Should Christians provide humanitarian aid to illegals? What does the parable of the Good Samaritan suggest?

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As you know, tens of thousands of illegals are streaming into the US right now.  We are told that many of them are children and some of them are hungry and have nasty, but treatable, conditions like scabies and lice.

Glenn Beck recently made huge waves by announcing that he would organize a relief effort and provide humanitarian support to the illegals, mostly aiming to help the children on the border.  This made a lot of Patriots mad. Including me.

I’m a Christian first and a Patriot second, so I stopped to think how a Christian, in my opinion, should approach this.

Christians should be guided by the parable of the Good Samaritan in the Bible. In these passages, a Jewish man is beaten by robbers and left for dead on the roadside.  A rabbi and a supposedly religious man pass the man by but neither stops to help him. Finally, a Samaritan helps the man.  This was remarkable because the Samaritans and Jews had a long history of battles and hated each other.  The Samaritan gives first aid and then transports the man to an inn. He pays for a few days of the man’s stay – for as long as it takes him to recover. That’s the key.

Does the example of the Good Samaritan mean Christians should help the illegals?

In my opinion, yes, but only until they are healthy enough to return.  Like the Good Samaritan, I believe we should offer temporary aid to anyone who needs it to allow them to recover.  The Good Samaritan paid for a few days of the man’s stay at the inn, enough to let him recover.  The analogy here would be to try to treat the medical conditions of the illegals so they are healthy enough to return to their home countries. This would be fulfilling our Christian duty, in my opinion.

It’s like when someone runs out of gas and is stuck on the side of the road.  It makes sense to help them by giving them a gallon of gas so they can get to a gas station and then be on their way.  That’s giving them the temporary help they need to, in effect, recover.  But it doesn’t make sense to give them your credit card and tell them to buy all the gas they need for the rest of their life.

By letting illegals into the US, we are effectively giving them all the welfare they need for the rest of their lives.  I know that many illegals work hard and aren’t on welfare, but a good number of them are.  Once those kids are in the US, most of them will be on welfare for at least a while, and maybe a long time.  It’s a lot like giving them having our credit cards to buy all the gas they want for the rest of their lives.

And that’s way more than the Good Samaritan did.