Yes, You Can Love Your Neighbor And Oppose Illegal Immigration

The immigration debate in America is typically presented by the left as a battle between foreigner-loving, multiculturalist liberals on one side and mean-spirited, hypocritical, and backwards conservatives on the other.

“Although the president and his administration portray themselves as heroes to Christians, their immigration crackdown is sending many into hiding,” declared an Aug. 21 op-ed at MSNBC. “Christian immigrants helped elect Trump, now some are at risk of being deported” read the title of an April report at National Public Radio.

Yet as much as many liberals pontificate about how Christianity demands open borders to accommodate poor and needy strangers (“Don’t you know Jesus was an ‘illegal’ immigrant?!”), is it really accurate that loving one’s neighbor demands liberal immigration policies? What if to truly love one’s neighbor means not welcoming in millions of immigrants from other countries, but giving them the opportunity to do good in their country of origin, while we Americans love the millions of neighbors long neglected by decades of “post-national” policies?

What Liberal Immigration Policies Mean For Other Countries

When liberals talk about permissive immigration policies that allow millions of people to enter our country illegally, they often focus on success stories of humble, hard-working, and intelligent migrants eager to start a new life in the land of opportunity. No doubt, there are many such persons in the United States. Indeed, likely a significant percentage of illegal immigrants are probably comparatively smarter and more industrious than many citizens in their nations of origin. Many of them made harrowing and costly journeys in order to ultimately sneak across our borders in hope of a better life.

But that’s a problem. What happens when the most hardworking and entrepreneurial people in an already dysfunctional country depart? None of the countries these people are coming from are thriving models of functional republican government or capitalist ingenuity. No, these are corrupt, impoverished nations defined by criminality and violence and an entrenched exploitative elite class that makes our woke technocrats look tame by comparison.

“Before coming to our countries, migrants themselves actively participated in the life of the country that they left, where, according to their age, they received a more or less complete education, a more or less complete human formation,” writes French political philosopher Pierre Manent in his book The Religion of Humanity: The Illusion of Our Times. Undoubtedly, as much as self-important D.C. foreign policy wonks think they will be the saviors of the developing world, it will not be them who solve these countries’ problems. No, it will be these countries’ own citizens — and it must be their best and brightest, those most capable of revitalizing civil society, those most willing to protest and combat authoritarian regimes. All open borders policies do is expedite the “brain drain” of the competent and courageous from such nations.

Neighborliness and Citizenship Are Not The Same Thing

There is also a difference between neighbors and fellow citizens. It’s true, there is a sense in which illegal immigrants are the “neighbors” of those whose country they enter. Everyone deserves to be treated with dignity and respect, and our consciences should compel us to have sympathy for those in need. The Good Samaritan parable is a study in unexpected neighborliness. But that is not the same thing as sharing citizenship. Manent explains:

Taking into account the diversity of political, social, and religious regimes, it is clear — we’ve had the sad proof — that this formation can have inculcated rules of conduct, and dispositions, incompatible with our principles of justice and with the civic friendships in which we wish to live. The humanitarian view can only see in migrants fellow human beings, while they are also different citizens. If it is an obligation to assist them when they are in danger, this obligation does not include making them fellow citizens.

In other words, those who enter our country are legally citizens of other countries. And that citizenship is not simply an empty designation that should be taken off or put on haphazardly or capriciously. These persons were granted citizenship of their home countries precisely because they were born there and were bequeathed the unique culture and mores of those nations. We should respect the citizenship of these persons, and encourage them to realize that citizenship by becoming model citizens of their native lands. (They have also implicitly demonstrated they may not be particularly model citizens of our land, given they broke our laws in order to come here.)

The Neighbors Who Need American Assistance The Most Are Our Fellow Citizens

Of course, there is also an argument to be made that the neighbors most in need of our assistance are those closest to us. Vice President J.D. Vance explained this concept earlier this year in appealing to the ordo amoris, or “order of charity,” which is the idea that our obligations and loves exist in a sort of series of concentric circles. “You love your family, and then you love your neighbor, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens in your own country, and then after that you can focus and prioritize the rest of the world,” Vance declared.

As much as that comment was pilloried not only in the press, but confusedly by Catholic religious leaders, that concept can be found in the writings of Augustine in the City of God and Thomas Aquinas in the Summa Theologiae, both ancient and venerated Christian texts, as The Federalist’s own John Daniel Davidson has explained. “We ought in preference to bestow on each one such benefits as pertain to the matter in which, speaking simply, he is most closely connected with us,” writes Aquinas. Thus we should prioritize the needs of those we are most obligated to, whether our family, friends, or fellow citizens.

Sadly, this has been misinterpreted by Vance’s critics to suggest that the ordo amoris effectively means we are not obligated to help those in need if they are sufficiently distanced from us. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. Rather, the ordo amoris is common sense we all practice in our own lives: you don’t regularly check in on random mothers to see how they’re doing; you call your mother. You don’t pay for your neighbor’s kid’s extracurricular activities; you pay for your kids’ activities. By extension, the various needs of those in our community, state, and nation should take precedence over the needs of people outside those spheres.

Thus it is possible to both love our neighbor and maintain strong borders. Indeed, discouraging people from illegally entering our country can even be a manifestation of neighborliness by helping people of other nations do good for their native lands. Manent writes: “There’s no contradiction between the command to give assistance and the existence of borders. Borders are the condition of existence of a political association capable of assisting.”

By discouraging illegal immigration and encouraging people to fulfill their civic obligations in their own countries, we can improve both our nations and theirs. When we do otherwise, our policies have served to harm our fellow citizens, who are forced to compete with illegal migrants in communities that increasingly seem foreign to them, where the sense of what constitutes a unique American identity is obscured and eroded. And it has enabled the continued dysfunction of other parts of the world.

Casey Chalk is a senior contributor at The Federalist and an editor and columnist at The New Oxford Review. He has a bachelor’s in history and master’s in teaching from the University of Virginia and a master’s in theology from Christendom College. He is the author of The Persecuted: True Stories of Courageous Christians Living Their Faith in Muslim Lands.