Is It Really Compassion to Let Everyone In?

“Where is your compassion?”

That’s the question often thrown at anyone who believes in border security or the deportation of illegal immigrants – especially those with criminal records.

The argument goes like this:

We should welcome everyone because people matter.
Keeping people out is selfish and un-Christlike.
True compassion means opening our borders and letting them stay.

But is that really true compassion? Or is it shortsighted empathy that feels good today but harms millions tomorrow?

The Founders’ Vision of Compassion

America’s Founders believed in compassion. They saw each human as created equal by God, endowed with unalienable rights. But their compassion was grounded in responsibility and sustainability.

Thomas Jefferson said:

“To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.”

That same logic applies to immigration. Is it compassionate to force citizens to fund the welfare, medical costs, housing, and policing required by uncontrolled immigration – especially when it places their own families and communities at risk?

Or is it compassionate to protect your citizens first, build a strong, free, thriving nation, and then help others from a place of strength rather than weakness?

Short-Term Feelings vs. Long-Term Compassion

Let’s be honest. It feels compassionate to let everyone in. It makes for good Instagram posts. It soothes guilt. It avoids confrontation.

But what happens long-term?

• ✅ Communities are overwhelmed. Hospitals close maternity wards under financial strain. Schools collapse under overcrowding. Social services designed for citizens cannot keep up.
• ✅ Wages stagnate. Low-skilled American workers – often immigrants themselves who came legally – are forced to compete against illegal labor willing to work off-books for less.
• ✅ Crime rises. Not all illegal immigrants commit violent crimes. But a portion do. If even 1% commit felonies, that is thousands of innocent victims who would not have suffered if immigration laws were enforced.
• ✅ National unity fractures. Compassion turns into resentment as citizens watch their government prioritize non-citizens over their own veterans, elderly, and children.

True Compassion: Strong Borders, Strong Nation

If Trump’s second term focuses on:

• Removing illegal immigrants with criminal records
• Securing the border to end the cartel human trafficking pipeline
• Enforcing laws fairly while expanding legal immigration based on merit and national needs

…then this is not cruelty. It is compassion rightly ordered.

Here’s why:

• ✔️ It protects citizens. The first duty of any government is to its own people. Without that, it is no government at all.
• ✔️ It builds a nation worth immigrating to. A collapsing economy, overwhelmed hospitals, and rising crime help no one.
• ✔️ It preserves dignity. Illegal immigrants live in fear, exploited for labor, unable to participate fully in American life. A strong legal system upholds their dignity by ending that exploitation.
• ✔️ It helps future generations. Children raised in a stable, safe, economically strong nation grow up to invent, build, and lead – creating advancements that bless the entire world.

Compassion That Lasts

Those accusing border security advocates of lacking compassion often confuse emotion with virtue. It feels good to welcome, but true virtue asks:

What are the consequences?
Who pays the cost?
Will this help or harm the people entrusted to my care?

Biblically, compassion begins with family and community. 1 Timothy 5:8 warns:

“But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.”

That provision extends outward, but it starts at home.

America’s Founders Understood This

They built a system designed to bless generations. By securing borders, enforcing immigration law, and building economic strength, we create a nation that can:

• ✅ Bless the world with trade and innovation
• ✅ Send missionaries and humanitarian aid abroad
• ✅ Receive legal immigrants who integrate and thrive

Compassion rooted in founding principles builds freedom, dignity, and prosperity – not just for us, but for the world.

Invitation to Think

True compassion isn’t opening the door without wisdom.

It’s building a home so strong, so free, so virtuous, and so prosperous that when you open the door, you have something worth sharing.

That’s what Trump’s second term vision seeks to restore. And that’s what the Founders intended all along.