The Widening Gyre

I have questions.  I have questions for Americans.  I have special questions for American Christians.  I have extra special questions for American Christians of the Republican variety, particularly if you're one of those who is now thoroughly incensed with the President's executive order regarding our immigration policy.
First the question for Americans:  Were your ancestors here prior to 1492 CE?  Because if the answer is no, I'm guessing you probably have some idea as to when and wherefrom your family emigrated.  Your people may have been here for generations, but to the Sioux and the Iroquois and the Apache, you're still an immigrant, and believe me, to call your history with the Natives criminal is somewhat of an understatement.  Your ancestors very likely came here to escape poverty or persecution or plagues or famine, or something like that.  They came here to make a better life for themselves, and this nation of ours was founded by immigrants and refugees and people who were willing to build something in a "new" world, or at least a world that was "new" to them.
These immigrants eventually found themselves in a place where they could bring forth a great nation, with the idea in mind that this nation would be different from the ones they left.  They had the idea that it would be a place where a person could get a fair shake, no matter where they were born, or what they believed, eventually we even got around to making it okay to have different colored skin... imagine that.
It was not a coincidence that these men who had this nation idea were Christian (or at least deists who probably thought in vaguely Christian patterns).  The idea that a nation might be anything like this union they were always seeking to make more perfect, comes explicitly from a judeo-christian angle.  The idea that a nation could run without a king, goes back to Israel, the idea that a nation could transcend tribalism was rooted in the Christian practice of inclusion of Gentiles and an adoption of outsiders and strangers into the creed.  It took the Hebrew codes about how to treat strangers and outsiders a step further and actually called them brothers.
Which brings me to the question I have for American Christians: are you reading the same book as I am?  I'm not asking that in a spirit of bible-thumping, I'm aware that different interpretative methods exist, but the welcoming of the other, and honoring the inherent dignity of your fellow humans is not a small deal, it's not an obscure or debatable moral imperative, it's sort of a central idea to the whole story.  It's not so much one of the rules as it is the reason for all the rules: love God and love your neighbor, and for the love of pete stop trying to weasel out of recognizing that freaking everyone is your neighbor.  So when I hear American Christians talking about deporting families (which seems to be a big part of what Obama wants to stop), I wonder if they're maybe not getting the point of the Good Samaritan Parable.  The Samaritan, the illegal, unacceptable, the outsider of outsiders, is the neighbor, in other words: you don't get to pick and choose.  Manuel, who picks crops for sub-minimum wage, and who snuck into this country in the back of hay truck, smuggled by coyotes, is your neighbor, and you should care about justice for him, and you should pick him up out of the ditch.  Maria, who cleans motel rooms all day and then goes to work washing dishes at Denny's in the evening in order to feed her children, and who lives in fear of being deported, is your neighbor, she is not a criminal, she is not illegal.  She is a child of God who is worthy of your mercy.
I have questions for you if you are angry at our President, who is paying attention to these things, and who has tried to work within our broken and failing political process to fix these things.  People have questioned his character and his integrity, but he's acting like a pretty Christian dude at this moment.  He's not trying to dodge the dignity and the suffering of his neighbors by pretending they're not his problem.  I wish, and I think he wishes, he didn't have to do it in such one sided fashion, because I think all of us could have done better at loving our neighbors.
You may say it's more complicated than I'm making it, but that's what Pharisees always say.  What happened this week was only a small step in the direction of justice, it was just one brick taken out of the wall, it certainly does not give away the keys to the kingdom, it just picks a few people out of the ditch.
As Aaron Rodgers said to the Green Bay fans earlier this year: R-E-L-A-X.
I would add another word to that list: L-O-V-E.