Methodist Women for Open Borders

on February 4, 2013
Immigration
(Photo credit: One Old Vet)

The following article appeared on the Front Page Magazine website.

Give credit to the New York based United Methodist Women. Most religious lobby groups currently pushing for “immigration reform” at least pay lip service to border security and law enforcement.   But the UMW is bracingly, audaciously refreshingly, demanding completely open borders with no immigration law enforcement.  Come one, come all, just like to a church pot luck supper!

UMW once was the largest women’s organization in America, with over 1 million members.  Today it is likely the fastest declining women’s organization, with just over half a million, and plunging. Few church women under age 60 or even 70 are still members, and most of them are mercifully unaware of the radical politics long touted by the UMW’s New York activist bureaucrats.  But thanks to the bequests of countless Methodist women now in glory, and the earnings from even more countless church bake sales and Christmas bazaars, the UMW no longer really needs members.  It has endowments to fuel its leftist politicking in perpetuity.

Just in time to back President Obama’s immigration initiative, or more accurately, to offer proposals well to his left, UMW released its “Principles for How We Negotiate a Deal.”  Here is the essence of what the church women want:  “All raids, detention and deportation of migrants should be suspended, instead shifting resources to immigration processing and services for underserved communities.”  So no further law enforcement, at all.  They demand that immigration be forever detached from the “context of national security and border enforcement.”  Instead it should all focus on “human rights, including economic and social rights.”  Just to be clear, there must “no ‘enforcement first’ or enforcement/legalization trade-off deals.”  UMW likewise insists there be no more talk of “war on terror,” which has “unjustly targeted Arab, Muslim and South Asian immigrant communities.”  And no more talk of “war on drugs, “which after all was merely “pretext to profile, arrest, detain and shuttle primarily black and brown men through the criminal justice system directly to the deportation system.”

Bracing indeed.

UMW warns against dividing immigrants by “criminal” versus “law-abiding” immigrants,” or even “straight versus gay families, men versus women, immigrants currently in the United States versus those yet to come.”  America should instead just have a permanent “y’all come” policy, no matter who you are or what you’ve done.   And this giant mosaic of “diverse and integrated constituencies must be part of the policymaking process.”  Don’t try to marginalize anyone now, ya hear!  Amnesty for current illegals must not be granted at the expense of “future” immigrants.  UMW even frets that the 1986 mass legalization didn’t go further in guaranteeing a warm welcome to all future illegals.

Oh, whoops, don’t call anybody “illegal.”  If you do, that’s your hang-up. There is, according to UMW and most of the Religious Left, a universal right to U.S. residence, citizenship and unlimited welfare and entitlement benefits.  Illegals should instead be considered special visitors and soon to be family.  They are also victims of U.S. “global economic, trade, finance, and war policy that has forced millions to migrate to the United States.”  What else could they do?  Of course, absent the U.S., there would be universal peace and prosperity with no need for mass immigration.  But since we’re stuck with America, there must be endless atonement and reparations from the guilty nation.  Even “past criminal convictions of immigrants” ought not to matter.  Are we going to be hospitable, or what?  Employers must not be penalized for hiring illegals because, of course, nobody should be illegal. Even guest worker status must be abolished because it implies less than full automatic citizenship.

And of course UMW mandates that all immigrants immediately access all welfare and entitlement programs, including “reproductive and sexual health,” i.e. free contraceptives and abortions, courtesy of the taxpayer!

Also, no more walls or border security, please, which is so unwelcoming.  What do we want our guests to think of us?  UMW declares:  “End militarization of the U.S. border!”  UMW likewise wants to ditch free trade agreements like NAFTA and CAFTA.

Unconsidered or at least unmentioned in the UMW’s “principles” are the unfairness of illegal immigrants needing to travel to the U.S., at their own expense no less.  Shouldn’t the U.S. offer travel vouchers to ensure safe and comfortable voyage?  Better yet, why not U.S. stipends for all the tens of millions around the world who might like to relocate to the U.S. but would just as enjoyably stay home if subsidized by U.S. taxpayers, saving everyone the hassle of the immigration process?

Thank you, United Methodist Women, or at least your New York spokespersons, for so comprehensively and earnestly illustrating the absurd logical outcome of the most extreme “immigration reform” arguments from the Religious Left.  The UMW’s non-negotiable principles, so filled with grievance and resentment, insult and dishonor all the millions of immigrants who have legitimately made America great over the centuries.  They came to build a nation not of chaos and entitlement, but of laws and reward for honest endeavor.

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  1. Comment by Dan Trabue on February 4, 2013 at 11:30 am

    You have to give it to these women in this much, at least: They are taking a hardline stand on taking the Bible pretty literally.

    If the more conservative brothers and sisters took the “Foreigners” topic as seriously and biblically-literally as they do the homosexuality topic, we’d all be opposed to putting up obstacles and roadblocks to “the foreigners in your land…,” and certainly to treating immigration as a moral/legal problem to be dealt with by police raids and imprisonment.

    There are serious problems to be considered when it comes to immigration and related foreign policy and I’m not going so far as to say I support fully open borders, but you’d be hard-pressed to justify our current policy from at least a biblical point of view.

  2. Comment by Gus Ravenwheel on February 4, 2013 at 1:37 pm

    You have to give it to these women in this much, at least: They are taking a hardline stand on taking the Bible pretty literally.

    If the more conservative brothers and sisters took the “Foreigners” topic as seriously and biblically-literally as they do the homosexuality topic, we’d all be opposed to putting up obstacles and roadblocks to “the foreigners in your land…,” and certainly to treating immigration as a moral/legal problem to be dealt with by police raids and imprisonment.

    There are serious problems to be considered when it comes to immigration and related foreign policy and I’m not going so far as to say I support fully open borders, but you’d be hard-pressed to justify our current policy from at least a biblical point of view.

    ~Dan Trabue (I still can’t use my real name and get a comment posted, fyi…)

  3. Comment by Gus Ravenwheel on February 4, 2013 at 1:37 pm

    You have to give it to these women in this much, at least: They are taking a hardline stand on taking the Bible pretty literally.

    If the more conservative brothers and sisters took the “Foreigners” topic as seriously and biblically-literally as they do the homosexuality topic, we’d all be opposed to putting up obstacles and roadblocks to “the foreigners in your land…,” and certainly to treating immigration as a moral/legal problem to be dealt with by police raids and imprisonment.

    There are serious problems to be considered when it comes to immigration and related foreign policy and I’m not going so far as to say I support fully open borders, but you’d be hard-pressed to justify our current policy from at least a biblical point of view.

    ~Dan Trabue (I still can’t use my real email and get a comment posted, fyi…)

  4. Comment by David F. Miller on February 4, 2013 at 2:35 pm

    Yes, we are to welcome the foreigner as the bible states. However, no where in the bible or Jewish history do we see that the foreigner is accorded the rights of citizenship.

  5. Comment by Gus Ravenwheel on February 4, 2013 at 4:37 pm

    As I said, it’s a complicated issue with no quick and simple answers. Still, the overwhelming biblical call as it relates to foreigners is to welcome them, treat them as neighbors.

    You shall not oppress a sojourner. You know the heart of a sojourner, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt…

    The alien living with you must be treated as one of your native-born. Love him as yourself, for you were aliens in Egypt. I am the LORD your God…

    You must not wrong a foreigner nor oppress him, for you were foreigners in the land of Egypt…

    For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, mighty, and awesome God who is unbiased and takes no bribe, who justly treats the orphan and widow, and who loves resident foreigners, giving them food and clothing. So you must love the resident foreigner because you were foreigners in the land of Egypt.

    Stop oppressing foreigners who live in your land, children who have lost their fathers, and women who have lost their husbands. Stop killing innocent people in this land… That will only bring about your ruin…

    The Lord says, “Do what is just and right. Deliver those who have been robbed from those who oppress them. Do not exploit or mistreat foreigners who live in your land…

    In Christ, there is no Greek nor Jew…

    On and on it goes. The Bible speaks overwhelmingly of God commanding God’s followers to welcome the foreigner, to feed the foreigner, to not oppress or mistreat the foreigner, on and on. There is no biblical model for expelling the foreigner.

    We might come up with some worldly, rational reasons why the best thing to do (for “foreigners” and citizens alike) is to limit immigration. I’m just saying that there is no biblical model for doing this, not that I can think of.

    ~Dan Trabue

  6. Comment by Donnie on February 4, 2013 at 4:18 pm

    Given the UMW’s infanticide fetish, I guess they’ll need somebody to become the next generation of UMW members.

  7. Comment by Eric Lytle on February 4, 2013 at 6:37 pm

    These women could make more of an impression if they practice what they preach. Let them come home one day and find a gaggle of strangers in their home, using up water and electricity, throwing their beer cans in the floor, breaking windows, threatening the family, making no apologies, saying “We got a RIGHT to be here!”

    Wanna bet not too many of the UMW bigwigs have their vacation homes in southern Arizona, New Mexico, or Texas?

  8. Comment by Don Ellenberger on February 5, 2013 at 6:38 pm

    Amnesty: can you imagine the message this would send back? We would be overrun. We’ve got to build the wall & kick the illegals out. How can we reward people for breaking our laws? If they willingly come forward & accept a free ride back home, they can get in line in an embassy in their own country behind those doing it the legal way. The others – arrested, fingerprinted & ousted, never to darken our borders again. We don’t need our infrastructure to be overwhelmed like the hospitals, schools, social services of the border states. With our unemployment status, we also don’t need competition for workers. If there really is a shortage of farm labor, bring in workers, under controlled conditions, secure that they will leave, as appropriate.

  9. Comment by Judy Vasby on February 5, 2013 at 10:39 pm

    I would like to see documentation on all the quotes you indicated were written or said by national United Methodist Women leaders. As your article is written, I can not determine if the quoted segments are current or old, fully quoted or partially quoted, are in context or not, nor whom you are quoting. Without that information your charges are inflammatory, but not substantive.

  10. Comment by Jeremy Baines on February 7, 2013 at 10:53 am

    Is there some kind of statute of limitations on saying stupid things? Like if the quote was more than a year ago, it’s not stupid any more? I don’t know many liberals who ever wise up, so odds are that they’d stick by any ridiculous statement they made, even if it was 5 years ago. I haven’t seen any hints that the UMW leadership is tilting in the direction of common sense.

    My take on the quotes in the article is that knowing the context would make no difference at all, there’s no way to “spin” these stupid pronouncements. I’m still trying to see the logic in providing free “reproductive and sexual health” measures to criminals (which is what illegals are, by definition) while I have to pay my doc for an annual prostate check, which means I pay for my own and for those of criminals. For people who use the word “justice” in every sentence, liberals have a pretty screwed-up view of what justice is.

  11. Comment by PAK on February 10, 2013 at 10:52 am

    An immigration policy supports those who wish to come to a country for the purpose of making a contribution in the new country and citizenship is awarded to those who support the values and norms of their adopted country. An open border policy leaves a country open to an “unarmed invasion” from a population who wishes to conquer and impose their own values and norms or “plunder” take the wealth of the populace of the invaded nation: this is accomplished by force or by wealth transfer programs. The first policy is why countries have a national defense; the second, is treacherous. We know where the Methodist women stand.

  12. Comment by Larry Miles on August 14, 2019 at 10:31 pm

    Not separating immigrants based whether they are criminal or noncriminal is the absolute most stupid idea ever.

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