Riverside County in California is listed as a Sanctuary County. [1] The designation “sanctuary” can be applied to state, city and county governments. According to the Center for Immigration Studies the term “sanctuary” is defined by the following:
“These cities, counties, and states have laws, ordinances, regulations, resolutions, policies, or other practices that obstruct immigration enforcement and shield criminals (with deportation orders) from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) — either by refusing to or prohibiting agencies from complying with ICE detainers, imposing unreasonable conditions on detainer acceptance, denying ICE access to interview incarcerated aliens, or otherwise impeding communication or information exchanges between their personnel and federal immigration officers.” [1]
So Riverside County in California is a county that refuses to cooperate with federal authorities and agencies that work to enforce our US Immigration laws. Because Riverside County doesn’t have enough resources to help fund and care for the flow of immigrants coming in, they have been turning to local churches for help.
The North American Division of Seventh-day Adventists (NAD) has recently reported that they have begun to help subsidize some of its churches who have partnered with Riverside County in California. These churches help provide food, clothes and shelter to immigrants. The NAD reports:
“Intricately involved in this activity has been the Blythe Central Seventh-day Adventist Church. First, the local church was assisting Riverside County with temporary housing for families that were being housed in California after crossing into the U.S. The county asked if organizations would provide lodging while it was determined where the people would be sent on a more permanent basis. The Blythe church volunteered to be one such place of refuge.” [2]
“The church reported that at the height of this arrangement, they were inundated with upwards of a couple hundred people at any given time. This brought challenges to the church, which was not equipped to adequately handle crowds of this capacity.” [2]
“Within the week we were able to approve some financial support for the union, and items were ordered for another delivery to the border.” [2]
As Seventh-day Adventists, a people who believe in keeping both God’s law and civil law, we should be ready to offer aid to people in need; but should we be partnering with local governments who seek to obstruct the enforcement of federal immigration laws?
Our US Constitution, Article 1, Section 8, Paragraph 4 clearly states that our federal government has the “power” to “establish an uniform rule of naturalization.” Our US Congress has implemented immigration laws and has created the federal agencies to enforce those laws. Today we have local state governments who seek to nullify our duly, constitutional federal immigration laws and are recruiting churches to help them in this endeavor.
Even though Seventh-Day Adventist Churches should not be doing the work of federal law enforcement officers, we shouldn’t be working against them either. Riverside County has been dropping off “hundreds” of immigrants at the Blythe Central Seventh-day Adventist Church.
How many of these immigrants are actually in “process” – with an immigration hearing pending before a court for a consideration to stay in the US? How many of these immigrants being housed by Seventh-day Adventist Churches don’t have any hearings scheduled? And most importantly, how many of these immigrants actually have an order of deportation by ICE?
No one knows and we will never know because part of being a “sanctuary” county (or city/state) means that the status of immigrants is never shared or discussed with anyone. It is one thing to welcome people in need and another to relocate or shield those who have been issued an “order of deportation.”
Immigration law [US Code 1324 (1)(a)(iii)] imposes criminal penalties and fines to anyone who:
“Knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that an alien has come to, entered, or remains in the United States in violation of law, conceals, harbors, or shields from detection, or attempts to conceal, harbor, or shield from detection, such alien in any place, including any building or any means of transportation.” [3]
Is our objective to help refugees with legitimate needs, or are we partnering with local “sanctuary” governmental entities who are in violation of federal law? Are we interested in humanitarian work or do we want to further the twisted theories of political organizing and social activism which persistently ignores the gospel while apparently helping the downtrodden?
It’s tragic that the North American Division of Seventh-day Adventists didn’t mention anything about sharing the Three Angels’ Message with any of these immigrants in their report. Seventh-day Adventist Churches should not just be welfare centers to simply house immigrants. We were never called to just simply become social workers or political action committees.
We should be ready to offer aid to people in need, but we must share with all people, whatever their race, background, outlook, politics, social or moral standing—our all-encompassing, all-sufficient, authorative, and necessary message of the everlasting gospel of Revelation 14. Christ’s mission is to restore relationships with Him. He meets the needs of the poor and afflicted and offers forgiveness, salvation and spiritual transformation. Satan’s victory is complete if he could distract the church from its primary, spiritual mission – the proclamation of the Three Angels’ Messages.
Sources
[1] https://cis.org/Map-Sanctuary-Cities-Counties-and-States
[2] https://www.nadadventist.org/news/stepping-forward-help-during-us-border-crisis
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