Blue Card plan: A Christian answer for unauthorized immigrants

By Wayne Grudem, CP Guest Contributor Wednesday, September 02, 2026

Editor's note:  This Christian Post special series is designed to inform Evangelical voters about the foundational facts behind the major issues shaping today's elections. Noted theologian Wayne Grudem has written these public policy backgrounders to help prepare voters for the elections ahead.  

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A. How many unauthorized immigrants are currently living in the United States?

Nobody knows exactly how many unauthorized immigrants are already here, but estimates range from 10 million to 20 million or more. ChatGPT told me its best estimate was 14.5 million. For ease of calculation, I will use 15 million as a rough approximation.

The current U.S. population is 343 million, so 15 million unauthorized immigrants now account for about 4.4% of the U.S. population.

To put this in perspective, a total of about 52 million people now in the United States were born outside the United States (16% of the U.S. population of 343 million), but this larger number includes people who are here legally, such as green card holders (lawful permanent residents), people here on student visas or tourist visas, refugees, people granted asylum, and a few others.

B. These 15 million unauthorized immigrants are not all the same, but vary widely in many characteristics

1. Length of time in the USA: Some new arrivals have been here less than a week, while other unauthorized immigrants have lived here for 20 or even 30 years.
2. Purpose for coming here: Many have come for economic reasons: Their goal is to find a steady job and be able to send some money back to family members in their country of origin. Others have come because of religious or political persecution in their country of origin. And no doubt some have nefarious motives such as drug dealing, theft, murder or rape.
3. Job skills: Some are highly trained engineers, doctors, accountants and lawyers, while others are pharmacists, electricians and skilled carpenters, and still others have no specialized skills but seek work as manual laborers in restaurants, hotels and farms.
4. Criminal history: Most have led law-abiding lives, while others have numerous criminal convictions.
5. Friend or foe? Most have come because they admire the United States for its personal freedoms and its economic opportunities. But no doubt there have also been some (such as Islamic jihadists or Cuban or Chinese communists) whose purpose is to damage American society.
6. Depth of “rootedness” in American society: Some have moved from city to city and put down very few roots, while others have married an American citizen, have raised children and now have American children and grandchildren, have been faithful and competent employees and have advanced into the management ranks in their companies, have coached children’s soccer teams and Little League baseball teams, have become faithful church members, have built many strong friendships, and have developed reputations as all-around “good neighbors.”
7. Mode of entry: This is an important distinction in the way that immigration laws apply to people who are here without legal permission. About 40% of those who are here without authorization at first legally entered the United States on a temporary visa (such as for a tourist or a student or temporary worker), and then overstayed their visas. Others entered because they were part of a group fleeing humanitarian crises in places such as Afghanistan, Ukraine, Haiti, Cuba or Venezuela, and then American immigration policy changed and they no longer had permission to remain here.

These differences are substantial, and they require us to admit that there is no “one-size-fits-all” solution to the question of how these immigrants should be treated.

C. A representative example: Maria has no easy path to becoming legal

Here is a hypothetical example (with many details borrowed from an excellent book by Matthew Soerens and Jenny Yang, Welcoming the Stranger). This example illustrates the complexity of the situation of many unauthorized immigrants.

Maria is an unauthorized immigrant who entered the country at age 17 and now is 37 years old. Her husband, Carlos, was born in the United States and is an American citizen. She and Carlos have children who are 18, 15 and 12. They are committed Christians and attend a Spanish-speaking evangelical church. Maria has become the assistant manager of a local restaurant, where she has worked for over 10 years.

Applying for permanent residency status not possible from within USA: Maria would like her husband to sponsor her for permanent legal status, so that she could eventually become an American citizen. But because she did not enter the United States legally, she cannot apply for permanent legal status or for citizenship from anywhere within the United States, and must instead return to her country of origin and apply from there.

Triggering a 10-year ban on returning: However, if Maria leaves the United States after entering illegally and staying for more than a year, her leaving would trigger a 10-year prohibition against her returning to the United States, according to current law. She would have to leave her husband and her children for 10 years. She is rightfully unwilling to do this.

The relevant section of our immigration law, 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(9)(B)(i)(II) (“Inadmissible aliens”), says this:

Any alien … who has been unlawfully present in the United States for one year or more, and who again seeks admission within 10 years of the date of such alien’s departure or removal from the United States, is inadmissible.

Returning to Mexico with entire family? Another possibility is that she could return to Mexico and bring the entire family with her. Carlos has a rudimentary knowledge of Spanish from his childhood years, but their three children know no other language than English, and it would be difficult for them to suddenly be immersed in a Spanish-speaking culture. It is also unlikely that Carlos and Maria could find jobs in Mexico that would pay anything near their current salaries in the United States.

Marriage to an American citizen does not qualify her for a green card: Many Americans who have little knowledge of immigration law assume that Maria can automatically obtain a “green card” that designates her as a lawful permanent resident because she is married to an American citizen. If she had entered the United States legally with a tourist visa and then overstayed her visa, that might be true — her marriage to a U.S. citizen would enable her to apply for and possibly receive a green card showing that she has the status of legal permanent resident. However, a recent policy change limiting such “adjustments of status” to “extraordinary circumstances” could make even this longstanding process impossible. As I noted earlier, perhaps 40% of current unauthorized immigrants are here because they overstayed their visas.

Maria, though, did not enter legally with a tourist visa — she walked across the border secretly at night and evaded U.S. border authorities. Under current law, marriage does not automatically bestow citizenship upon people who have entered the United States without legal authorization, nor does marriage automatically grant permission to become a legal permanent resident.

Driving with a forged driver’s license: Meanwhile, Maria lives without being able to enjoy the full protection of the law. For example, she is driving with a forged driver’s license given to her by a relative, and she lives in fear that if she is ever involved in an accident that requires filing a police report, it will expose her undocumented status and make her liable to deportation. (This is assuming that Maria does not live in one of the 19 states that now allow unauthorized immigrants to obtain a driver’s license.)

Paying Social Security and Medicare taxes that she will never benefit from: Maria also has payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare taken out of her paycheck every two weeks, but the Social Security number is bogus — it belongs to someone who died — and she will never receive Social Security benefits from what she has contributed.

Reluctance to contact police if she is the victim of a crime: Fortunately, she works for an honest employer. But if her employer ever failed to pay her rightful salary, she would be afraid to seek legal help for fear that her unauthorized immigration status would be discovered and she would be deported.

In short, she is living in the shadows of the American legal system. She does not feel able to take advantage of many of the legal protections that American society routinely provides for everyone who is here legally. She lives in a sort of “invisible” situation with regard to the laws of the United States. It may seem unfair, but this is the situation with several million unauthorized immigrants. This is an unhealthy situation for American society and also unhealthy for the immigrants themselves.

Inability to visit parents and family in country of origin: Most difficult for Maria is the fact that she longs to visit her mother and father, who are growing old and increasingly frail. She has not seen them for 20 years and would love to see them again at least once while they are still alive. But if she leaves the United States, it will trigger a 10-year prohibition on her reentry, and she is unwilling to leave her husband and children in the United States for 10 years.

Her parents once applied for a tourist visa to come to the United States and see her again, but their visa application was rejected. This was not a surprise, because they are poor, and American immigration authorities reasoned (as her parents were warned they would do) that their poverty made them a greater risk of overstaying their visas.

What is the reason for this 10-year barrier to reentry? Presumably it was enacted to make unlawful entry into the United States a less attractive option for people around the world. (The law was passed by a Republican-controlled House and Senate, and signed by President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, on Sept. 30, 1996.) But it does not seem to have discouraged people from trying to enter the United States illegally in any case. The benefits of living in America still seem overwhelmingly attractive.

An exception to the 10-year ban on reentry: There is now a way to get around the 10-year bar to reentry. Maria could file a Form I-601A, in which she would claim that it would cause “extreme hardship” for Carlos, an American citizen, if Maria were prevented from reentering the United States for 10 years. Maria can file this Form I-601A while she still remains in the United States. If her Form I-601A is approved, it brings her a waiver from the 10-year bar to reentry, so she can safely travel to Mexico, go to the U.S. consulate there, and apply for legal permanent resident status on the basis of her marriage to an American citizen. Such a request will ordinarily be granted, and she will be given a green card. By this process, marriage does grant her a possible path to a green card.

However, a significant minority of these requests are denied, and many unlawful immigrants fear that opening this process could lead to their ultimate deportation and 10 years of separation from their family in the U.S.

No other path to legal status: But many unauthorized immigrants who are unmarried, or who are married to another unauthorized immigrant, have no such path to obtaining legal permanent resident status. Many Americans who are unfamiliar with immigration law would tell these unauthorized immigrants to “return to your home country and apply for legal permanent resident status, and wait your turn in line.” But if they do return to their home country, that action will trigger the 10-year bar on reentry to the United States. And even then, they likely will not qualify to apply for legal status, which would generally require sponsorship by a close relative already in the U.S. or by an employer seeking to hire an immigrant with specialized skills.

Should Maria and others like her be deported? Should U.S. customs officials deport Maria, forcibly returning her and millions like her to their countries of origin? I would estimate that 80% or perhaps 90% of American voters would say no, because deporting Maria would tear apart her family and would also do no apparent good for her or for American society. In fact, it would remove a person who is making valuable contributions to American society. Why would we want to deport her?

D. Two proposed solutions that would not work and would stand no chance of approval by the American public

On the left end of the political spectrum, and almost entirely among Democrats, is a campaign for “open borders.” On the right end of the spectrum are some who would demand to “deport all illegal immigrants.” In my opinion, neither of these extreme proposals has any chance of approval by the majority of American voters.

1. An “open borders” policy would quickly become impossible to manage

Some Democrats now support an “open borders” policy by which we would welcome anyone who wants to come to the United States (known criminals and terrorists would be excluded). What would be the result of open borders? It depends on how many people would actually come.

Sometimes taxi drivers can be a source of wise insight into their societies. A few years ago I was in a taxi taking me to an appointment in New Delhi, India, and the veteran taxi driver was asking me about life in America. I asked him, “Would you like to come to America?” His reply was simple: “Everybody in the world wants to come to America!”

And then yesterday (Aug. 13, 2026), just to get a second “taxi driver opinion,” I asked a Pakistani-native Lyft driver who was taking me to Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix how many people in the world would want to come to the United States if we had open borders. He quickly replied, “Everybody in the world would want to come here!”

I think that is an overstatement, because many people in many countries are happy with their lives and would not want to move to another country. But even if the taxi drivers’ opinions were double the actual situation, they point to an underlying truth: Vast numbers of people around the world would immigrate to the United States if it ever became possible for them.

The attractiveness of the United States stems partly from our incredible prosperity and the economic opportunities that it offers. (Our per capita income is higher than all but eight nations in the world, all of them quite small: Monaco, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Ireland, Switzerland, Singapore, Iceland and Norway.) But the attractiveness of America also stems from the historically unprecedented freedoms protected in our Bill of Rights and the safety protected by an imperfect but still remarkable commitment of American society to the rule of law.

What if half the world came to the United States?

If the United States were to adopt an open borders policy, and if half the population of the world decided to come to the USA, what would be the result? The population of the United States is 343 million people, and the population of the world is 8.3 billion people. Half of the population of the world would be 4.15 billion people, or 12 times our current population.

I live in the Phoenix metropolitan area, which has a population of 5 million. If Phoenix had to absorb 12 times its population, we would have 60 million people. Such an influx of people would overrun our roads, our schools, our hospitals and our shopping centers. It is doubtful that we could build housing fast enough to keep up with the influx of new immigrants. And where would they all find jobs? Every job opening that is advertised could see hundreds of applicants for any one position. Many of the 60 million new immigrants to Phoenix would lack even a basic understanding of English, and many would be unable to find any work.

The same impossible challenges would face every other city. The Los Angeles metropolitan area, which is already overcrowded, would have to increase from 13 million to 156 million people. The Chicago metropolitan area would have to expand from 9.4 million to 113 million. Dallas-Fort Worth would expand from 8.5 million people to 102 million people. The New York metropolitan area would expand from 20 million to 240 million.

In short, with truly open borders, it is a real possibility that the rest of the world would overrun our country. Open borders is not a legitimate option for us. We need laws that set limits on the number of immigrants we will accept.

Jesus taught the principle of counting the cost before we undertake a project:

For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? (Luke 14:28 ESV)

Once we honestly “count the cost” of completely open borders, the American public will decisively reject this idea.

2. Attempting to deport all immigrants who are in the USA illegally would bring several negative consequences and would not be supported by any political majority within the United States

While I consider open borders to be a far-left political position, I think the opposite of that position, on the far right, would be, “Deport all illegal immigrants.” People who hold that position would primarily be very conservative Republicans.

If the U.S. government decided that it was going to attempt to deport every person who is in the U.S. illegally (approximately 15 million people), the political party in power would likely experience a huge loss of public support. Such mass deportation would break up millions of families, leave millions of businesses without needed employees, and nullify the compassion for others that is part of the American character. It would also deprive America of the economic, cultural and societal benefits that immigrants bring to our country.

In my opinion, if such a process were to begin, this “total deportation” policy would have no hope of sustaining widespread political approval. Most of the American people would consider this to be an impossibly huge task, and one that is overly selfish and not mindful of the value that immigrants have brought to America. In fact, except for those descended from Native Americans, we are all descendants of immigrants from other countries.

E. We need some kind of third solution that is midway between “open borders” and “deport all illegal immigrants”

The teachings of the Bible require us to combine both justice and compassion in any policy positions that we support. The importance of justice is seen in Romans 13:

Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. 2 Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. 3 For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, 4 for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer. 5 Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God’s wrath but also for the sake of conscience. (Rom. 13:1-5 ESV)

To be “subject to the governing authorities” means obeying the laws that require people to obtain permission from the government of a nation before entering its borders. The requirement of justice requires that border security be enforced.

Civil governments have a responsibility to punish people who commit crimes, as is evident in this verse from Ecclesiastes:

Because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed speedily, the heart of the children of man is fully set to do evil. (Eccl. 8:11 ESV)

However, there are also numerous Bible verses that tell us to care for the “sojourner”:

“Love the sojourner, therefore, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.” (Deut. 10:19)

You shall not pervert the justice due to the sojourner or to the fatherless, or take a widow’s garment in pledge. (Deut. 24:17 ESV)

When you reap your harvest in your field and forget a sheaf in the field, you shall not go back to get it. It shall be for the sojourner, the fatherless and the widow, that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands. (Deut. 24:19 ESV)

Some people have objected that the “sojourner” in these verses is not the same as an illegal immigrant into our country today, because nations in the ancient Near East protected their borders, and those who were temporary residents in a nation (designated by the Hebrew gēr, “sojourner”) were there legally because they had been given authorization by the nation’s government when they entered that nation.

But it seems to me that the argument based on verses that talk about caring for the “sojourner” is still valid, because the common factor that distinguishes the sojourner, the fatherless and the widow in these verses is their lack of a social network of relatives and friends to support and protect them if necessary. Sojourners, the fatherless and widows did not have such a natural support network nearby. But neither, in many cases, do unauthorized immigrants — and so the general principle of these verses would also apply to them. The people of Israel were to watch for foreign visitors, whether officially permitted inside the country or not, who needed support or protection, and they were to look for opportunities to help them.

F. The “blue card” could be a third way that is neither “open borders” nor “deport all unlawful immigrants”

Our laws at the present time offer temporary visitor visas to many people, but we only have two possible categories of legal status for noncitizens who live permanently in the United States. A person who entered the country illegally but now lives here permanently has to fit into one of these two categories: (1) illegal immigrant subject to being deported, or (2) permanent legal resident (evidence of this is possession of a “green card”).

But neither of these categories is very appropriate for our hypothetical friend Maria (see above). Unless she marries an American citizen or green card holder and goes through a risky process of applying for a green card, she is part of a permanent legal underclass that consists of millions of people, that is excessively punitive to those in it, and that is a corrosive influence on the rule of law in our society.

One might even say that her status imposes on her a kind of continuing punishment for crossing the border, a punishment that becomes more painful as the years pass by. But she can find no way to escape. At this point, it seems to me, her personal punishment is far in excess of the severity of her crime of crossing the border 20 years ago.

In suggesting a new status of “blue card holder,” I am just affirming and adding some details to the suggestion of political commentator and law school professor Hugh Hewitt, who proposed this idea in a Feb. 3, 2026, article.

Here are some details that I would suggest for such a blue card:

1. It would grant legal permission to live in the United States. This would make such immigrants a recognized part of American society, no longer living in constant fear of deportation.
2. It would last for five years and be renewable at that time.
3. It could not be used as a path to citizenship or a green card.
4. It would not allow an immigrant to vote or to run for office.
5. It would allow an immigrant to leave the United States and return legally.
6. It would allow an immigrant to get a driver’s license.
7. It would allow an immigrant to get a valid Social Security number.
8. It would require the immigrant to pay a fine as a penalty for crossing the border illegally or overstaying a visa.

G. Some positive steps forward

Here are some positive steps that our government can take as we seek to find a national consensus on this difficult issue.

1. Finish the border wall and effectively seal the border against unlawful entry

I mention this first because, unless the border wall is effectively completed, I do not think Republicans will be willing to work toward finding a solution to our current immigration problem. With gaps left in the wall, Republicans will think that, as soon as a Democratic president is elected, he will essentially open the borders in the various deceptive ways that President Biden did, and the illegal immigration problem will not be solved.

Democrats will then have achieved their objective, which is to flood the country with millions of new immigrants who will become Democratic voters and increase the population of blue states, so that additional members of Congress will be allocated to blue states that have substantial Democratic majorities.

But if a wall is completed, then any immigrants will be forced to enter only through the gates in the wall, and it will be much more clearly evident when a Democratic president is not enforcing the immigration laws. A completed wall would also be a clear, visible symbol to the rest of the world that those who enter the United States must do so only in a legal manner.

However, a completed wall is only one part of an effectively controlled border. The other part is the deployment of enough border control officers to ensure that we do not allow the entry of hundreds of new illegal immigrants who might now come seeking a blue card. Preventing human entry into a specific area is something that is done successfully throughout the world thousands of times, in thousands of places, every day. It is not rocket science — it simply requires a determination to completely control the border.

2. Continue deporting known criminals and others who are likely to be harmful to the United States

Substantial majorities of the American public are in favor of deporting immigrants who have been convicted of crimes such as murder, kidnapping, rape, drug trafficking and other similarly harmful crimes.

3. Work toward a reasonable national consensus on how many immigrants we should allow to enter the country legally each year

At the present time, the United States admits about 1 million immigrants legally every year. I personally think that this number could be somewhat higher, and there would be long-term benefit to the nation.

But if there is to be an increase in the number of legal immigrants that we allow every year, it will not come about by angry demonstrators throwing bricks at ICE officers. It will have to come about through the ordinary give-and-take of our political processes, and elected officials will need to work together to find a solution that gains the support of the majority of the American people, realizing that we as a people will support laws that are evidently both compassionate and just.

4. Allow public protests against immigration policies, but arrest and punish anyone who physically resists immigration enforcement

Our First Amendment protects freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and freedom of the press, and it is healthy for our society that such protections continue. We must continue to allow people to make their political views known in a public way.

But public protests are different from actively resisting government agents who are attempting to enforce current laws. Intentionally blocking streets to prevent ICE agents from carrying out deportation orders, or hurling bricks or frozen bottles filled with ice at them, are acts of actually “resisting” enforcement of the law.

At this point, the warning of the apostle Paul seems applicable:

Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. 2 Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. (Rom. 13:1-2 ESV)

It seems to me that designating a city to be a “sanctuary city,” or designating a state to be a “sanctuary state,” also falls in the category of resisting enforcement of the law. Sanctuary cities and states are places where local law enforcement officers are restricted in the ways that they can cooperate with federal immigration enforcement officials, and therefore sanctuary cities and states also seem to me to be “resisting what God has appointed,” and therefore should not be approved by those who seek to follow the teachings of the Bible.

5. The responsibilities of governments are different from the responsibilities of individual citizens

According to the Bible, civil governments are established for the purpose of punishing evil and rewarding good, and thereby protecting their citizens (see Romans 13:1-7, above). It is the responsibility of government agents to enforce obedience to immigration laws that have been legitimately enacted. They should enforce such laws with superior force where necessary, but not with cruelty or excessive use of force, as defined by law.

But individual citizens who are not government agents do not have that responsibility. I do not think that faithful Christians have any responsibility to report to immigration officials or to local police that certain people are unlawful immigrants, for example. The biblical teachings about caring for the sojourners, the fatherless and widows are applicable here, and Christians would do well to heed such commands.