If you are a foreigner with a good heart, don't expect to be treated any different than a criminal if you want to come to America. The Southern Poverty Law Center's Immigrant Justice department reports stories such as migrant workers going for months without being paid or routinely cheated out of their pay, some forced into guarded labor camps and one man whose life savings were confiscated by police. If you are forced to choose the illegal route, either because you cannot afford the $1,000 or more immigration and associated fees or because the paperwork is discouragingly burdensome, then you will suffer even more. Reuters reports that illegal immigrants are often "denied food, water and medical treatment or otherwise abused by Border Patrol agents". The same story also reports that many of the abuses meet international definitions of torture.
There are two sides to every story of course. Illegal immigrants are also responsible for crimes such as smuggling a large portion of heroin, marijuana, cocaine into the USA and are also responsible for murders and sex crimes. Of course regular Americans also commit their fair share of such crimes. Legal or illegal does the Bible say anything at all about how we should treat foreigners? Leviticus 19 gives broad principles on how God expected ancient Israel to treat foreigners. Foreigners and the poor were to be given humanitarian food aid. They are not to be mistreated. In other passages Israel was commanded to treat foreigners with love and show them justice.
America is not a hospitable nation. Be prepared to be insulted. Be prepared to be told that America is the best country in the world, meaning that yours is not. Foreigner, do not enter her thinking that you will have the same opportunities that some few famous immigrants have had. Those days are over. Be prepared to be a second class citizen at best or join the ranks of those who fight to make America what it once was, a land of opportunity for all.
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