Immigrants, pets and the sin of slander in an age of social media

(RNS) — This week, outlandish allegations that, in a small city in Ohio, Haitian immigrants were hunting down and eating people’s cats, dogs and other pets spread across the internet, even making an appearance in the presidential debate. Though there’s no verifiable evidence of any case of a Haitian immigrant eating a pet — to say nothing of a trend that will soon threaten your pet — rumors spread quickly. 

It was already an “old proverb” in the 19th century when Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon quipped, “A lie will go round the world while truth is pulling its boots on.” In the internet era, falsehoods move at light speed, and the biblical commandment to “not bear false witness” has become among the more socially acceptable sins. 

That’s probably because it’s so easy: We can now disparage someone without personally articulating the charge, in either verbal or written form; we can reshare slanderous accusations with a tap of a finger or click of a mouse. Our human nature is apt to do so, dismissing any reluctance over an unverified charge if it seems credible to us, especially when the subject is an individual or group of people we’re predisposed to view as villainous. 

But if we are to be faithful to the New Testament’s repeated instructions to put away slander of any kind, we must hold ourselves to a higher standard. We should refrain from propagating any disparaging charge that we cannot confirm to be factual, lest we, as the epistle of James puts it, “curse people who are made in the likeness of God.” That’s always true, but it’s all the more relevant in the midst of a polarized U.S. election season. 

With the border a top campaign issue, immigrants are used as a political pawn and have increasingly been the subjects of online maligning. Beyond the allegations of pet-napping, the Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, are often presumed to be “illegals.” Multiple U.S. senators have used that term to describe individuals from Haiti, Venezuela and other specific countries facing political crises who have been allowed into the U.S. by the Department of Homeland Security after being sponsored by family members, churches or others — despite the fact that they are entering lawfully, at the invitation of our government. 

There’s a fair debate over whether this particular “parole” program is an overuse of executive authority, but that’s a question for the courts or legislation (if a senator disagrees with the judicial decision that thus far has left the program in place). To describe the people themselves who have entered the U.S. lawfully through an airport as “illegal” isn’t just inaccurate, it’s also false witness, as it is when more than 800 people retweet these claims. That few of those re-tweeters have a nuanced understanding of U.S. immigration law does not exonerate them from the responsibility to not disparage people falsely. 

For me, this is personal. I met a Haitian couple a few months ago who showed up at my church. Both husband and wife are lawfully present, and given the disastrous situation in Haiti at the moment, desperate to bring their daughters lawfully to the U.S. as well. I brought them to my World Relief legal services colleagues to file the appropriate petition, and now they’re hoping and praying it will be quickly approved. They’re availing themselves of U.S. laws, not breaking them. They’re also certainly not eyeing my daughter’s guinea pig. I’m embarrassed that they have probably heard the cruel allegations against them.

Other immigrants, of course, have violated U.S. law by crossing the U.S.-Mexico border without inspection — including a record 1.4 million individuals who were apprehended by the Border Patrol (many of them more than once) last year. It’s right for Christians who affirm the God-ordained role of government in maintaining order and security to insist on reforms to address this situation and ensure secure borders, as many evangelical Christians have. 

But while it’s fair to describe these migrants’ actions as illegal, that does not make it, as online rhetoric increasingly describes it, an “invasion,” which implies an intention of military conquest. 

To the contrary, in recent years, most of those who cross unlawfully are seeking out the U.S. Border Patrol to request asylum under the terms of U.S. law. They may or may not qualify, but even advocates for more restrictive immigration policies, such as the Center for Immigration Studies and NumbersUSA, have said it is wrong to describe these unarmed individuals as invaders. But posting such inflammatory language can generate likes and reshares. 

In my work with World Relief, I have personally met Christians who fled religious persecution and sought asylum at the border to save their lives. They are brothers and sisters pleading for mercy from our country, not invaders, and it upsets me when they’re wrongly labeled as such. 

But it’s not just critics of immigrants who can fall into the sin of slander. Advocates for immigrants can as well when they presume that anyone who wants tighter border security is racist.

I’m quick to decry the fallacy of implicating all immigrants by the violent crimes of a very small subsample, but I can fall into the same trap if I suggest everyone advocating for reduced levels of immigration must be motivated by the same attitudes as self-avowed white supremacists and eugenicists — or even retweet someone else making that charge. It feels less culpable to share someone else’s hot take than to state it personally — but is it?

Scripture talks much about the tongue and teaches that “out of the abundance of the heart our mouth speaks.” We must guard our hearts and our tongues. If we’re to take seriously the many biblical injunctions to refrain from slander, the Apostle James offers wise counsel: “be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger.” In our context, we might also add being “slow to retweet.”

(Matthew Soerens is vice president of advocacy and policy for World Relief and co-author of several books related to immigration, including “Welcoming the Stranger: Justice, Compassion and Truth in the Immigration Debate.” The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.)