for you were foreigners in Egypt.'"

Leviticus 19:33-34--"'"When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them.  The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born.  Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt.  I am the Lord your God."'"

Leviticus 24:22--"'"You are to have the same law for the foreigner and the native-born."'"

Numbers 15:15-16, 29-30--"'"The community is to have the same rules for you and for the foreigner residing among you; this is a lasting ordinance for the generations to come.  You and the foreigner shall be the same before the Lord: The same laws and regulations will apply both to you and to the foreigner residing among you . . . One and the same law applies to everyone who sins unintentionally, whether a native-born Israelite or a foreigner residing among you.  But anyone who sins defiantly, whether native-born or foreigner, blasphemes the Lord and must be cut off from the people of Israel."'"

It would make no difference if the foreigner is undocumented or not.  They are a foreigner living among you, who has the same universal human rights as anyone else since all people have the divine image (Genesis 1:26-27, 5:1-2).  Some portions of the Torah simply make declarations about moral rights and obligations without mentioning nationality/ancestry at all (for instance, see Exodus 21:12-36).  Others emphasize the same rights and obligations for Israelites and foreigners (Exodus 20:8-10, 23:12, Leviticus 19:9-10, Deuteronomy 24:14-15, and so on).  It is not just that whether an immigrant is undocumented was not a divisive political concern of the Mosaic era, but also that it is wholly irrelevant to human rights and obligations as plainly put forth by Yahweh's laws.  A small handful of distinctions between foreign men and women and the native-born among the Israelites (or by extension, other than the priestly activities, whichever nation is one's own) are occasionally still made.  

Even then, with all but the contents of Deuteronomy 14:21 regarding the consumption of kosher animals found dead, these differences of treatment in very specific areas pertain to a foreigner who lives outside one's country in light of Leviticus 19:33-34, which has no specific limiting context unlike how Leviticus 24:22 follows laws about unjust injury and the related portions of Numbers 15 are about animal sacrifices and forgiveness for sin.  It is also of great importance that Deuteronomy 14:21 is in no way about something like physical harm being permissible to inflict on foreigners but not Israelites/one's own countrypeople.  Rather, the verse is only about the allowance for Gentiles (even the ones residing among "your towns") and not Israelites to eat what has naturally died.  On their own, even the fully listed verses above would necessitate identical treatment of all foreigners abroad and otherwise unless exceptions are specified.  Again, there is no requirement of documentation or passing a citizenship test or having a passport--not that such absences have ever stopped a legion of legalistic fools from adding and subtracting to Yahweh's commands in blatant defiance of reason and Deuteronomy 4:2 and 12:32.

For all the extreme over-emphasis by American conservative pseudo-Christians on what Leviticus 18 and 20 say about homosexual intercourse, not homosexual feelings, being sinful and deserving execution, they seldom seem to even recognize that Mosaic Law so sharply and repeatedly condemns the oppression of foreigners or treating foreigners differently whatsoever in almost any matter.  This would logically and Biblically be oppression in one direction or another to begin with!  The distinctively pro-foreigner doctrines of the Torah are not the only place one can find such teachings in the Bible.  The prophets anticipate a time when all nations will come to Israel and submit to Mosaic Law (Isaiah 2:1-4, 66:19-23, Micah 4:1-3, Zechariah 14:16-19); foreigners are never excluded from God's acceptance (Isaiah 19:19-25, 56:3), including in a soteriological sense (Matthew 28:18-20, Galatians 3:28, Colossians 3:11, Revelation 7:9).  The conservative professing Christian in America who discriminates against foreigners and more particularly against undocumented brown-skinned foreigners from South of the United States is guilty of a double error against both reason, independent of morality itself, and Biblical moral theology.

[1].  All stereotypes have the same logically necessary errors.  They hold that an objectively irrelevant factor, like an alleged propensity for child abuse on the part of homosexuals or supposed proclivity towards violence on the part of men, is tied to some physical or nonphysical characteristic like genitalia, skin color, sexual orientation, and so on.  They also contradict the fact that people are by default individuals, and the only way for them to truly be alike in personality or worldview beyond sheer happenstance is if they all passively or actively give in to the same social conditioning.