How should Christian organisations respond to illegal migration?

Last week, clips circulated on X of a large event hosted for asylum seekers in Braintree, Essex. This was allegedly a collaboration between Care4Calais and the Salvation Army, whose logo is visible in the footage.

Many readers will know that Braintree is one of the areas most egregiously affected by the dysfunction of our current asylum system, being adjacent to the facilities at MDP Wethersfield — a former RAF base now home to 800 asylum seekers. The Home Office is set to increase capacity to 1245 (with speculation it could rise to 1700). According to local activists, the migrants are bussed into town every Thursday and given liberty to roam as they collect various free supplies. 

These activists, most notably Free Speech Shell, have documented the migrants’ uncanny and disruptive presence, which has included assaults. Footage from last week’s event shows them swearing at concerned locals and boasting about being given free shoes and phones.

Some characterised it as a “party”, though it’s not clear that it was. But it was certainly a large scale, public event, held mostly outside on a sunny day with smiling attendants, at which men (and they were all men) who have broken into Britain were given tickets to come and go as they pleased, walking away with, at the very least, a smart new pair of trainers. As acts of support for illegal migrants go, it was fairly ostentatious.

What felt particularly egregious for some was the highly visible nature of a Christian organisation, the Salvation Army, in the event. There are also reports of them hosting a Christmas meal for the migrants last December. 

Some Christian organisations think the humanitarian response is open arms

Moving away from the specifics of what went on in Braintree last week, this raises the broader question of how Christian organisations should respond to the UK’s current wave of illegal migrants.

Clearly, some Christian organisations think the humanitarian response is open arms. The headline of a Giles Fraser Guardian article from 2015 is forever burned into my mind to exemplify this: “Christian politicians won’t say it, but the Bible is clear: let the refugees in, every last one”. More currently, organisations such as the Sanctuary Foundation, led by evangelical activist Krish Kandiah, argue that the Christian response should be “Welcome, Work, Worthwhile Housing and Welfare”. Recently, Kandiah was posting upbeat videos of himself eating Ben & Jerry’s at celebrations during Refugee Week.

As a Christian myself, I find this approach toward Britain’s current illegal migration crisis both credulous and crass, and remain dismayed that so few advocate for anything else.

First: credulous. Christian refugee advocates are right to cite biblical principles to care for the vulnerable and the stranger, which are marks of political justice and true religion in both the Old and New Testament (Leviticus 19:33-34; Deuteronomy 24:17-18; James 1:27). However, it is patently absurd to suggest that this characterises most illegal migrants now claiming asylum in Britain, such as those seen in Braintree last week. At least 75 per cent of small boat migrants are men, not women and children; huge numbers tear up their documents en route and virtually all have already passed through multiple safe countries before deciding to enter Britain illegally to access the most generous welfare package of all European nations. The government still refuses to publish data on asylum seeker crime rates, but high-profile sexual assaults (such rapes on Bournemouth and Brighton beaches) and murders (such as Rhiannon Whyte) speak for themselves, and our best proxies (usually nationality) strongly suggest that asylum seekers commit these crimes at highly disproportionate rates. This is clearly not what was in view when Moses wrote the Levitical laws regarding sojourners, let alone when Britain signed the 1951 Refugee Convention. Some offer the riposte that over 40 per cent of asylum claims are found to be valid at the first decision, but our ECHR-dominated approach to what makes a valid claim is widely known to be risible, allowing criminals to remain in Britain on a regular basis, such as the infamous Albanian chicken nugget asylum seeker.

Parallels are often made on this subject with the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37), framing illegal migrants as the poor man attacked on his way to Jericho and in need of compassion. Yet our current system makes it impossible to stop those who instead take the part of the robbers, with the women, children, and poor of Britain being the ones left at the side of the road as our religious leaders walk by. This dynamic was on full display in Braintree last week, as a local vicar argued with Marie Heath, whose son Lee was murdered (according to her) by four illegal migrants in Germany in 2011.

A Christian commitment to the truth must include a refusal to be taken in by or to validate the rank deception of many illegal migrants, such as that of Emad al-Swealmeen, the Liverpool suicide bomber confirmed at Liverpool Cathedral.

This excess of one virtue at the expense of all others suggests a desire to simply appear Christian

Second, these Christian responses are crass. Even if you are somehow convinced of the veracity of most migrants’ asylum claims, it should be patently obvious that most Britons — and notably those forced to live closest to migrant facilities — are not convinced and are instead scared and angry. You might think that others need to hear about the wonderful opportunity to show hospitality to the stranger, but most people simply do not want to listen in the current circumstances, and it is the work of a fool to deliver what one sees as good news boorishly: “Whoever blesses his neighbour, rising early in the morning, will be counted as cursing” (Proverbs 27:14). Christian humanitarian relief to illegal migrants should be provided with minimal fanfare and away from the public eye. It should certainly never involve free iPhones, expensive trainers, free rein to visit the betting shop in Braintree town centre, and Ben & Jerry’s jamborees. 

These responses are also crass in that they exhibit an excess of one Christian virtue at the expense of all others. I have in mind G.K. Chesterton’s words in Orthodoxy:

The modern world is not evil; in some ways the modern world is far too good. It is full of wild and wasted virtues. When a religious scheme is shattered… it is not merely the vices that are let loose. The vices are, indeed, let loose, and they wander and do damage. But the virtues are let loose also; and the virtues wander more wildly, and the virtues do more terrible damage. The modern world is full of the old Christian virtues gone mad. The virtues have gone mad because they have been isolated from each other and are wandering alone. Thus some scientists care for truth; and their truth is pitiless. Thus some humanitarians only care for pity; and their pity (I am sorry to say) is often untruthful.

Untruthful pity, suicidal empathy — Chesterton saw it coming. This excess of one virtue at the expense of all others suggests a desire to simply appear Christian through displaying a currently popular virtue, rather than to ground oneself in the genuine, fully orbed history of Christian ethical and political thought, regardless of what the world thinks. 

With such a history to draw on, the response of Christian organisations to our current migrant crisis should be fundamentally quite simple, whilst acknowledging that the reality of policy and implementation is a politically and practically complex matter best left to the authorities.

First, Christian organisations should support humane detention. All illegal migrants are criminals already, by virtue of having broken into Britain. Some have committed far worse crimes. Yet a Christian belief in the image of God (Genesis 1:26) necessitates support for humane detention. This should not amount to providing a level of care that acts as an incentive to further migrants but merely meeting basic bodily needs as we do in prison for other lawbreakers.

Second, Christian organisations should pursue evangelism. The church can provide humanitarian aid and always has, but it has a unique calling that no other institution has: to preach the Christian Gospel (Matthew 28:20). More than asylum in a particular earthly country, Christians regard the greatest need of any illegal migrant as the need to find their citizenship in heaven (Philippians 3:20). It is good and licit for churches to seek to share the Gospel with asylum seekers whilst they are detained in Britain.

Third, Christian organisations should support the orderly deportation of illegal migrants. Christians must affirm the New Testament teaching of Romans 13 that everyone is “subject to the governing authorities” (13:1), including those who undermine the rule of law by entering our country illegally. Furthermore, Christians must affirm that the one in authority “does not bear the sword in vain” but is meant to “carr[y] out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer” (13:4). The just and officially stated penalty for entering Britain illegally is usually deportation, and Christians should support this measure uncontroversially, alongside providing aid and evangelism to those very same people.

Christian organisations should be able to hold these things together. This would be a worked example of Chesterton’s exhortation to hold numerous virtues together without letting one wander off like a madman. Until churches and other Christian groups can do that when it comes to illegal migration, they will be squandering their opportunity to be a good witness to their neighbours — especially if those neighbours live in Braintree.