Milligan University’s “Deeper Connections” series hosted an immigration panel, bringing economics professor Dr. Campbell, theology professor Dr. Kenneson, and student immigrants Marcus Moreno and Aileen Glas together to examine how U.S. immigration policy collides with economics, lived experience and Christian faith.
The night opened with personal stories. Moreno, who came to Milligan from Brazil, arrived with what he describes as “every single document they can have to prove that I am that person and I can pay to be here at this school,” including letters from Milligan and his bank. Even after submitting his work authorization (OPT) application months early, approval still came late. “The end result doesn’t really depend on me or any immigrant,” he said.
Glas outlined her family’s long path through Switzerland, Germany and Ecuador before coming to the U.S. on her father’s H-1B visa while she and her siblings held H-4 visas. Despite lawyers and employer support, they repeatedly extended their status and were once forced to leave the U.S. on short notice, waiting about a month in Austria while paperwork was corrected. When green cards finally arrived in 2021, hers listed a misspelled name and the wrong country of citizenship—French Polynesia—leaving her stuck in the U.S. from 2019 to 2023. Both students stressed that people do not choose to be undocumented when “viable legal pathways” actually work, but those paths are often narrow and slow, especially now.
Dr. Campbell warned that with a U.S. fertility rate of 1.6 children per woman—below the 2.1 replacement level—the country is heading toward a labor shortage, and immigration helps fill that gap “from high-skill industries like technology to lower-wage fields such as agriculture and construction.” He noted that studies showing immigrants, including many undocumented, often pay more in taxes than the benefits they receive and clarified that ObamaCare and Medicaid insurance subsidies “do not apply to undocumented immigrants.”
Shifting to a more faith-based approach, Dr. Kenneson pointed to Jesus’ pattern of engaging those on the margins. Reading from Leviticus 19:33–34, he encouraged students to pursue God’s command not to oppress the “alien or sojourner,” to treat the outsider “as the native-born,” and to “love the alien as yourself.” Asked about children separated from their parents at the border, he called the situation “tragic” and urged students to pray and/or support organizations that can act directly.
While the panel offered no specific policy blueprint, it certainly underscored the tension between economic need and bureaucracy. As Moreno put it: “If being an immigrant in the U.S. was something that was easy to become, then more people would do it.”
