Thread: Another narrow progressive immigration perspective

Posted by Adel under Uncategorized

Jack Haberer, editor of the Presbyterian Outlook, recently wrote an editorial on the issue of illegal immigration, that I found abhorrent, naive, and biblically unfaithful. While he considers himself a centrist, he usually defends more progressive policies and agendas both within the church and concerning social policy. I will assess his viewpoints and highlight some of his faulty thinking, and clear progressive agenda.

Here’s the situation. Available houses on the market have outgrown the number of homebuyers, producing an excess inventory of 1.5 million unsold homes. Prices have dropped 25%. Many homes now are worth less than their mortgage principal. Many homeowners have defaulted on their loans. Banks and other lenders have collapsed. Financial institutions still in business have tightened loan requirements. Spending has slowed. Construction has stalled. Workers have lost jobs. Manufacturing has slowed. Stock markets worldwide have suffered sell-offs. It’s a mess out there. If we could have increased the number of families seeking to buy homes by, say, 1.5 million, what might have happened? Could we have averted that run of falling dominoes? Might we have dodged the recession bullet? What might happen if we, even now, could bring more homebuyers into the market? Might we speed the end of the worst recession in the past 75 years? Some experts predict that home prices will drop another 20% before leveling off, so the dominoes of economic downturn continue to fall. According to economist and Forbes columnist Gary Shilling of A. Gary Shilling and Co., the only effective way to reverse that trend is either to bulldoze those houses glutting the market (any volunteers?) or to invite more immigrants into the U.S., especially those toting H1B visas (to fill key positions needed in American businesses) to purchase those unsold homes. We have argued in this column that the present policy on treatment of immigrants needs to change, spurred on by fundamental Christian ethics of grace and justice as is being advocated by the Come Let Us Reason Together Governing Agenda (see p. 6). It promotes legislation that paves the way to an “earned path to citizenship for most undocumented residents.â€

Jack Haberer, obviously has a distorted view of life as well as the bible.