Every nation has the right to distinguish, by country of origin, who can migrate to it and apply appropriate immigration policies, according to the great medieval scholar and saint Thomas Aquinas.
Some antagonistic peoples were not admitted at all into Israel due to their hostility toward the Jewish people.
The Law “prescribed in respect of certain nations that had close relations with the Jews,” the scholar noted, such as the Egyptians and the Idumeans, “that they should be admitted to the fellowship of the people after the third generation.”
Citizens of other nations “with whom their relations had been hostile,” such as the Ammonites and Moabites, “were never to be admitted to citizenship.”
“The Amalekites, who were yet more hostile to them, and had no fellowship of kindred with them, were to be held as foes in perpetuity,” Aquinas observed.
In his remarkably nuanced commentary, Aquinas also distinguished among three types of immigrants in the Israel of the Old Testament.
First were “the foreigners who passed through their land as travelers,” much like modern-day visitors with a travel visa.
Second were those who “came to dwell in their land as newcomers,” seemingly corresponding to resident aliens, perhaps with a green card, living in the land but not with the full benefits of citizenship.
A third case involved those foreigners who wished “to be admitted entirely to their fellowship and mode of worship.” Even here, dealing with those who wished to integrate fully into the life and worship of Israel required a certain order, Aquinas observed. “For they were not at once admitted to citizenship: just as it was law with some nations that no one was deemed a citizen except after two or three generations.”
“The reason for this was that if foreigners were allowed to meddle with the affairs of a nation as soon as they settled down in its midst,” Aquinas logically reasoned, “many dangers might occur, since the foreigners not yet having the common good firmly at heart might attempt something hurtful to the people.”
It requires time for someone to learn which issues affect the nation and to make them their own, Aquinas argued. Those who know the history of their nation and have lived in it, working for the common good, are best suited to participate in decision-making about its future.
It would be dangerous and unjust to place the future of a nation in the hands of recent arrivals who do not fully understand the needs and concerns of their adoptive home.
When facing contemporary problems, modern policymakers can often benefit from the wisdom of the great saints and scholars who have dealt with versions of the same issues in ages past.
Aquinas’ reflections reveal that similar problems have existed for centuries—indeed, millennia—and that distinguishing prudently between nations and cultures doesn’t automatically imply prejudice or unfair discrimination.
Sometimes, it’s just the right thing to do.
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The USA is a nation built by migrants who were hostile to the local native inhabitants and were from a very different culture.
STEVE RAY HERE: and your point? What does that have to do with our situation today? If you don’t have something intelligent and contemporary to say…
… we are currently in a situation where we have a real country called the USA and it is being threatened by radicals who want to destroy it. If you want to invite them to come stay in your house or next-door to you that’s fine. But the rest of us don’t.
It seems Chris just unwittingly proved St. Thomas Aquinas’s point!
Well said. We have a more recent 20th century example to St Thomas’ point. The slow infiltration of Japanese into Manchuria and the Philippines. From the mid 1920’s until the deployment of ships into Manchuria, it appeared the Japanese were just looking to conduct business and live in peace. When the Japanese naval ships landed and deployed weapons, the Japanese had a ready task force to attack the Chinese.
They planned to do the same in the Philippines that was why we had ships in Hawaii.
When they attacked Pearl Harbor, we suspected the military fleet would dock on the Western shore of America and have a ready army. This was why the internment camps for the Japanese were created and only the Japanese and not the Chinese were interned. It is easy not living in those times to place a 21 st century mindset on a 20th century event.
Thank you for sharing St. Thomas Aquinas' reasoning on the right to maintain a country's integrity regarding immigration. Having been taught by Dominicans I have great reverence for Aquinas and his work. I also want to acknowledge Chris's statement as it is always helpful to allow everyone to pose different views to the discussion so it was disappointing to me to see the dismissive and insulting comment made regarding his intelligence. His comment was sensible and could have been addressed in a more charitable way by those who wished to point out any weakness in the argument.
STEVE RAY HERE: Thanks for your comments Carol.
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