Attorney General Jeff Sessions (Screenshot)

(CNSNews.com) - Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who took heat for quoting the Scripture in defending the administration’s handling of illegal immigrant families, told Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) on Thursday that in the Bible, the Apostle Paul was saying that people should follow the laws of the government where they live.



“A lot of people have pushed back on that. I don’t think that was an extreme position that I took, and I’ve directed it not to say that religion requires these laws on immigration,” Sessions said.



“I just simply said to my Christian friends you know the United States has laws, and I believe Paul was clear in Romans that we should try to follow the laws of the government of which we are a part,” he said. “So that was basically my point, and let me say one more thing. I believe strongly that it is moral and decent and just for a nation to have a lawful system of immigration.”



Sessions said he doesn’t know “a single nation” that doesn’t have rules governing who can and cannot enter.



“I believe there are biblical support for that too, but fundamentally, that’s what I think is at stake, and if you have rules of immigration, don’t they have to be enforced? Isn’t it almost wrong or immoral or unjustified to say you can come unlawfully, but you can’t, or you file, you wait your turn, you make your application to enter lawfully. Somebody else just enters the country unlawfully,” he said.



“I think that’s moral. I think that’s just to say the law should apply, and you should make your application, which we are very generous about,” Sessions said.



The United States admits 1.1. million annually as lawful permanent residents, according to Sessions. “We have another what I think 600,000 people that come to take jobs. Hundreds of thousands of students are here right now educating in the United States.



“We are not a closed society, but ... it cannot be an open border society. A hundred and fifty million people said they’d like to come to the United States if they could, and if they got here, they’d want to bring their cousins and their mommas and daddies, and another 150 million. The country can’t absorb that. It’s perfectly legitimate for it to set standards of admission,” he said.



“I just think strongly that people are muddling these issues, and so if you have a limit on your immigration even though we’re generous, we have certain limits, then those limits should be sustained,” the attorney general said.