The Independent News Source
Twitter - Facebook - Email Alerts - RSS
'Toxic politics' prevent immigration reform
Nov. 05, 2009
Printer-friendly version
Send to friend
PDF version
A nun holds up a sign during an immigration rally in front of the U.S. Capitol in Washington Oct. 13. Thousands of people came to Capitol Hill for a day of lobbying and an afternoon rally calling for comprehensive immigration reform. (CNS/Bob Roller)
Printer-friendly versionSend to friendPDF versionWASHINGTON -- "A toxic political atmosphere" is preventing much-needed humane reform of the "broken immigration system" in the United States, Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick said Nov. 3 at a forum on immigration and human dignity at Georgetown University.
Calling for "comprehensive immigration reform,' the retired Washington archbishop said, "We have to change what is broken, lest more people will suffer. We have to be courageous and persistent and change the system."
McCarrick was lead speaker of a three-member panel at the forum, put on by Georgetown's Woodstock Theological Center and co-sponsored by CLINIC (Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc.), the Migration Policy Institute and the Jesuit Conference, USA. More than 300 people attended.
In one way or another all the speakers urged new attention to immigration reform -- which McCarrick bluntly said is now on a political back burner to the more currently dominant issues of the economic crisis, U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the health care reform debate.
The golden opportunity for immigration reform two years ago is gone, and those seeking comprehensive, humane reform need to watch closely for the next open window and seize it, he said.
"Our receptivity to immigrants defines who we are" as Americans, said Donald M Kerwin Jr., a Woodstock Center associate fellow and vice president for programs of the Migration Policy Institute. "What immigrants want today is what your parents and grandparents wanted" as immigrants in previous generations.
Kerwin, who for 15 years was director of CLINIC, a national program established by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to provide legal assistance to refugees, asylum seekers and other immigrants seeking visas and legal residency in the United States, sharply disputed the use of "illegal aliens" or "illegal immigrants" as terms defining or identifying those who enter the country without legal status.
"The rejection of 'illegal alien' is not a quibble. ... It's a line drawn in the sand" to say that these are human beings with rights and legitimate aspirations, whose illegal entry does not define who they are, he said.
Rounding out the panel was Octavio Gonzalez, a 1996 Georgetown graduate, currently legal assistant for the Stanford Law School Immigrants' Rights Clinic, who brought the rubber to the road with his story of his own parents' initially illegal immigration and eventual path to legalization under the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986.
The 1986 law expanded the U.S. Border Patrol (now part of Homeland Security) and created penalties for employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants, but it provided a path for amnesty to about 3 million illegal immigrants then in the United States.
Gonzalez said his father, the third-oldest of 12 children in a poor rancher-farmer family from the town of El Teul de Gonzalez Ortega in Zacatecas state in Mexico, crossed the U.S. border illegally in 1969 to find employment that would let him help support his family.
His mother, from the same town, obtained a U.S. visa when she was 19, but a border agent turned her back on grounds that she might overstay her visa, so she entered the U.S. illegally a few days later -- her goal, to earn enough money to help her parents buy a home in Mexico to retire in.
Neither of his parents, who met in Los Angeles, originally intended to stay in the United States, he said. They returned to Mexico in the late 1970s and married there in 1979.
"As much as they wanted to stay with their families in Mexico, it was becoming clear to them that their aspirations for their children would not be possible living in Mexico," he said, so they returned to Los Angeles in 1979, working and starting to raise a family.
Gonzalez said when the 1986 immigration reform allowed his parents to obtain legal residency, his father described it as "bringing our family out to the light of day."
He quoted his father: "I could now stand at the bus stop without being afraid that I would be picked up by the police. I was no longer afraid to walk into government buildings. I was no longer afraid to own a car. ... I could own a home like everyone else. ... When [the government] legalized me, it recognized me as a human being."
"America is a country of immigrants and has embraced my parents and gave them an opportunity to come out of the shadows and mend their status," Gonzalez said. I can go on all night about the benefits that legalization has imparted on my mom and dad and on my family. Today there are 12 million people living in the United States that remain in the shadows."
McCarrick highlighted the attitude followers of Christ should have toward immigrants, starting with God's admonishment to the Israelites in Leviticus: "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 once aliens in the land of Egypt."
In the New Testament, he said, the child Jesus and his parents "flee as refugees to Egypt to escape the threat of Herod. As an adult, Jesus is an itinerant preacher. ... Christ lived as a migrant and a refugee for a reason: in order to live with his people in solidarity, to provide an example."
"So, in Catholic teaching, in the face of the immigrant, the refugee, the asylum-seeker or the trafficking victim, we see the face of Christ," he said.
He quoted Pope Benedict XVI: "Every migrant is a human person who, as such, possesses fundamental, inalienable rights that must be respected by everyone and in every circumstance."
Acting on that "simple but powerful" principle, he said, Catholics across the nation should be working "to convince our public officials to heed this principle and to enact humane immigration reform."
[Jerry Filteau is NCR Washington correspondent.]
If people who have entered
If people who have entered the U.S. in violation of her immigration laws suffer as a consequence of their acts, it is their own fault. If they have their families torn apart because they are being deported, well they should have thought about that possibility before they crossed the border illegally. Immigration laws are not in need of revision; they're in need of enforcement. Build a fence!
They only acted illegally
They only acted illegally because the law is unjust and indeed against the Magisterium of the Church. If you are a devote to the Magisterium, which you seem to be by your self-identification, than you cannot pick and chose.
I pray other bishops -
I pray other bishops - especially in the border states - will come out with similarly strong statements on this issue. It's time the Church renounced its membership in the "Club for Growth".
My understanding is that most
My understanding is that most illegal immigrants (perhaps not the politically correct term) come from Mexico and Central America. Until something is done about the economies in those countries, the problem will continue. Any other reform will be merely stopgap reform.
Their economies are only part
Their economies are only part of the problem. The fact that undocumented workers (the correct term) are both undocumented and ununionized is their attraction to American employers. Were it not for documentation requirements and right to work laws, such workers would not be in the shadows and would be able to demand working conditions and wage levels which are their human right. This would also make them very unattractive to American employers when compared to native workers (unless of course, they do work better, in which case they should be paid better as well). We all benefit from the virtual enslavement of these workers and the only way out of it is to repudiate both immigration restrictions and right-to-work laws.
Put another way, this entire problem is one of the Republican's own making, since they are the ones behind both policies that keep the problem in place. It will also be the destruction of their party as the debate over the issue alienates both a part of their natural base (ethnic conservative latinos) and their contributors.
Remittances are fast transforming the economy south of the border, or were before the Depression of 2008. NAFTA was as well. Unless the fiscal picture improves and tax rates go to a more Clintonian level, the problem will take care of itself and foreign workers will flee for greener pastures.
A fundamental error mars
A fundamental error mars these arguments. Whether or not an immigration reform bill should be enacted, one thing should first be made clear. The "fundamental, inalienable rights" of human beings do not include the "right" to move into another country unilaterally, without respect for that country's process of authorizing entry/acquisition of residence. I know of no one who would maintain that; therefore, to extract this quote from Benedict XVI out-of-context is illegitimate. So, too, is the "proof-texting" of Leviticus 19:33-34: from the principle of solidarity as applied to tribal Israel to particular legislative solutions for the 21st century United States is hardly a direct jump, and to leave that suggestion is--charitably--to be demanding prescriptions from the Biblical text that are arguably not there.
Many of those laws were put
Many of those laws were put in place to generate a second class and complaint workforce. They are as much the problem as the migrants.
The punishment should
The punishment should correspond to the severity of a crime. Being a person with no rights for years is a form of imprisonment, no less.
I think the good Cardinal is
I think the good Cardinal is underestimating the Democrats. This issue will come up next year and as long as there are 60 votes to limit debate in the Senate it will pass.
There will be toxic debate, but it will simply be the death throws of the Republican Party.
Mr Bindner, you have no
Mr Bindner, you have no concept of the depth of hate and fear of the immigrant - sentiments common in both parties.
While I am sure there are
While I am sure there are Democrats who share in some of the nativist feelings so common in this debate, the most vocal and caustic voices come from the right and the right will be penalized. Irregardless, this debate will come in 2010. Obama knows he cannot duck the issue.
I remember as a child not
I remember as a child not eating grapes and lettuce because Ceasar Chavez was working to form the United Farm Workers Union. It was a struggle. Part of the fight was to get the government to stop the illegals. They took jobs away and enabled the wages to be artificially low. While it is right that people have inalienable rights that are granted by God, it is the function of government to intervene and provide order when ever the rights of one group encroach upon the rights of others. Our government has the responsibility to provide for the safety of the people of our country and should be doing a better job of securing our borders. The Church has the responsibility of being the face of Christ to these people in their homeland. The biblical quote above was not speaking of 12 million aliens, it is admonishment to treat each person with dignity and respect, but does it tell the alien to impose themselves onto some one elses land. In fact the respect for property rights and the importance of them in a society was emphasized through the old testament and the 10 commandments. Is the alien who wants to illegally enter and gain employment and other benefits not covetting the goods that belong to the neighbor who waited to achieve these things legally? Aren't we encouraging and creating a deeper problem for these people by being supportive. Once illegals are in this country they are still in poverty and now are taken advantaged of by employers, land lords, rapists, robbers, and others who use their fear of their status to take advantage of them. Shouldn't the help begin on the other side of the border in missions that can aid their most immediate needs and help them leggally gain entrance to this country.
Wow, so much for the
Wow, so much for the Christianity on this blog. Count your blessings that your ancestors weren't subjected to the same racist feelings. These undocumented workers cross the Rio Grande just to find work to survive. You ancestors crossed the Atlantic Ocean to do the same.
There are many people who
There are many people who would like to come to this country and are following the rules to get here. My sister was a Catholic missionary in Kenya, and she worked with motivated, productive Kenyans who would love a chance to live here and who would be a great asset to this country. They are the type of people that we need here!
People who are here illegally should return to their countries, period. We should secure our borders to prevent people from entering illegally. We should encourage more immigration from different countries around the world and reward those who are going through the proper channels to get here.
Post new comment