Immigration 101: Why don't immigrants just come in legally?

Note: This is the second in a series of posts focusing on the illegal immigrant situation in the US. While much of this is informed by my personal feelings and opinions, I do not claim to be unbiased, I have tried to share sources whenever possible. Please feel free to share with me your thoughts, but I ask that you would do so in love. Any comments given that are hurtful will be deleted, though they cannot be deleted from my mind, so consider our relationship when posting please.

As a person who has traveled a bit around the world, it seems obvious to me that one could do it legally. Now, mind you, when travelling to India I know that you're not supposed to put "missionary" on your visa application. You put "business" or "vacation" on it or it will get denied. Is that illegal travel? Some would say so, but I call it looking at life from a different perspective. The thing is, I have the privilege of living in the United States. We have the honor of enjoying free travel with most of the world. Very few people in China are worried about illegal US immigrants as far as I know. But the reason behind that is that for the most part, the US is a pretty great place to live. Is it perfect? No. But we enjoy reasonably high safety, job and housing availability, and pretty darn good food. Our electronic infrastructure is pretty sound. We have the freedom to worship at any church for any religion we'd like. We have a consistent mail service and package delivery. Ok, sometimes our packages take tours of the country before they get to us, but they're very unlikely to be burnt up in a pile during a demonstration! The reality many Americans haven't grasped is that most of the world does not enjoy these privileges.

What do I mean by that? Well, in much of the Middle East, you can be killed for converting to Christianity. Many places do not allow girls to go to school or women to drive or have jobs, let alone having any sense of "equal opportunity." Many countries are plagued by internal fighting, with one group or another seizing power on a regular basis. In the past, our country has been a haven, a safe place, an asylum to people who are suffering in these and other ways. In fact, our country was founded by people who were seeking the freedom to worship God as they believed, people who desired better opportunities and hope for their families. All of us come from immigrant families, it just depends on how far back you choose to look. So how do people emigrate to our country legally today?

I was curious about this so I started looking into it. According to this site, "U.S. Customs and Border Protection debuted CBP One near the end of Trump’s first term as a way for customs brokers to schedule inspections and for visitors with short-term visas to extend stays." So it was an app you could use on your phone to (hopefully) schedule an appointment at the border in order to enter legally. It was riddled with problems from glitches to potentially discriminatory practices that made required photos not work for people from some ethnicities. It was only available in English and Spanish which, believe it or not, aren't the only two languages spoken in South and Central America where the app was intended to be used (1). But for thousands, it was hope for the future. At 1pm on January 20th, 2025, just after President Trump was sworn into office, the CBP One app was shut down. People who had appointments that day were turned away. Appointments for people who had tried desperately for months and finally been in the queue were cancelled (3). The only legal way of entering the United States was closed. The app has since been "repurposed" to allow illegal aliens to "self-deport." In the government's words this allows them a future chance of coming back to America legally whereas if they are caught by DHS and deported they will be put on a list that does not allow this. (5)

According to the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) website, the only way to obtain asylum in the United States now is if you are already here (4). That means that you must enter illegally in order to follow the legal system. A bit of a quandary if you ask me.

So, what now? Now, the government expects immigrants to "Remain in Mexico," but desperate people will not be deterred. Instead, they must now turn back once more to the unsafe and unpredictable help of the cartels to "Coyote" them over the border. This dangerous practice puts people, families, at risk of, "kidnappings, trafficking, sexual assaults and death" according to this article (2). People are typically not entering into such arrangements unknowingly, so you've got to believe that their situations are pretty desperate in order for them to be willing to risk such horrible possibilities.

Americans, sitting in their comfortable abodes, sipping their coffee made with a Keurig, driving their hybrid cars to work look down on these immigrants and say they shouldn't come here. Why do they think that they have the right to all these privileges and someone sitting on the border of Mexico desperately seeking an appointment to request asylum does not? For most it would be by way of birthright. Guess what our country's forefathers came here to escape? One of the challenges faced by the average citizen in England of those days was that the power and wealth was held by people who had attained it by, you guessed it, birthright. This meant that people had very little opportunity to improve their lot in life as they had not been born into the right family. Why do we think that because we were born here we are any more deserving of the privileges we enjoy than someone who was not?

Perhaps it is a defense mechanism. A way of setting limits. We don't feel like we can fix the world, and thinking that maybe we are not innately entitled to what we have can be scary.

Here's the Thing: I get it. I, too, am overwhelmed by the amount of need out there and my complete inability to meet it. But hiding in my comfortable house and just hoping the rest of the world will take care of itself is certainly not going to help either. How do I solve this for myself? I trust God. When He calls me to share what I have, to do what I can, I do. And I trust that He will provide for me as I give sacrificially and know that He will fill any gap that I might perceive.