Evangelist Bryan Fischer: Immigration Is God’s Punishment For America

Immigration is a sore subject in America. Memes and diatribes insisting that America should have a national language (English, of course) and that learning it should be a requirement for immigration are increasingly common. Now, however, the American Family Association’s Bryan Fischer has taken this to new lengths — claiming that immigration, and a “confusion of languages,” are a punishment from God for the nation’s sins.

Most people are probably familiar with the story of the Tower of Babel. If not, it’s covered in Genesis 11. You can see the full story here at Bible Gateway, but in short, everyone shared a single language, and they were able to work together well. The people began to build a tower that would reach Heaven. God “confused their languages” in order to put a stop to the endeavor, then he scattered them to different parts of the Earth.

While the Bible verses do not make this a punishment, just a preventative measure, Bryan Fischer’s recent column seems to disagree, and to directly connect the story to immigration to America.

Fischer addresses what he sees as the problem with immigration: languages are becoming “confused.” That is to say, a lot of people aren’t speaking English exclusively, and some aren’t speaking English at all. He cites a story from the New York Daily News that discusses the difficulties of schooling when parents don’t speak English well.

In New York, this particular quirk of immigration is handled by the Department of Education offering translators. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 makes it illegal for a governmental department to discriminate based on country of origin — this means that a person can’t be denied access to basic services based on a lack of English proficiency.

Fischer, however, uses this as a launching point against immigration and non-English speakers, and he thinks he can offer a solution.

“The solution would seem fairly straightforward: require English fluency and literacy as a condition for immigration. It seems only a matter of common sense that newcomers to our shores should be expected to learn our language rather than we being expected to learn theirs.”

Of course, this suggestion fails to acknowledge that America does not have a national language — there is no “our language.” The Americas had many languages before European settlers arrived, and continued to have multiple languages after, as speakers of French, Spanish, and English descent colonized.

Fischer also goes on to confuse immigration with evangelism, pointing out that missionaries generally learn the languages of the countries they will visit. Unfortunately, immigration, unlike missionary work, isn’t usually backed by organizations that fund education, travel, and other needs.

“The lesson here may be that, when a nation turns from the humble worship of the true and living God to hubristic self-reliance, God may judge that nation by making linguistic communication impossible.”

It seems unlikely that God would use immigration to make communication “impossible” in a day when everyone has a tiny computer in their pocket that can facilitate conversation, regardless of language. As for the question of whether immigration is a “curse” on the land, though, perhaps some of our Native American neighbors would be in a better position to offer an opinion.

[Photo by: Michael Nagle / Getty Images]