Loving Our Neighbor Means Expelling the Lawless

I have watched the streets of Charlotte these past days, and I cannot be silent. I’ve lived here my entire life, and I’ve watched as large parts of this beautiful city has deteriorated over the years into third-world cesspools of criminal activity, drugs, and urban decay.

Stand on any street corner in East Charlotte, and what was once a safe, thriving city with shops, retail, and highly rated restaurants now looks no different than taking a stroll down any street in Mexico City.

This weekend, ICE arrived, and what began as “Operation Charlotte’s Web” was not a bureaucratic exercise but a long-delayed reassertion of sovereignty. Federal agents—faces masked against the cameras of outrage—move through apartment complexes, taquerias, and construction sites, cuffing men who have hidden here for years under the cover of darkness and the cowardice of prior administrations.

Eighty-one on the first day. More each dawn since. The mugshots tell the story: child rapists, murderers, repeat drunk drivers with guns in their waistbands—men who beat women, trafficked minors, and still walked free because Mecklenburg County refused ICE detainers again and again.

Yet still, the protests come.

Whistles in the park. “Pastors” in clerical garb clutching signs that read Love Has No Borders. City council members “weeping” for “traumatized communities.” A thousand social-media posts soaked in the soft-focus sentimentality of a people who have confused pity for virtue. And in the middle of it all, men like Evan Wickham—worship leaders with guitars and warm smiles—telling us that deporting criminals is somehow unchristian.

Brothers and sisters, this is not love. It is blasphemy dressed in mercy’s clothing.

Let’s be honest about language.

They are not “undocumented neighbors.” That phrase is deceptive, at best, a trick meant to scrub the stain of lawlessness from the conscience. A man who crosses the Rio Grande at 3 a.m., buys a stolen Social Security number in Houston, works under a false name, pays no taxes, fills our classrooms and hospitals, and drains our emergency rooms is not “undocumented.” He is a criminal.

The act of illegal entry is a federal crime (8 U.S.C. §1325). The act of remaining is a federal crime (8 U.S.C. §1326). Identity theft, document fraud, conspiracy to defraud the United States—these are not benign, victimless actions. They are the prologue to a life lived in contempt of law.

And contempt, once embraced, rarely stays small.

Show me the man who lies every day about who he is, and I will show you a man who has already decided that rules do not apply to him. Give him time, give him desperation, give him the cover of sentimental sermons, and watch contempt grow into cruelty. The rap sheets coming out of Charlotte are not anomalies. They are the predictable fruit of a tree we were told was harmless.

Yet the loudest voices in the sanctuary still insist we are the monsters for wanting the tree cut down.

They quote Leviticus 19:34—“The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born”—as if ancient Israel maintained open borders and welfare programs for anyone who could cross the Jordan. They forget the verses before and after, the ones about not perverting justice or showing partiality.

They forget that the “sojourner” in Israel was bound to the law, required to honor the Sabbath, abstain from idolatry, and follow covenantal commands—on pain of being “cut off from among the people.”

Israel’s welcome was never a welcome to lawlessness, it was a welcome to obedience. We have no such covenant with these men.

They are not refugees fleeing persecution. The vast majority are economic migrants who bypassed legal entry because they knew they’d be turned away. They are not widows and orphans of Scripture but opportunists who chose conquest over queue—believing their desire outweighed our law. And now we are told that to enforce those laws is to betray the gospel.

But look at the inconsistency. If an American citizen forged documents, dodged taxes for a decade, and built a life on fraud, would the same preachers march for him when the IRS arrived? Would they call it “unloving” when the FBI cuffed him for money laundering? Of course not. We’d call it justice. We’d say mercy demands we stop the bleeding before others are harmed.

And if that same American citizen murdered a child on a light-rail platform, we would not call the grieving mother “xenophobic” for wanting the killer removed from the earth. We would say love rejoices with the truth—that some men forfeit the right to walk free among us.

So why do we lose our moral vocabulary the moment the criminal speaks Spanish? Why do we suddenly discover “nuance” and “trauma” and “systemic injustice” when the perpetrator is brown and the victim is not? That is not compassion. That is racial patronizing cloaked in piety.

The Bible does not condone this.

Romans 13 calls the governing authority “God’s servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer.” That’s not a proposal or a recommendation, it’s a divine assignment. The magistrate bears the sword on loan from heaven itself. To resist it when it’s wielded justly is to resist God.

Peter echoes it: “Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human authority” (1 Peter 2:13). Not because rulers are always righteous—they rarely are—but because order itself is mercy, and rebellion against rightful order is rebellion against God.

Even Jesus paid the temple tax to avoid offense, though He owed nothing. “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s,” He said, knowing full well Caesar would use the money for crucifixions and coliseums. If the sinless Son of God honored a pagan law, how dare we treat immigration laws as optional for those we favor?

Love and law are not enemies.

Love sent Nathan to confront David after Bathsheba. Love stayed the stones at the adulterous woman’s feet—but not the warning, “Go and sin no more.” Love is not the suspension of consequence. It’s the willingness to bear it for another’s redemption.

We can deport a man and still preach Christ to him. We can hand him a bottle of water and a gospel tract as the bus pulls away. We can even weep for his children. But we cannot pretend that rewarding invasion is love.

I’ve heard the effeminate voices ask, “But what about the image of God?” Acknowledging imago Dei doesn’t mean ignoring the fall. Every rapist bears the image. Like it or not, so did Hitler. So did Stalin, So did Karl Marx. So did the Canaanites who burned their children to Molech. Acknowledging the image never erased the command to drive out, to protect the innocent by removing the guilty.

There is a reason God told Israel to show no mercy to the seven nations of Canaan—not because they were born guilty (though they were), but because their guilt was full. Some corporate sins defile the land itself (Leviticus 18:24–28). The blood cries out. The land vomits.

Look around. Our hospitals overflow. Our schools strain. Our daughters disappear into the night. And still the church quotes, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice,” as if mercy were the same as indifference.

Mercy that ignores justice is not mercy. It’s suicide with a smile.

So here’s the warning—and the plea.

To every pastor who marched this weekend, every worship leader posting tearful selfies, every suburban mom clutching a No Human Is Illegal sign—the blood of the next child murdered by a five-time-deported criminal will stain your manicured hands. You will not wash it off with another Instagram story. You will not drown it out with another acoustic rendition of Reckless Love.

The hour is late. The raids in Charlotte are not persecution—they are mercy’s last restraint. Repent of romanticizing lawlessness. Repent of replacing Scripture with sentiment. Stand with those who bear the sword while it still restrains evil. Or be prepared to answer to the Lamb for defending wolves.

The King is not mocked.
The nation that forgets His order will not stand.
And the church that trades God’s justice for Caesar’s compassion will lose both.