The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God. (Leviticus 19:34)

Let’s cut to the chase:  What, exactly, is loving about the way we treat “the alien” among us – the immigrant, the foreigner, the non-native who has left her/his own land because of war, starvation, disease, and desperation, and travels to another in hopes of making a better life for her/his family (the meaning of the original Hebrew in this text)?