Guest Column: Governors accepting refugees should consider restrictions adhering to Bible and Constitution

The cacophony from the political and religious left over Donald Trump’s temporary travel ban has been not only clanging but irrational and unhinged. Most of them seem on the verge of some kind of mental or emotional breakdown. 

Trump’s travel restrictions halt the refugee program for a time until better vetting procedures can be implemented and halt immigration for a time from countries which are noted hotbeds of Islamic unrest. 

To the degree that there is anything rational about the frenzied opposition to Trump’s directive, it is the accusation that it is un-Christian, unconstitutional and illegal. Such opposition is wrong on all three counts. 

First, the charge that an immigration ban is unbiblical. Because of the immediate and implacable hostility of the people of Ammon and Moab when Israel came out of Egypt, God forbade the nation of Israel to accept any immigrants from either of these people groups to “the tenth generation” (Deut. 23:3). Since a biblical generation is 40 years, this was in essence a permanent ban. 

So the benchmark established by God is this: If a people group manifests an unremitting hostility to another nation, that nation has the moral right to forbid entrance to immigrants from that people group in the interests of its own security and peace. Was God saying that every Ammonite and Moabite was evil beyond redemption? No, but since it was virtually impossible to tell which Ammonites or Moabites Israel needed to worry about and which ones they didn’t, God’s directive was to be careful with them all. 

Immigration exceptions were made for those who were properly and satisfactorily vetted. Ruth, for instance, was a Moabite but was not only allowed to enter Israel but to become a part of the line that led to the Savior of the world. 

It should be noted that Ruth was embraced as an immigrant because of her willingness to reject the religious practices of her native land and completely assimilate to her newly adopted homeland. “Your people shall be my people, and your God my God” (Ruth 1:17). 

Second, to the charge that Trump’s directive is unconstitutional. This assertion is categorically and resoundingly false. The Constitution grants to Congress unilateral and unquestioned authority to set whatever immigration restrictions it wishes, according to Article I, Section 9. According to that section of the Constitution, Congress is free to limit “migration” to persons that “it shall think proper to admit.” 

There is, you will note, not even a prohibition against the use of a “religious” test, which is nothing more than an ideological test. First Amendment guarantees apply only to legal American residents, not to people who have never set foot in the United States. 

If Congress thinks it is not “proper to admit” individuals whose religion orders them to “slay the idolaters wherever you find them” (The Islamic Book of Surah 9:5), it is perfectly free to do so. We have denied immigration to Communists since 1952 on the grounds that communist ideology is incompatible with American values. So is the ideology of Islam. 

There is absolutely no constitutional right whatsoever to immigrate to the United States. The U.S., like every other sovereign nation in the world, has the moral right to reserve immigration to those who will be an asset and refuse it to those who won’t. 

Congress restricted immigration to the Chinese for ten years in the late nineteenth century in order to preserve demographic balance. In the 1920’s, Congress established quotas based on national origin to preserve the diverse but harmonious unity we enjoyed. 

Third, as to the charge that Trump’s directive is illegal. As Andy McCarthy reminds us:

“Federal immigration law also includes Section 1182(f) which states: ‘Whenever the President finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or non-immigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate.”

This is the very section of the law that Trump cited in his directive. He applied it specifically to seven countries of particular jihadi unrest and danger: Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Sudan and Yemen. These are countries which have already been designated by the Obama Administration as “countries of concern.” 

It’s worthy of note that this is not exactly a “Muslim ban,” since the directive does not apply to eighty-seven percent of the Muslim world. Even some countries that ought to be on the list like Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan and Pakistan are not. 

It should not be forgotten for a moment that President Obama himself banned immigration from Iraq for six months in 2011 for national security reasons. Where were the howls of outrage about religious liberty and Islamophobia back then? And let’s remember that Democrat President Jimmy Carter completely banned immigration from Iran in 1980 during the hostage crisis. Where was the screeching then about the Constitution? The silence of the left was deafening on both occasions. 

McCarthy sums it up this way: “[T]here is no doubt that the executive order temporarily banning entry from specified Muslim-majority countries is both well within President Trump’s constitutional authority and consistent with statutory law.” 

So Trump’s directive is biblical, constitutional, legal and designed to protect America’s security. There is nothing here for American citizens and patriots to dislike and everything to approve. 

Bryan Fischer is host of the one-hour weekday “Focal Point” program on American Family Radio.