Reality Check 101

Just thinking on my feet about the latest efforts by our dysfunctional Congress concerning illegal immigration.

On March18th, HR1958, the Deporting Fraudsters Act of 2026 passed The House of Representatives with 231 voting yes, 186 no, and 15 not voting. At first glance it looks pretty good. here are some of the main provisions:

• Creates new grounds for inadmissibility and deportability
• Specifies covered offenses
• Makes offenders ineligible for virtually all forms of immigration relief
• Treats admissions of fraud as sufficient action
• Extends removability to those who try to obtain benefits by any form of fraud
• Directs immigration authorities to deny eligibility for other benefits to offenders
• Aims to enable faster removals on explicit grounds
• Implements provisions that require agencies to adapt enforcement to the new Standards

Of course, as always in Congress, the bill came with the requisite amount of dissension from the left. I am not usually one to take the left seriously when they stomp their feet and cry about anything that Republicans do, but this time I decided to take a look. I have to admit there are a few things they actually have valid concerns about.

At this point, I should admit that Duck-Duck-Go’s A.I. did a good job of analyzing the legislation and suggesting fixes for some of the possible complications from the bill. Here are the suggestions that I could live with:

• Limited deportability to provably intentional fraud
• Remove the provision that a simple admission of guilt is treated as basis for conviction
• Carve out provisions for honest mistakes, administrative errors, and such
• Include provisions to safeguard against duress, misinformation, or dependence (e,g. chidren)
• Require better evidentiary standards before action can be taken

Now, all this sounds good if the safeguards are included. But I’m thinking that that’s not really the Issue that we should be dealing with. The fact is that anyone who breaks the law is, by definition, a criminal. We must add to that the fact that the persons breaking the law are not citizens of the United States. So, are those folks actually, constitutionally, entitled to codified civil rights? Are the citizens of the rest of the world covered under a constitution designed for a specific population, i.e. citizens? Or, to put it another way, how is it that the legal structure of any nation, designed for that nation, is supposed be to applied to folks who are not part and parcel of that nation?

From a biblical point of view, which I know is not fashionable to talk about, it is pretty clear that the role of government, instituted by God himself, is to protect those under its authority and to promote  justice and righteousness. Also, the expectation of our Creator, because all human beings carry His image, is that all people are to be treated with respect as having inherent value.

So, for me, the bottom line is this:  Everyone who enters our country of their own volition by breaking the law are, by definition criminals and foreign criminals at that. By statute, they are not entitled to the same rights and privileges as are citizens. That being the case, they have no right to remain here. Secondly, everything that the Bible holds people responsible for is built on the presumption of personal responsibility and are subject to the consequences of their own behavior. That is the legal standard. The second standard operating in parallel to that one is the Biblical one. This is the one that our government has a very difficult time comprehending, let alone instituting.

The mandate from God to government is to act compassionately and justly. That is the standard for its behavior in all cases. Since that is the case, and having to deal with the issue of children, they being here outside of their personal responsibility, government must design a response  toward them commensurate with their situation but at the same time upholding the laws of the land.

If Congress can manage to do the right thing for once, the proposed legislation, if it includes the fixes proposed above, is the best place to begin fixing a problem that was largely exacerbated by four years under the Biden administration which willfully violated the laws and principles that I just outlined.