My response to President Trump’s executive order on immigrant families

President Trump signed an executive order Wednesday afternoon stating that families seeking asylum should be detained together when “appropriate and consistent with law and available resources.”

The order maintains the administration’s “zero tolerance” policy for illegal immigrants. It also instructs the Pentagon to make facilities available for the housing and care of immigrant families.

It directs the Attorney General to seek modification of the 1997 Flores Settlement Agreement to allow alien families to be kept together “throughout the pendency of criminal proceedings.” And it requires the Attorney General to “prioritize the adjudication of cases involving detained families.”

In related news, the House will vote today on an immigration bill that would end family separations as part of a larger overhaul. “We can enforce our immigration laws without breaking families apart,” said House Speaker Paul Ryan.

God is “Father of the fatherless”

As I noted on Tuesday, illegal immigration is an especially complicated theological issue.

We are charged by Scripture with obeying the government (Romans 13:1), but we are also to care for immigrants (Exodus 22:21; Hebrews 13:2) and children (Mark 10:14). It is difficult to devise a solution that satisfies law enforcement supporters as well as advocates for immigrants and their families.

I want to focus today on those at the center of the storm: the children. More than 2,300 have now been separated from parents seeking asylum or attempting to enter the US illegally.

In addition, 437,500 children were in foster care in the US by the end of fiscal year 2016. Many are in the foster care system because of substance abuse by their parents. And more than 2.5 million children are homeless in the United States. This historic high represents one out of every thirty children in America.

Of all the demographics in society, children are especially cherished in God’s word.

God’s Son could have…