God and Illegal aliens

As Congress considers immigration reform, will they realize that our country's need for security should be balanced by a commitment to fair and equitable treatment, or will they bow to public pressure ginned up by the professional ranters on the airwaves?

I contend we should allow more Mexican and Central American citizens to qualify for legal work visas. The low number of work visas is a huge contributor to the issue of immigrants coming illegally. Waiting lines of up to forty years time (for some categories of applicants) are completely unreasonable and arguably cause many to give up on even applying for a legal guest worker visa. It would be much preferable to process those wanting to come by allowing more guest workers to come and get documentation so we know who they are. Having legal channels for access to the U.S. blocked to most just contributes to illegal entry. As a matter of national security, we cannot afford to make those wanting to come here have no means of coming here legally in a reasonable amount of time, if they pass scrutiny.

We should also have a way for those who have come illegally to pay fines and get in line to become citizens. Since the need to support their families in bad economic conditions in their home countries is often the reason they've chosen to come illegally after being unable to get a guest worker visa, the U.S. should have some compassion and make a way for them to eventually legally join family members already here.

I’ve travelled in Mexico and seen shantytown slums where every shack was made of trash (aluminum cans, etc.). Since NAFTA, American corn has been sold in Mexico at prices far below those local farmers can produce it. That’s because the factory farm’s production is quicker and less labor intensive. Many farmers have been driven off their land because they no longer can make a living. The towns can’t absorb so many and provide them with work, which leaves them with few alternatives to support their families except to try to make it to the U.S.

Surveys show Americans are overwhelmingly believers in the Judeo-Christian tradition, so I'm surprised at the antagonism from those who follow the Bible, whether it's the Hebrew scriptures or the Christian Old and New Testament for it is completely contrary to scripture. Here's what God says:
"When an alien lives with you in your land, do not mistreat him. The alien living with you must be treated as one of your native-born. Love him as yourself, for you were aliens in Egypt. I am the LORD your God." Leviticus 19:33-34
As Christians and Jews grow in knowledge and understanding of God's Word, we are called to repent, re-think, based on learning God's perspective (and recognizing how short we have fallen). If we are obedient, we open our hearts in compassion and in hospitality to immigrants, regardless of their legal status.

That does not mean to throw wide the door and invite all who want to enter to do so. Remember the verse that we are to be wise as sperpents yet gentle as a dove. So we check each immigrant's background, which we can only do if we get them into legal lines. How're we gonna do that, you may ask? By giving them reasonable hope that they will be able to enter legally. If an immigrant can get a visa to come legally without too much effort, which one in their right mind would risk the cost and the danger to come illegally? No one!

The right thing to do is to make sure that injustices of the previous immigration "reform" efforts are fixed and people who had a minor brush with the law as a young person aren't picked up and deported or held in jail for years. There have been too many cases of that where the punishment does not fit the crime. In fact, immigrants may have already ‘paid their debt to society’ and yet be faced with deportation.