We Must Pray Regarding the Crisis Along Our Southern Border
America has been and remains the most generous nation on earth. Most Americans have no qualms about allowing immigration, they simply desire to see it done systematically, orderly, and with careful guidelines. No intellectually honest person truly believes a nation without controlled borders can survive, any more than a private home allowing anyone to walk in, at any time – interrupting the family routines, sharing possessions, facilities, etc – would survive. We are a nation of immigrants, a melting pot of different nationalities. America has also been a country that provides a safe place for those experiencing oppression. However, immigration must be handled well, protecting both the immigrant and the existing citizens.
Jesus desires that we receive His love and extend it to others. However, human compassion can often be misdirected. In an effort to help some, we may harm others. Our nation is currently facing a change in our national immigration policies, causing problems in many areas, including pain for multitudes of individuals looking for hope and a future.
There is currently a very concerning situation occurring at the southern border of the U.S. On March 9, CNN reported more than 100,000 migrants were detained at our southern border in February.1 Many in the large migrant groups making long journeys to the United States are looking for a better life in the U.S., some coming from Venezuela. They are empowered by the recent relaxation in immigration policies. However, unknown to the immigrants, the infrastructure is not yet in place to facilitate them. They are arriving at great financial and emotional cost just to be turned back. These hopeful ones are being joined by cartel and gang members, drugs and human traffickers, and possibly even members of international terrorist organizations.
Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the highest ranking Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives, sent a letter to the White House March 5, 2021: “We must acknowledge the border crisis, develop a plan, and, in no uncertain terms, strongly discourage individuals from Mexico and Central America from ever making the dangerous journey to our southern border,” McCarthy wrote.2
As recently as March 2nd, DHS Secretary Mayorkas stated that there was no crisis at the border, calling it a “‘challenge’ that was being managed.”3 By March 9th, he was calling for volunteers from within his department to go and help Customs and Border Protection, “as they face a surge in migration along the Southwest Border.”4 This type of volunteer force was deployed during a similar border crisis in 2019. Fox News stated, “The Trump administration put in place a number of protections to deal with the 2019 crisis and end pull factors bringing migrants north. While critics called many of the policies cruel, numbers declined dramatically.”5
Those policies were actually humanitarian ones instituted through the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP). MPP was a diplomatic achievement providing protection for U.S. communities along the border, as well as helping curb incentives to migrants. The latter resulted in protecting people from hardship during long journeys, and being used, abused, and harmed by those looking to take advantage of them. It also protected children from systems unable to properly care for them.
Public health laws are being used most often to repel migrants from the borders. Anyone testing positive for COVID-19 or other diseases cannot proceed. This is not the case for unaccompanied children, who we are seeing in greater numbers than ever before.6 We are trying to find solutions to care for them, as we did in prior administrations.
Children are the most unfortunate victims of this crisis. According to the documents dated March 8, CNN reports, “More than 3,200 unaccompanied migrant children were in Customs and Border Protection custody. Of those, around 2,600 were awaiting placement in shelters suitable for minors, but there were only 500 beds available to accommodate them.”7 This is up from 1,700 a week ago.
Some of these children are sent north by their parents in hopes they will get to relatives already living in the U.S. Some parents are hopeful they will be reunited with them on U.S. soil and given an opportunity to stay. This is a gamble some are surprisingly willing to take. Knowing they may never see their children again, some of these parents believe our nation will provide a future for them. But the risks are staggering. Trafficking, as well as physical and sexual abuse are the greatest risks to these children, which often occurs. Cartels are using the border crisis as a cover to transport drugs; they also extort families wanting to transport their children to America, charging them thousands of dollars these poor people do not have. The cartels then enslave the children, selling them into sex trafficking.
We must pray for these children.
There are other situations being affected by the waves of people hitting our borders all at once. In Texas, Governor Abbott held a press conference in which he said, “The Biden Administration has created a crisis at our southern border through open border policies that give the green light to dangerous cartels and other criminal activity. Border security is the federal government’s responsibility, but the State of Texas will not allow this administration’s failures to endanger the lives of innocent Texans. Instead, Texas is stepping up to fill the gaps left open by the federal government to secure the border, apprehend dangerous criminals, and keep Texans safe.”8
Governor Abbott noted that the current crisis at the southern border is a direct result of the Biden Administration’s open border policies. The Governor stated that over 800 criminal aliens have been apprehended in Texas this year, including sex offenders and gang members, and many of those individuals had been deported before. Cartels are ramping up trafficking and smuggling along the border, overwhelming border patrol resources — a strategy of the organizations to bring more dangerous elements across the border including violent criminals, contraband, and individuals from special interest countries.9 On March 9 Governor Abbott said he would deploy 500 troops to the state’s border with Mexico as part of a surge of resources necessary to stop the increase in illegal activity following federal policy changes. Governor Abbot said, “We will work to step up and try to fill the gap that the federal government is leaving open by making sure we deploy every resource…we need.” 10
U.S. Customs and Border Patrol has shut down three border checkpoints in Willcox, AZ, in order to redirect personnel to help with the massive numbers hitting the borders now. This is according to an internal document dated March 9. Closing the checkpoints will severely hamper authorities’ anti-trafficking efforts, a CBP source told Fox News.11 Human trafficking is one of the greatest battles of our day. These checkpoints are critical to keep people from being brought into the nation and used as a type of slave labor or to be sex trafficked.
Securing our borders should not be politicized. Some have said the left wants the borders open to gain future grateful voters. That would be a poor way to gain them. The cost in human suffering is far too high. Protecting our borders protects communities on the U.S. side of the border and protects the lives of those who would be immigrants.
The crisis at the border is a complicated issue. We need God’s wisdom to help us navigate our way through such weighty situations where so many human lives are at stake. Governors need to be listened to. We need national policies put in place to provide pathways to citizenship that do not overwhelm our country or provide easy access to criminals.
Contact DHS on their Comment Line at 202-282-8495. Let them know you are concerned about the southern border situation and want closed borders until there is a resolution that will keep everyone safe and provide a sure pathway to legal immigration.
America has historically been a melting pot of immigrants, but let’s do it the right way, providing a safe place for everyone involved.
“Violence will not be heard again in your land, nor devastation or destruction within your borders; but you will call your walls salvation, and your gates praise.” (Isaiah 60:18 NASB)
Pray with me:
Unless You guard our nation, Lord, we labor in vain as watchmen. As we find ourselves in a national crisis over security at our southern border, we must have Your help. Our nation is overwhelmed, yet we are just as concerned about the people who have set their hope on America to save them. Many people, especially children, are suffering. Lord, we ask you to protect them and protect our nation from the flood of drugs, cartels, terrorists, and traffickers who now have access to our cities and citizens.
We ask You to post angels all along our southern border. Keep our law officials and National Guard safe as they protect us. We decree a supernatural uncovering of everything that needs to be seen. Father, we ask that You keep us safe from politicians using the situation to forward their own agendas. Expose this evil.
And Father, more than anything else, we pray for the salvation of the people to our south. Let revival break out in those nations. Pour out Your Spirit on those precious people. And Lord, let it also come to those who are trapped at the border and don’t know what to do. We ask that to our south, and all along our southern border, it would become a revival zone. We ask this in the precious name of Jesus. Amen.
Today’s decree:
We decree that God will protect our southern border, while also saving the hopeless and helpless! He alone will provide the answers!
1 https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/09/politics/100000-migrants-encountered-us-mexico-border/index.html
4 https://nypost.com/2021/03/09/mayorkas-asks-for-new-volunteers-amid-overwhelming-migrant-surge/
5 https://www.foxnews.com/politics/dhs-chief-volunteers-southern-border-migrant-surge
6 https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/09/politics/100000-migrants-encountered-us-mexico-border/index.html
7 https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/08/politics/children-us-border-patrol/index.html
9 ibid.
11