Law and love
Are we a city on a hill?
In the previous issue of Cholla Express, I responded to the vice president’s claim that Christianity is America’s creed. I argued that, while faith is important in its own way, America’s creed is the Declaration of Independence. This post is the second part of that argument. Here, I want to discuss a specific area of policy — one that is front and center in our country right now.
In 2014, Jeb Bush showed his cards on the topic of illegal immigration. His stance was not popular among Republican primary voters in 2016.
In an interview with Fox News, he said that, although we can and should do a better job controlling the border, we shouldn’t demonize people who are simply trying to live and work here.
Jeb Bush said:
Yes, they broke the law, but it’s not a felony. It’s kind of — it’s an act of love. It’s an act of commitment to your family. I honestly think that’s a different kind of crime. There should be a price paid, but it shouldn’t rile people up that people are actually coming to this country to provide for their families.
This sentiment is not toxic empathy, as some Christian nationalists today would try to spin it.
It’s just regular empathy: Understanding where other people are coming from and recognizing that, under the exact same circumstances, we might feel and respond in a similar way.
Under the current administration, border crossings have plummeted. What’s happening now is that ICE is arresting and deporting people who are already here.
The vast majority of the people they are arresting are otherwise law-abiding residents with no criminal convictions.
Picture a family that has been living in the United States for years with no problems. The kids are American citizens.
Should ICE show up at the door and arrest the grandfather and hold him in a detention center? And then deport him?
Because he crossed the border illegally in 1995?
“We need to enforce the law.”
Ok.
Why didn’t this administration enforce the TikTok ban?
Why did they grant amnesty to everyone who attacked the Capitol on January 6th?
The conclusion I draw from observing this administration is that they do not feel obligated to impartially enforce the rule of law. Therefore, they are acting on discretion.
The American people understand the idea of showing discretion — within reason — when it comes to law enforcement. That’s why people feel comfortable driving over the speed limit within a certain range.
I think most Americans actually want this administration to show discretion. Not by politicizing the Department of Justice, but by prioritizing public safety when it comes to our immigration laws.
Arizona Senator Mark Kelly recently spoke to this point:
This is not what he ran on. He said he was going to be removing gang members and criminals from our communities. ICE is going after just like regular people: moms, folks who are — obviously they’re undocumented — but they’re no threat to society.
They’re going after just regular people, and they’re doing so with overly aggressive tactics. From what I’ve seen and read, they don’t seem too concerned about protecting people’s constitutional rights.
I understand the argument that says all laws should be enforced, and if we don’t like the laws, we should change them.
But fidelity to the law doesn’t seem to be the animating principle of this administration.
Agape love doesn’t seem to be the animating principle, either.
The “city on a hill” imagery was used by John Winthrop in a speech in 1630. The phrase derives from the Sermon on the Mount in the Book of Matthew.
Winthrop was an English immigrant who landed on the shores of America. He was a Puritan and a lawyer who became governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
To Winthrop, the collective ethos of Christian charity served to “keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace.”
Ronald Reagan had his own vision of a city on a hill. Here’s what he said in his farewell address in 1989:
I’ve spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don’t know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, windswept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That’s how I saw it, and see it still.
This is a hopeful vision. A graceful vision.
It’s hard to see the city today, but it’s worth remembering anyway.
Impartial application of the law vs discretion. Good observation. If you work the fields and are undocumented DHS has been directed to use discretion.
The answer, I believe, depends more on what we choose to see than on what is actually there. Right now, we have a serious bi-polar disease as a Nation. Ben Franklin's warning --"a Republic, if you can keep it" looms large.
You do a fine job, Billy, of laying out our inherited challenge. Surely the current Republican Party stalwarts would choke on the Ronald Reagan quote. But they are not the only ones who have selective vision.
We are being tested, yet again, at the level of our National soul. Now, we must find ways of once again answering "yes" to your question. This time will be the most difficult in our 250 years of trying. What better as a challenge for the next 250 years than to heal our soul and rebuild that city?
Thank you for sharing this, Billy. You join many others in helping to clear our vision.