Crisis created by leftist politics

Obama's Banned Aid for Hurting Kids

The President won't lock down the border, but he has no problem locking out the church. With reports of over 50,000 unaccompanied minors having already crossed the border, a number which is estimated to climb to 90,000, it appears the only ones unwelcome in America are Christian pastors and their churches. Like a lot of nearby congregations in Arizona, Pastor Kyle Coffin's CrossRoads Church in Tucson wanted to pitch in and help. It wasn't an unreasonable idea -- or so he thought.

With taxpayers potentially on the hook for another $3.7 billion in emergency aid, Coffin assumed the Feds would take all the help they could get. He was wrong. "Back in the day, if you were in trouble and poor, the first thing you thought of was going to the church," he told Fox News's Todd Starnes. "Whether it was for food, clothing, shelter or helping pay bills -- the church was the front line. Now it's the government who is the front line."

Pastor Coffin offered everything from toys, blankets, food, and soccer balls -- only to be turned away. "They flat-out said no," he told Starnes. Due to "the unique operational and security challenges of the Nogales Placement Center," he was informed, churches and their donations are banned. "Border Patrol told us pastors and churches are not allowed to visit. It's pretty heartbreaking that they don't let anybody in there -- even credentialed pastors." All we wanted to do, he explained, was to "send a message that a church cares."

Why would the government turn away humanitarian assistance? Could it be that Big Government 

doesn't like competition? There's no question that an ever-expanding government, by necessity, must crowd out churches and other charities. We saw something very similar with Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana. Instead of partnering with local churches, FEMA kept faith-based groups at arm's length, leaving a less effective and more expensive government to fill the void.

If the border emergency is, as the President insists, a "humanitarian crisis," then it's time to treat it as such and let the church do its work. Scripture makes it clear that our responsibility to address the plight of the poor is fundamental to living out our faith. Arthur Brooks points out in his book Who Really Cares? that liberals equate this responsibility with the call for more government programs. But that effort to shift the responsibility to the government deprives the giver and the recipient of tangible and intangible benefits.

Like most liberals, this President wants Washington to be your provider, family, and even authority figure. But Americans don't need that intrusion -- and more importantly, they don't want it! Those roles are already filled by parents, churches, and local communities. Regardless of how anyone feels about the immigration debate, surely we can all agree that these 52,000 children have very real needs -- physical and spiritual. No one is more equipped to handle them than the church -- which is why Congress ought to include in any funding package provisions that allow faith-based group to help.

Earlier this week, the President asked Texas Governor Rick Perry (R), "Are folks more interested in politics or are they more interested in solving the immigration problem?" We could ask the administration the same thing. If the White House were less interested in stifling religion and more interested in providing relief, it would see the faith community for what it is: partners in service, not pests.