Thread: The Mormon Church and Illegal Immigration

Center For Immigration Studies
By Ronald W. Mortensen

The Mormon Church and Illegal Immigration

Download a pdf of this Backgrounder
http://www.cis.org/articles/2011/lds-an ... ration.pdf

Ronald W. Mortensen, PhD, is a retired career U.S. Foreign Service Officer and member of the LDS Church.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (also known as the LDS or Mormon Church) regards Christ as head of the church and considers members to be Christians.1 Unlike many religious organizations that clearly and candidly stake out their positions on illegal immigration, however, the LDS Church officially takes no position on this highly divisive issue. This pleases neither those who oppose illegal immigration nor those who support it.

Members who oppose illegal immigration fear that the Church is abandoning its traditional, unwavering support of the rule of law. They also express concern that the Church appears to be biased in favor of illegal immigrants and that it is increasingly taking positions that weaken the rule of law and move the Church closer to a social justice position.

At the same time, the proponents of illegal aliens express frustration over the Church’s failure to officially declare its support in favor of illegal immigrants, especially since the Church actively proselytizes among illegal aliens and has a large and growing illegal alien membership.

In order to understand the reason for the LDS Church’s reluctance to clearly articulate its policy on illegal immigration, it is necessary to understand the unique nature of the LDS Church and its evolution from a largely American institution to a worldwide church since its founding on April 6, 1830, in Fayette, N.Y.

A Brief Introduction to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Founding. The LDS Church was organized by Joseph Smith following a vision where, according to his account, he saw and spoke with God the Father and his son, Jesus Christ. He was told that all existing religions were wrong and he was forbidden to join any of them.2

Eventually, Smith was commanded to restore the true gospel of Christ to the Earth. He subsequently organized the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which LDS members believe to be the only church on Earth that has the fullness of the gospel of Christ and the authority to carry out sacred ordinances.

Missionary Work. Within days of the Church’s founding, Smith called his brother as its first missionary3 and since that time the Church has sent out more than a million missionaries.

During the first 70 or so years of the Church’s existence, missionaries encouraged new converts in foreign countries to relocate to the United States in order to build Zion,4 which was a covenant community of saints. By 1894, Church leaders were encouraging new converts to remain in their home countries; however, many continued to relocate to the United States in order to join the main body of Church members.

In 1975, Spencer W. Kimball who was the president and prophet of the LDS Church at the time told those attending the Church’s general conference that Zion includes all of North and South America and that Church members are to remain in their native lands:

“With some of the Brethren we have just returned recently from the area conferences in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and in Buenos Aires, Argentina. In that southern world of Zion we reminded them that Zion was all of North and South America, like the wide, spreading wings of a great eagle, the one being North and the other South America.

“The Church there is progressing and growing. The people are happy and inspired; the youth are laughing and dancing as they grow to leadership.

“The ‘gathering of Israel’ is effected when the people of the faraway countries accept the gospel and remain in their native lands. The gathering of Israel for Mexicans is in Mexico; in Scandinavia, for those of the northern countries; the gathering place for the Germans is in Germany; and the Polynesians, in the islands; for the Brazilians, in Brazil; for the Argentines, in Argentina.â€

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The Church does not oppose working families ripping their children away from family and friends to bring them illegally into the United States, often at great risk to their children’s lives, but it does oppose requiring those same families and their children to safely return to their home countries and families.

The Church sees itself as a worldwide Church and yet it emphasizes American exceptionalism by insisting that illegal aliens be allowed to remain in the United States because it is inherently superior to their home countries.

Free agency and opposition to governments that deny that agency are core tenets of the Church and yet when dealing with illegal immigration the Church increasingly takes a social justice approach that eventually deprives people of their agency through forced charity, income redistribution schemes, and increased corruption as the rule of law is weakened.

Where the opponents of illegal immigration see contradictions such as those listed above, however, the proponents see an opportunity to push Church policy closer to their social justice positions. The proponents of illegal aliens, therefore, focus on one-sided compassion.

Church media groups show the plight of highly sympathetic individuals. Advocates for illegal aliens, including the Church’s public affairs group and senior Church leaders, place compassion (and corruption) ahead of the rule of law and insist on sympathy for people who are violating numerous criminal laws and who are routinely committing multiple felonies that do great harm to millions of Americans. They advocate mercy without accountability for the perpetrators, or justice for victims, and they label those who support the rule of law as lacking compassion, racist, and/or hateful.

Those who oppose illegal immigration call on the Church to return to its roots and to do what is best for the United States and the families of American citizens and millions of legal immigrants who are striving to obey, honor, and sustain the law. They believe that the Church should hold illegal aliens, who routinely commit serious job-related felonies and other crimes, accountable for their actions rather than rewarding them with Church membership and benefits and teaching them that it is acceptable to violate the law if done for the right reason.

The proponents of illegal immigration, including BYU Professor Garcia, Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff, and illegal immigration activist Tony Yapias all openly call on the Church to take a strong stand in favor of illegal immigrants.99

“The church’s ‘don’t ask, don’t tell policy’ isn’t going to work anymore … . We can all open the scriptures and justify our side, but we would like to know where the church stands on terms of the actual legal, political part,â€

The Church sees itself as a worldwide Church and yet it emphasizes American exceptionalism by insisting that illegal aliens be allowed to remain in the United States because it is inherently superior to their home countries.

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This is exactly where both Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee stand.