On July 31, The New York Times reported, “As many as 60,000 people were estimated to have surged from Morocco into Ceuta, the small exclave at the center of a crisis for Spain’s pro-immigration government.” A New York Post headline read, “Thousands of illegal African migrants overrun Spanish enclave, turn streets into open toilets and bathe in fountains: ‘An apocalypse.’”
A series of recent Spanish government decisions effectively rolled out the welcome mat to illegal immigration. The border swarm should not have been a surprise. Ceuta normally has a population of around 80,000 people. In short order, 60,000 Moroccans, 99% Muslim, mostly military-age males, crashed their way through the barriers and into the town. They carried no luggage or supplies, just hope for prosperity in Spain. They came with nothing, expecting everything.
Spain’s government finally sent troops, then happily announced that half the invaders had gone home. But when a town of 80,000 is invaded by 60,000, half can go home and you still have a mess. You still have chaos. You still have frightened residents locked inside their homes — praying that help arrives soon.
Ceuta raises a question Americans need to consider. Many in our country now oppose the agency known as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). They march with signs saying, “Abolish ICE!” and “Defund ICE!” But it’s not just people in the street. In February, an Economist/YouGov Poll “found that 50% of Americans supported abolishing ICE, while 39% opposed eliminating the agency.”
With those kinds of numbers, politicians have gotten in on the act including Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker. New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani wants to abolish ICE because, he says, it “terrorizes our cities… puts us all in danger.” These voices have been joined by at least five current members of Congress, a host of congressional candidates (some of whom are expected to win elections this fall), and several other government officials.
New York’s 13th Congressional District is considered a safe Democratic district. So, by winning that primary election, extreme leftist Darializa Avila Chevalier (also known as DAK) is not only considered a safe bet to win that seat in the U.S. House of Representatives this fall, but to stay there for as long as she wants. She converted to Islam in 2018, hates Israel, and says the U.S. is just as bad. “These are not only like systems,” she says of Israel and the U.S., “they are the same system.” Ms. Chevalier says she is not a communist, but she has called for the nationalization of pharmaceutical companies, hospitals and “landlords’ property,” and recommends that everyone read Karl Marx’s Das Kapital.
On immigration, her position is even more sweeping. “Yes,” she said, “literally abolish the border.” Can you imagine the reign of terror she’s calling for when she says, “abolish the border”? The people of Ceuta don’t have to use much imagination. They lived the nightmare.
If ICE disappeared tomorrow, the United States could either replace it with another agency or stop enforcing immigration laws. Replacing ICE might buy time for illegal immigrants while the government forms a new agency or adapts an old agency for a new job. Beyond that, it does nothing. The other option — stop enforcing immigration laws, effectively opening the border — invites chaos and destruction.
Reform ICE wherever reform is needed. But abandoning immigration enforcement is not reform. It is surrender. It is giving up national sovereignty, and that is madness. Last week, Ceuta, Spain proved it.
Editor’s Note: Borders And The Need For Biblical Discernment
Pastor Greg Laurie, of Harvest Riverside, highlighted the need to examine borders and immigration with Biblical discernment.
“It’s important for us to align our worldview with the Bible, and Scripture has a lot to say about the many issues we’re facing right now in culture. That includes immigration, border policies, and order,” Laurie noted. “It’s true we find talk about welcoming a stranger in the Old Testament, but that’s only half of it. It doesn’t mean that our nation cannot have order in the process of doing so. In fact, the expectation communicated in Scripture is that the stranger abides by the law of the land and assimilates.’
“There is a right way to come into our nation,” he stressed, adding that “the right and necessity of a nation to be secure is [also] something biblically supported.”
“There is a place for walls in America and other nations,” Laurie emphasized. “What did Nehemiah go back to Jerusalem for? To rebuild the city. Nehemiah 2:17-18 reads, ‘Then I said to them, You see the distress that we are in, how Jerusalem lies waste, and its gates are burned with fire. Come and let us build the wall of Jerusalem, that we may no longer be a reproach. And I told them of the hand of my God which had been good upon me, and also of the king’s words that he had spoken to me. So they said, ‘Let us rise up and build.’ Then they set their hands to this good work.’ Acts 17:26 says that God has determined the boundaries of nations: ‘And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings.’ God is in favor of borders.”
Apologist and author Alex McFarland also addressed the need to stand Biblically on the topic, especially as politicians and “progressive” churches twist the Bible to advocate for open borders.
“For centuries, Christians have wrestled with the tension between mercy and order, compassion and responsibility. That tension is at the heart of today’s immigration debate, where some in the church insist that Biblical commands to ‘welcome the stranger’ (Leviticus 19:34) require support for open borders and tolerance of illegal immigration,” McFarland wrote. “This reading, however sincere, reflects a misuse of Scripture, Christian benevolence, and the God-ordained role of civil government.”
“House Speaker Mike Johnson is to be commended for articulating this balance in a recent press conference on Capitol Hill. Drawing openly from his Christian faith, Johnson stated that Scripture does not call governments to abdicate their responsibilities,” he detailed. “On the contrary, the Bible affirms that maintaining order, enforcing laws, and protecting citizens are moral duties. His remarks offered a needed counterweight to the growing tendency among some in the church to selectively quote Scripture while disregarding its broader teaching.”
“A truly Christian approach to immigration makes no place for cruelty and indifference — but it also rejects naivety,” McFarland described. “Borders are not immoral. Laws are not unloving. A nation that enforces its laws while seeking humane, lawful reforms is acting well within the bounds of Biblical teaching. It is time for religious leaders to stop misusing Scripture in this debate and to affirm the full counsel of God’s Word — one that honors compassion, order, and the rule of law together.”
