On September 12, Houghton hosted a panel discussion revolving around the subject of immigration reform in the Center for the Fine Arts building. Panel speakers included two leaders of national organizations, Galen Carey of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) and Daniel Watts of G92; a Houghton political science professor, Professor Peter Meilaender; and Jeff True, a local dairy farmer.
All panelists agreed that immigration laws are being broken and that illegal immigration remains a problem in the United States. True spoke of his personal experience of hiring of immigrants to work at his farm and said, “I have to choose which law to break . . . I hate it.” All that is required to hire a worker on his form is the proper documentation and they have to be able to fill out the I9 form. He cannot know whether the documentation is real or not and he cannot discriminate against them, so it often happens that True does not know whether or not the people he hires are legal immigrants or not.
A common complaint against immigration is that there are many unemployed Americans who cannot find jobs, and could otherwise take the jobs that immigrants do. However, farm work, such as at True’s dairy farm, requires people to work long hours with hard labor each day and, as the panel explained, most Americans do not want those kind of jobs anymore. Carey said that they want jobs that utilize the skill set that they have learned from school. Meilaender and Watts agreed and spoke of how the American society is not a very active one anymore with its emphasis on technology, so many do not want to work the long hours and hard labor necessary for some agricultural jobs.
One of the themes touched upon at the panel was the revitalization immigrants often bring to the culture into which they move. According to the panelists, those who come to America illegally are motivated to survive and succeed because of what they have endured to get here. Carey spoke briefly of the pattern of refugees seeking asylum: the first generation will struggle but the second generation will thrive, knowing the struggles it took to survive in this world. Watts, however, made sure to emphasize that these were broad generalizations being made and that what was said was not true for every person.
Dr. Peter Meilaender, chair of political science, emphasized, however, that people’s responsibilities were first to those in their community. “Immigration control is ethically justified,” Meilaender said. By refusing to open the borders to anyone who wanted to come in, the government is protecting people’s jobs, families, and their way of life.
But the immigrants who have made America their home also carry weight in this issue. Jessica Vaughn, a sophomore who attended the panel, shared a relevant experience with her bilingual home church, adding, “One of the assistant pastors is undocumented.” She continued to say that although she knows that not all Christians will agree on what needs to be done, one should nevertheless act towards the immigrants in a manner worthy of Christ. She sees it as a struggle with what to do with the immigrants who have made America their home but have done so without proper documentation.
“We want workable laws that meet our nation’s needs and that can be enforced and respected by all,” Carey wrote in his August 2013 article for The Washington Post titled “Evangelicals Keep the Faith with Those Working for Immigration Reform.” In it, he commented specifically on what was needed in the immigration laws that are being rewritten. Though he wants his family safe from dangerous people who may cross the border, he also desires to see families reunited and protected from the long separations they have had to endure. “We want to offer undocumented immigrants the opportunity to acknowledge their wrongs, make themselves right with the law, pay appropriate fines and penalties, get in line, and begin the long process of earning legal status and eventually, if they qualify, citizenship.” Though these guidelines to how Carey envisions immigration control will not be agreed upon by all citizens, they do address some of the key issues that will be discussed and addressed while forming new laws.
Though immigration laws may be broken now, hope that the situation will improve still remains and discussion about possible solutions continues. Vaughn said, “People who think the answers are clear cut and straightforward don’t know enough about the issue.” The intent of the panel was not to solve the problem of immigration reform; instead, it aimed to revive the exchange of ideas which may gradually bring the current situation to a less volatile point.