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Immigration and National Identity
Mark R. Glanville and Luke Glanville

Adapted from Refuge Reimagined: Biblical Kinship in Global Politics by Mark R.
Glanville and Luke Glanville. Copyright (c) 2021 by Mark R. Glanville and Luke
Glanville. Published by InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, IL. www.ivpress.com

One justification commonly given for controlling and limiting the admission of outsiders is
that excessive immigration, or the immigration of the wrong people, risks weakening the
shared affinities and loyalties that bind a national community together and risks undermining
the community’s shared identity and values. This argument is widely heard today, including
among thoughtful Christians.

   Of course, shared loyalties and the cultivation of a sense of belonging are valuable things.
And national cultures and customs, insofar as they facilitate the pursuit and fulfillment of
universal goods, are to be cherished. But there are good reasons to be wary of allowing our
concerns for such valuable things to trump the needs of vulnerable strangers.

   Let’s first consider a few reasons to be skeptical of the prioritization of communal bonds
and national identities before suggesting a way forward.

   To begin, we should recognize that arguments for the preservation of national culture so
often rely on a sanitized portrayal of that culture. The identity and character of each nation is
a product of history. And while national histories may be marked by evidence of God’s
providential care and guidance, they are also often stained by the violent expulsion and
exclusion of others. Think of the United States, Canada, and Australia. Not only did
European settlers in these territories first begin to establish their communal ties and national
cultures on lands stolen from indigenous peoples, but these ties and cultures have
subsequently been shaped and sustained over generations at least in part by racially
discriminatory immigration controls—controls that are made more troubling by being
introduced, in some instances, only as demand for cheap foreign labor declined.

   Consider the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and the racial quotas established in the
Immigration Act of 1924 in the United States, the Chinese Immigration Acts of 1885 and
1923 in Canada, and the White Australia Policy that remained in place from 1901 until the
1970s. The identities of these nations today are at least partly a product of such racist
practices of exclusion. Recognition of this should lead us to pause before concluding that the
preservation of these same identities might, yet again, justify the exclusion of outsiders.

   We should also be wary of buying into pernicious myths that cast the existing identities of
nations as homogenous and uncontested. Arguments for the preservation of a nation’s culture
and traditions are often actually arguments for the preservation of the culture and traditions of
one historically dominant group. The group claims ownership of the national identity and
fashions this identity in its own image. In the process it excludes other groups within the
community, just as it does those beyond the community. This has been a particularly
troubling feature of the resurgent populist nationalisms that have proliferated across the globe
in recent years, and it gives us reason to be at least skeptical when cries of asylum seekers are
met with calls to preserve national identity.

   Furthermore, the suggestion that we need to restrict entry in order to maintain communal
bonds and national cultures, at least when it is political leaders making this suggestion, is
undermined by the fact that these same leaders eagerly and routinely make exceptions for
wealthy and highly skilled outsiders. For example, while they ignore the desperate pleas of all
but a few refugees, countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia
have established programs that grant residency to outsiders in exchange for financial
investment, purchase of property, transfer of capital, or establishment of a job-creating
business. These programs commonly also reduce the requirements for citizenship and
expedite citizenship procedures. Within the European Union, several states have even
established schemes by which an investment leads directly to citizenship.

   This shift toward the “commodification of citizenship,” as it has been termed, clearly
undermines the claims of some leaders of such states that restrictive policies toward asylum
seekers are necessary for the preservation of national identity. Indeed, the fact that states will
embrace the wealthy and eagerly seek their residency while turning away “the least of these”
tells us a lot about their true identity.

   How then, should we think about national identity? Put plainly, national identity is to be
affirmed so long as it is oriented toward a biblical understanding of community. This requires
that it be disposed not only to the care of the poor and needy within the community but also
to the cultivation of kinship with vulnerable outsiders. To be sure, national cultures will
always be diverse, and cultures are worth upholding. Just as we should enjoy the differences
that we observe between families or between neighborhood communities, so too should we
celebrate differences both within nations and between nations, insofar as they express “the
goodness and flourishing of creation.” But whatever else each particular national identity,
culture, or tradition will be about, God’s desire is that they be about the pursuit of justice and
flourishing for every person, including the stranger. This is God’s desire for human
community.

   We ought to be wary, then, of the temptation to pursue the uncritical preservation of
national identity no matter what. We should instead contemplate our national identities with a
posture of humility and a willingness to recognize where we have gone astray. Certainly, we
should identify and celebrate what is good about our cultures and strive to maintain these
characteristics, in all of their rich diversity. But insofar as our national identities do not
promote human flourishing and do not drive us to welcome vulnerable outsiders, we must
work to reshape our identities by developing new narratives of who we are and what our
collective purpose is. What joy there is to be had in reimagining our national communities for
the sake of those in need!