Skwim
Veteran Member
Assuming you've done what you suggest here, read more fully and learned why they fled to Egypt, how about sharing.
1) What is it you've read?
2) And what does it say is the reason they fled to Egypt?
.
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Nativity Scene Depicts Jesus, Mary, And Joseph In Cages
- Thread starter Skwim
- Start date
1) What is it you've read?
2) And what does it say is the reason they fled to Egypt?
.
halbhh
The wonder and awe of "all things".
Oh sorry. In reference to my first post, about Matthew chapter 2. So the "verse 13" is from that chapter. Matthew 2:13
Matthew 2:13 When the magi had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. "Get up!" he said. "Take the Child and His mother and flee to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the Child to kill Him."
Thus I could draw the exact parallel -- a credible death threat, just like many of the latin American refugees are fleeing from, very exactly.
The latin American refugees very often (many at least) have been directly threatened, face to face, with execution if they don't pay or support the local gang. The threats are very credible, as many do get murdered by the gangs. Often a refugee can tell about a relative that has been murdered. So, it's not just a generalized vague fear, see, but a real death threat.
I'll find one example video and then post it just below.
---------
Within the first 30 seconds, you learn the reality of the threats carried out against them:
see new post just below --
Twilight Hue
Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
Refugees?.
"A Methodist church in Claremont unveiled a Nativity scene Saturday night depicting Jesus, Mary and Joseph as refugees in cages, likening one of the most well-known images of the Christmas season to photos that have become synonymous with criticism of the Trump administration’s border separation policies.
The display, which has stoked debate on the Facebook page of the church's lead pastor shows classic Nativity figurines of Joseph and Mary in cages on either side of a cage containing the manger of Jesus.
“We see this as, in some ways, the Holy Family standing in for the nameless families,” said the Rev. Karen Clark Ristine, the lead pastor at Claremont United Methodist Church. “We’ve heard of their plight; we’ve seen how these asylum seekers have been greeted and treated. We wanted the Holy Family to stand in for those nameless people because they also were refugees.”
While the Nativity scene shows Jesus shortly after birth and is the foundation of the Christmas holiday, the Claremont depiction appears to be invoking Joseph and Mary’s flight to Egypt. Under most interpretations, the infant Jesus and his parents had to escape Jerusalem for fear King Herod would have the baby slaughtered, perceiving the child as a threat to his reign."
source
Thoughts?
Or
Illegals?
shmogie
Well-Known Member
You didn't answer my question. Do you believe they are all bad, dishonest, criminals, regardless of which South American country they are from?
To the best of my knowledge, they have followed the prescribed courses of action and have not entered illegally. Here's some info about the actual process, should you care to read it.
Is seeking asylum legal?
U.S. Border "Crisis"
Asylum seekers are not criminals: what you need to know
Yes, seeking asylum is legal. Asylum seekers must be in the U.S. or at a port of entry (an airport or an official land crossing) to apply for, or request the opportunity to apply for, asylum. "There’s no way to ask for a visa or any type of authorization in advance for the purpose of seeking asylum,” says the International Rescue Committee’s director of immigration, Olga Byrne. “You just have to show up."
"While the administration is saying people should come here legally and follow a legal process, it's making it impossible to do so,” says Byrne. “So many individuals and families have been trying to follow a legal process, but instead they’ve been stranded in Tijuana or other northern Mexico towns because they have been denied access to any U.S. official.”
How do people seek asylum at the border?
Asylum seekers who arrive at the U.S. border are typically placed in either immigration court removal proceedings, where they will have a future opportunity to make their case for asylum before an administrative judge, or in expedited removal proceedings, which allow border agents to order an individual deported from the U.S. without a hearing before a judge.
However, under U.S. law, if a person in expedited removal states a fear of return to their home country or intention to apply for asylum, they will be referred for a credible fear interview conducted by a trained asylum officer within U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).
The asylum seeker must prove to the officer that there is a “significant possibility” he or she is eligible for asylum, and must also be subject to a credibility assessment. If the officer makes a positive finding, the asylum seeker is referred to an immigration court where they will have the opportunity to apply for asylum before an immigration judge. If the individual does not meet the credible fear screening standard, he or she can be deported.
Some individuals who are already in the U.S., such as those who may have entered on a tourist visa or other temporary visa, may also apply for asylum. In those circumstances, the process for asylum varies.
Is it legal to cross the U.S. border to seek asylum?
There is immigration control, which everyone wants, and then there is anti-immigration "send them dark-skinned foreigners a message" folks. That's not immigration control, but xenophobia. Xenophobia is not Christian.
Please read above.
Right?
Asylum seekers must be in the U.S. or at a port of entry (an airport or an official land crossing) to apply for, or request the opportunity to apply for, asylum. "There’s no way to ask for a visa or any type of authorization in advance for the purpose of seeking asylum,” says the International Rescue Committee’s director of immigration, Olga Byrne. “You just have to show up."
Of course not. But all Christians should adhere to the moral positions of Jesus Christ. Right? An anti-immigrant mentality is not among any of those.
I doubt very much that the overwhelming majority of asylum seekers are criminals or bad people, however that isn't the point.
Every city in Mexico has an American presence where asylum can be legally sought. Immigration officials are present in a number of Mexican border towns.
Your article, from a biased source, dances around the issue of illegally crossing the border. Why ? Because it is illegal for any foreign citizen to enter the US without being screened and legally approved to enter.
You state that there is no large amount of people seeking asylum, yet you decry the length of time to legally seek asylum.
Those who are responsible for the process say the slowness is based in a flood of applicants and a lack of staff to process them. Do you think they are lying ?
Do you believe that if a legal process is slow, you are justified in breaking the law to bring about what you want ?
People are accused of being anti immigrant because they have concern about the wholesale importation of folks from central America. Have this concern, and you aren't a Christian.
My concern, and that of many isn't based in color or race. It is based in the fact that these people do not speak English, are poorly educated, if educated at all, and have no skills that would give them the ability to properly support themselves. Therefore, their healthcare and and living expenses become the responsibility of the American taxpayer to a greater or lesser extent. They most likely will not make enough money to pay income taxes, nor own property, where the funding foe schools come from. Schools that are having to adjust to students with no knowledge of America, or it's culture, or it's language. Some schools must hire translators and special ed teachers to work with these kids. All at additional cost to the school.
America is over twenty trillion dollars in debt. The American taxpayer is not a source of unlimited funds. The goose that lays the golden eggs can become exhausted, or die. Right now there are American children that are hungry, there are American veterans living on the street.
As other nations do, I support immigrants to the US be required to have a marketable skill, and the ability to assimilate.
Right now the economy is booming, and unemployment is at an all time low, but this will change. When it changes, unwarranted drains on the economy will be very obvious.
Is this a non Christian attitude ? Not at all. It is easy to be charitable when you are spending someone else's money.
It is easy to be charitable when you focus on one non American group, and ignore Americans desperately in need.
If America was not in debt, if Americans in need no longer existed, if the government had surpluses projected to exist in the forseeable future, I would have no objection at all to mass immigration to the US.
In his teachings, Christ discussed individual relationships with other individuals. The churches of the NT primarily cared fr their own members in need.
Christ never discussed government responsibilities. He never said His followers should agitate for government to apply His standard for supporting and aiding the poor.
As an individual, like most Christians, I pay my taxes to the government, and then financially support various efforts to reduce pain and suffering. Some goes to immigrants in the country legally.
In the interest of the goose being able to lay the golden eggs for Americans, I do not support a non merit based immigration system. Of those Central Americans who actually show up for their immigration hearing ( a low percentage) almost 90% are not granted asylum and are deemed economic immigrants, not eligible for asylum.
Those who feel as you do have every right to donate money to the immigrants in Mexico. In fact, if there are enough of you willing to sacrifice personally, you could ensure that they have a safe and happy life in Mexico, where culturally and by language rhey would be much more at home.
*Sigh*
That's what you call a car-cash of biblical exegesis. I believe you, having heard at a distance some "Prosperity-gospelers" preaching.
In a sense, I do feel sorry for them. It must be terribly difficult trying to parse for "loop-holes" and "get-out-clauses" in the gospels' virulent and pronounced hostility to wealth and parallel calumnies against those holding it.
As Pope Francis, actually, stated himself in 2010 (before assuming the papacy) about early Christianity:
"The option for the poor comes from the first centuries of Christianity. It's the Gospel itself. If you were to read one of the sermons of the first fathers of the Church, from the second or third centuries, about how you should treat the poor, you’d say it was Trotskyist. The Church has always had the honor of this preferential option for the poor." (Transcript of 2010 judicial inquiry, "Bergoglio Declara ante el TOF No 5 Archived June 11, 2013, at the Wayback Machine," translated in Ivereigh, Austen (November 25, 2014))
Note his wording: the 'option for the poor' is the Gospel, as opposed to even just an element of it.
Even a cursory reading of Matthew or Luke would make that pretty apparent (i.e. "Woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort" (Luke 6:24)).
If you think about it, the policy platform of the Christian Right in the US (if put in the simplest of terms) amounts to a concern with: "family, property, opposition to abortion / gay marriage and opposition to social welfare".
Jesus of the gospels? Anti-family (controversially so, but he absolutely was), anti-private possession (i.e. "none of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions" (Luke 14:33), said nothing at all about abortion or homosexuality and throughout the gospels is shown freely healing people from all manner of illness whilst excoriating the wealthy and powerful in his society, to such an extent that his disciples effectively implemented an early, ecclesiastical proto-welfare system based on need rather than ability to pay, in which "no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common. ... There was not a needy person among them...[everything] was distributed to each as any had need" (Acts 4:32-35).
I often wonder how they manage to compute these two, ostensibly, irreconcilable worldviews - with a straight face and complete sincerity. My brain has never quite managed to figure it out
No amount of fancy theologizing is capable of bridging that gap, because the outlooks are so diametrically opposed in principle and substance, even if one can quibble over the details within some kind of broader salvation theology.
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halbhh
The wonder and awe of "all things".
If you knew typical undocumented immigrants, as I have face to face, going into houses in neighborhoods and meeting people, sometimes working on jobs with them, you'd be unsurprised by this:
"undocumented immigrants contributed $13 billion into the Social Security funds in 2016 and $3 billion to Medicare."
https://www.marketplace.org/2019/01/28/undocumented-immigrants-quietly-pay-billions-social-security-and-receive-no/
You'd learn, first hand, the actual reality: they are hard working, and support themselves. I learned this working hard, sweating, alongside them. Many.
First hand.
They pay taxes, of many kinds -- property taxes, sales taxes, even income taxes, and...! including for many, Social Security taxes -- even though they will not be able to collect social security (!).... Meaning, they -- more than just a few of these very same people you worry can't support themselves -- They are in reality subsidizing you (!) and me, who will be able to collect Social Security....
That's the real world. Not the talking point world of democrat vs republican where you can't trust a single thing you hear. The real, actual world.
Skwim
Veteran Member
Nice as this may be, my guess is that you're assuming almost all are paying their fair share. The fact is, many are being paid under the table, as acknowledged in the following.
"Though there are many undocumented immigrants who are paid “under the table” for their work and do not pay taxes on their income, many others do pay in the hope that it will someday help them become citizens."
source
source
Moreover, an undocumented worker paid under the table also brings the employer the advantage of paying less in the way of welfare contributions and other non-wage costs.
So who knows how much revenue undocumented workers should be contributing to the country.
.
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shmogie
Well-Known Member
I spent my working life as a LEO in a southwestern city. 25 years. I am pretty sure I know the reality of illegals in America. Yes, if they have a job, their employer and they contribute to SS. That has nothing to do with with the amount of income taxes or property taxes they pay. It has nothing to do with the costs of their their children in schools. It has nothing to do with their medical costs. It has nothing to do with government provided subsidies they receive.
Absolutely!
halbhh
The wonder and awe of "all things".
That's a good question.
Here's a predominate, mainstream view from some that have studied that:
Aviva Chomsky, a professor at Salem State College, states that "Early studies in California and in the Southwest and in the Southeast...have come to the same conclusions. Immigrants, legal and illegal, are more likely to pay taxes than they are to use public services. Illegal immigrants are not eligible for most public services and live in fear of revealing themselves to government authorities. Households headed by illegal immigrants use less than half the amount of federal services that households headed by documented immigrants or citizens make use of."[42]
Professor of Law Francine Lipman writes that the belief that illegal migrants are exploiting the US economy and that they cost more in services than they contribute to the economy is "undeniably false".[43] Lipman asserts that "illegal immigrants actually contribute more to public coffers in taxes than they cost in social services" and "contribute to the U.S. economy through their investments and consumption of goods and services; filling of millions of essential worker positions resulting in subsidiary job creation, increased productivity and lower costs of goods and services; and unrequited contributions to Social Security, Medicare and unemployment insurance programs."
Economic impact of illegal immigrants in the United States - Wikipedia
...
They pay not only the $16 bn in Social Security and Medicare taxes from which they cannot ever draw without becoming a citizen, but of course they also pay state and local city taxes:
The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy released a report in February 2016, stating that 11 million illegal immigrants in the United States are paying annually an estimated amount of $11.64 billion in state and local taxes, "on average an estimated 8 percent of their incomes."[51]
Economic impact of illegal immigrants in the United States - Wikipedia
In short, they pay in a manner similar to low income citizens: modest amounts that are nevertheless significant. But, since they cannot collect certain key benefits such as Social Security, the bottom line is they are subsidizing your retirement just from that alone, even before we add on the secondary effect of how they help make the economy larger, which also reduces your own long term absolute portion of the national debt ==
i.e. -- instead of just X American citizens owing that debt, it's X + 11 million extra immigrants, together, effectively, as they help pay overall taxes and help maintain the overall economy.
You benefit in have extra people helping grow and sustain the economy which ultimately helps to handle that debt, long term, so that less of it falls on you personally and your children and grandchildren than would have without the immigrants.
halbhh
The wonder and awe of "all things".
Just an important bit to keep in mind: anyone that lives somewhere in the U.S. that pays either rent or owns a home -- either way they are effectively paying property taxes. Landlords include property taxes of course as part of their overall expenses and when those taxes go up, then rents tend to go up (specific example (I personally know a landlord of several houses): landlords that would have been content to just keep rents the same will instead seek higher rents in line with the general market, due to the fact of the rising property taxes -- the property taxes force landlords to seek rents in line with the market rates, making renters basically pay the property taxes, just like your ordinary common sense would suggest would happen)