It always makes me unduly happy that the story of Christmas starts with a tax.[fn1] But the tax is just stage-setting; while it puts all the right people in all the right places, it then disappears, largely irrelevant to the Incarnation and the Condescension.
Caesar Augustus’s tax isn’t the only stage-setting device in the story of Christmas: a far more important one happens after the Wise Men visit. The angel of the Lord visits Joseph and tells him to “Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and be thou there until I bring thee word: for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him.”
Joseph does, and the Holy Family become refugees, escaping what turns out to be a slaughter of young boys. Google tells me that the trip would have been at least 430 miles, young parents and their infant son crossing at-times inhospitable land to protect that son’s life and well-being, leaving behind what they knew for what they absolutely did not know.
We don’t know anything about their time in Egypt except that they stayed, refugees and immigrants, until Herod’s death, when it was safe for them to return home.
Theirs is not the only story of forced migration in scripture. In fact, their flight to Egypt mirrors Moses leading Israel out of Egypt, refugees from an oppressive government that persecuted and exploited them. Forty years in the wilderness was better than remaining where they were. And Israel’s status as refugees was so critical to their identity that it made its way into their law, which, in light of their status as strangers in Egypt, demanded a special solicitude toward and care of strangers within their community.
In the Book of Mormon, war and oppression forced the Anti-Nephi-Lehies to flee their homeland, to become refugees. And they were hesitant, because Ammon and his compatriots wanted them to seek refuge among the Nephites, literally their ancestral enemies. Eventually, though, they agreed to go. When they arrived, not only did the Nephites, their former enemies, welcome them, they gave the Anti-Nephi-Lehies land and protection. That land and protection imposed a real cost on the Nephites (though, as we’ll discuss shortly, the Anti-Nephi-Lehies also ended up contributing to the collective well-being).
And the place of refugees in Mormon thought and theology is not just a matter of ancient scripture. In 1846, we were driven out of Nauvoo after the murder of Joseph and Hyrum Smith and threatened mob violence. We’d been driven out before, but this time we left the United States and emigrated to Mexico (at least until the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo turned nearly half of Mexico over to the United States).
And we weren’t just refugees fleeing violence: tens of thousands of converts from England fled the economic conditions they faced there, in the rising Industrial Revolution, both to join with their co-religionists and to find better economic opportunities.
Even today, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints continues this prioritizing the welfare of immigrants. I’m not going to give an exhaustive list of recent statements, but here are a few:
- Because Elder Patrick Kearon was just called to the Quorum of the Twelve, let’s start with his 2016 talk “Refuge from the Storm.” He calls on us to prayerfully look for ways we can serve refugees, including through a newly-launched church program, near our homes. He hopes that we don’t become inured to the suffering of refugees around us. And he ends with this: “This moment does not define [the refugees around us], but our response will help define us.”
- In 2019, the First Presidency issued a statement on refugees that encouraged “Church members and friends to respond appropriately and legally, to help create welcoming communities by volunteering their time, talents and friendship to individuals and families who are integrating into our societies.”
- The Church Handbook of Instructions includes, as Church policy, that “[a]s part of their responsibility to care for those in need (see Mosiah 4:26), Church members offer their time, talents, and friendship to welcome refugees as members of their communities.”
- The Church itself is donating resources and time to help refugees.[fn3]
Immigration (forced and otherwise) is, then, the root and the lifeblood of our religion. But for a refugee family in Egypt, Christianity would not exist. But for a refugee people from Egypt, the major monotheistic religions of our world would not exist. And but for a refugee people in the Book of Mormon, that story would have turned out much different.
Why, over Advent, am I writing about refugees? The immediate cause was a friend on Bluesky[fn2] who asked that instead of a defensive case, we make a positive case for immigration. And the strongest case, to me, is the theological, scriptural, and moral case: we were strangers once, and we owe today’s refugees, asylees, and immigrants the same solicitude, care, and support that we wish that we had received when we were in that position. And not only were we strangers once: the Savior Himself was a refugee.
Of course, the moral, theological, and scriptural case is not the only case for immigration (though it, standing alone, is enough). The economic and demographic cases for immigration are powerful. And again, I’m only going to summarize, but I’ll provide links for more detail.
The first is demographics. The U.S. is aging and, like many wealthy countries, fertility is going down. The Census did projections of what happens with high, current, low, and zero levels of immigration. And just to keep roughly the same population requires us to keep current levels of immigration. And why do we want a growing population? Largely because we need some level of working-age adults to keep the country going as older adults retire and die. And, because immigrants tend to be younger, immigrants are critical to this economic structure.
As for fears about immigrants: there’s little evidence that they displace workers in the economies they come into. Criminality? First-generation immigrants are significantly less likely to be in prison than native-born Americans, and since at least 1880 have been no more likely than native-born Americans to be criminals. And undocumented immigrants? They are less likely to be convicted of felonies than legal immigrants or native-born Americans. And undocumented immigrants pay billions of dollars in state and local taxes (though granting them legal status would increase their taxpaying). (Note that refugees are not undocumented immigrants, though many commentators make that mistake. But also note that the religious, moral, and economic cases for supporting refugees apply equally to undocumented immigrants.)
Of course, as the IMF points out, the societal benefits we receive from immigration are dependent on our social and legal policies, which frankly, are not terribly good. As members of the LDS Church, though, we have a religious obligation to care for immigrants, to smooth the difficulties they face, and to advocate for public policies that will ease the difficulties they face.
Jesus is able to succor us because, we believe, He has experienced all that we experience. And He has literally experienced being a refugee.
And critically, inasmuch as we have served the least of our brothers and sisters, we have done it to Jesus.
[fn1] Well, a census, anyway, in a step toward taxation.
[fn2] A Bluesky developer announced last week that, starting this week, people would be able to see skeets (that is, the Bluesky equivalent of a tweet) without being logged in. So if this link doesn’t work yet, it should work soon.
[fn3] There are dozens more recent examples of the Church’s work to aid refugees. And I’ll confess that I didn’t search these down—a friend pulled together a broad list of what the Church has said and done over the last five years or so.
Photo by Greyson Joralemon on Unsplash