Jesus the Immigrant: Following Christ's Immigration Beyond the Nativity

The biblical  refugee family didn't speak a word of English as they crossed the border. Perhaps the hot sun beat down on their brown skin as they traveled. Maybe they had to stop for water with the rest of their caravan. The unwed pregnant woman, wearing a head covering similar to a hijab, rode on the donkey. Her betrothed, who was not her baby's father, walked alongside her. 
 The Christmas Immigration Story 
A lot of factors influence how we think and talk about other people. Maybe if these dark-skinned, foreign-language-speaking immigrants had crossed the border from Mexico into the US in 2020, we might have talked about them differently. Americans might have shrugged as President Trump called them names like "criminals" and "rapists." We might have grumbled about these immigrants taking our jobs if the man had dared to mention his carpentry business. 

When the young woman gave birth in a crowded room behind a chain-link fence, evangelical Christians might have added a caveat to their sympathy: "I feel bad for her, but they should have come here legally." And when an ICE agent ripped baby Jesus out of his mother's arms, many of us might have turned the other way. 
But this immigration story is different. This family of immigrants didn't cross the border between Mexico and the United States, and they didn't make their journey in 2020. So instead of telling them to go back to where they came from, we put up Nativity scenes every December in their honor. 
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Was Jesus an Illegal Immigrant? 
"Wait a minute!" savvy Bible readers might say at this point. "That's not an immigration story! Joseph and Mary went to Bethlehem because they were required to do it! And they were going back to Joseph's hometown! They weren't illegal immigrants!" 
That's true, but what a lot of people don't remember is what happened afterward. The Holy Family's travels weren't over just yet. Sometime after Jesus's birth, a group of Zoroastrian priests brought Jesus lavish gifts and warned his parents about a murderous ruler. To protect their child, Mary and Joseph packed up their things and crossed another border -- into Egypt this time, which was about 40 miles away from their home. 

So, did that border crossing make Jesus an illegal immigrant? The answer is still no. Egypt, like Nazareth, was still under Roman rule at the time, and even if it wasn't, crossing borders worked differently in those days. There certainly weren't any ICE agents ready to pull children away from their mothers, at the very least. 
No, Jesus and his family weren't illegal immigrants, and neither are the asylum-seekers of today. Seeking asylum as a refugee is completely legal, and asylum-seekers are not required to announce their presence in advance. After all, if you're fleeing civil war, religious persecution, or like Jesus's family, a murderous ruler, you don't always have the time or the means to call ahead for reservations; You just want to get your child out safely. 
What Does Jesus Look Like in 2020? Then again, what if the borders of Jesus's time looked like borders in 2020, with "big, beautiful walls" and gun-toting border patrol agents? Would they have crossed those borders anyway, even if laws had been rewritten to make that option "illegal?" They may not have had a choice, caught between a murderous ruler on one side and an ICE agent on the other. 

When your child's life is in the balance, as so many of today's asylum-seekers know, you'll face any barrier if it means keeping them safe, whether or not the story results in a Nativity display.