Posted on 07/15/2010 3:11:04 PM PDT by NoLibZone
Washington D.C., Jul 15, 2010 / 05:51 am (CNA).- Bishop Gerald F. Kicanas of Tucson, Arizona on Wednesday testified before Congress on the need for immigration reform, characterizing it as “ultimately a humanitarian issue.” Emphasizing the dangers and difficulties migrants face, he called for the legalization of migrants who face a “proportionate penalty.”
Speaking as vice-president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), the bishop addressed the House Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security and International Law. His remarks came in oral testimony and in written testimony, copies of which were provided to CNA.
Bishop Kicanas noted that his diocese runs along the entire Arizona-Mexico border, which he called the “epicenter” of migrant movement.
“I witness the human consequences of our broken immigration system in my diocese’s social service programs, hospitals, schools, and parishes. Regularly, anxious and troubled immigrants come to ask our priests or employees for assistance for a loved one—a parent who has been detained, a child who has lost a parent, or, tragically, a family member who has lost a loved one in the harsh Arizona desert.”
“It is shocking to realize that about 5,000 men, women, and children have died in the desert since 1998,” he continued.
Because of the “broken” system, he said, families are being separated, workers are exploited by unscrupulous employers, and migrants are being abused by human smugglers.
Bishop Kicanas warned that the undocumented immigrants do not presently have the same rights as others, a situation which “perpetuates a permanent underclass.”
“Comprehensive immigration reform would honor the rule of law and help restore it by requiring 11 million undocumented to pay a fine, pay back taxes, learn English, and get in the back of the line,” he continued. “We believe this a proportionate penalty for the offense.”
Legal avenues for migrants’ entry would also free up law enforcement resources for smugglers, traffickers, and “other criminal elements.”
“Church teaching acknowledges and upholds the right of a nation to control its borders,” he added, arguing that “enforcement-only policies” have not solved the problem.
Bishop Kicanas also addressed the Arizona legislation SB 1070, saying he believed the law reflects “frustration” with Congress for not addressing the issue of immigration reform.
“The message is to break the partisan paralysis and act now. Without Congressional action on immigration reform---sooner rather than later---other states will pass similar laws, to the detriment of our nation,” he commented.
The bishop also reported observing “hardening attitudes, deepening divisions, and growing rancor” on immigration.
In his written testimony, Bishop Kicanas urged the minimization of “harsh rhetoric” in the immigration debate and condemned terms that characterize immigrants as “less than human.” “Such harsh rhetoric has been encouraged by talk radio and cable TV, for sure, but also has been used by public officials, including members of Congress,” he commented.
Real reform, according to the bishop, would legalize undocumented migrants and their families in the U.S., provide legal means for migrants to enter the U.S. to work, and reform family reunification. Further, the “root causes” of migration should be addressed so that migrants may remain in their homelands.
Describing the Catholic Church as “an immigrant Church, his written testimony noted Catholic immigration programs’ involvement in the implementation of the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) in the 1980s. There are currently 158 Catholic immigration programs throughout the country, he reported, saying such efforts are rooted in the belief that every person is created in God’s image.
This Catholic response is also rooted in Scripture, he explained, citing Jesus’ words in Matthew 25: “I was a stranger and you welcomed me.”
The bishop’s testimony also urged a permanent extension of the immigrant non-minister portion of the Religious Worker Visa Program, which now permits 5,000 non-minister religious and lay persons each year to enter the U.S. to work on a permanent basis both for their denominations and for the benefit of the community.
He reported that the bishops oppose a point system for migrants which places a higher value on highly educated and skilled immigrants than on family ties. Families start family businesses, provide for each other, and contribute their talents to local neighborhoods.
“Family reunification has been the cornerstone of the U.S. immigration system since the inception of our republic. It would be foolhardy to abandon this system, as the family unit represents the core of our society and culture.”
The testimony also reiterated the bishops’ opposition to legislation that would grant homosexual partners the same immigration benefits as married couples, saying it would erode the institution of marriage and family and create additional controversy.
Bishop Kicanas’ statement endorsed legislation such as the Agricultural Job Opportunity, Benefits, and Security Act of 2009 and the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act (DREAM).
Will the church of Mecca be next to speak?
What the Bishop is failing to say is that America did not cause this problem, illegals brought this on themselves. Hispanics are great supporters of the Church and there’s a lot of money there. The Bishop understands this. I am a Catholic and I understand very well where they are coming from.
In fact, Jesus said in Matthew 7:21-23
Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?
And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.
The humanitarian issue is the disaster of a country on our southern border. Perhaps the church should focus it's efforts on fixing Mexico then half of their population would stay the hell home.
Jesus has the strictest immigration policies for those looking to immigrate to heaven.
Even has a fence.
St Peter mans it!
No new agency required.
I basically disagree with everything the bishop says. The illegal immigrants have no rights in the United States, but they do have rights in Mexico, which is where they belong. The problem is that for humanitarian and nonhumanitarian purposes we have been supplying them with what their own country will not. the bishop says they have been exploited, but not if on balance they have gained more socially and ecnomically than they have contributed, which I think is the fact. The cost to education millions of their children, to supply those of all ages with the benefits of the social welfare system in the United States is prodigious, and it can be argued that their supply of cheap labor has distorted the wage system in the United States, and deprived Americans citzens unemployed or underemployed and forced them to depend on the welfare system and/or accustomed them to expect something approaching a living wage for not working.
The only difference between the catholic church and distributionist communism is that it’s a religion and has a God. Other than that, there is little difference between them and communists..
This Arizona Catholic Bishop can STFU!
LLS
It has been said that anti-Catholicism is the last acceptable prejudice. Of this every Catholic can be sure, because never in recent memory has it been so plainly on display in the mainstream news media’s coverage.
You know NOTHING about my Church! You know NOTHING about communism! If you did, you wouldn’t be saying these trashy & hateful bigoted things.
We are at war with Islam and we had better realize that fact. If the church won't lead another armed crusade, then maybe it's time we do it ourselves.
If this Bishop truely cared about the situation, he would not be working in the lush environment of Tucson, AZ, he would be working to make life better for these people where God put them.
Real reform, according to the bishop, would legalize undocumented migrants and their families in the U.S., provide legal means for migrants to enter the U.S. to work, and reform family reunification. Further, the “root causes” of migration should be addressed so that migrants may remain in their homelands.
The "root cause" is that we have been more successful than other countries, causing their citizens to want to come here. Either we can go down to their level, which I don't support, or we have to raise everyone else's countries up to ours, which we have no business doing. The root cause isn't up to us to fix.
When was it that people who are part of “Christian” organizations taught themselves so well how to lie, while pretending (to the ignorant) to tell the truth.
“Bishop Kicanas noted that his diocese runs along the entire Arizona-Mexico border, which he called the “epicenter” of migrant movement.”
Why can’t he tell the truth, in that statement, which, in Arizona, may be that the area he is referring to is the “epicenter” of ILLEGAL MIGRATION, not simply “migration”, which is a fact that presents a moral outrage when this “Christian” representative omits it as well as when he omits the importance of it; the importance of the legal AND MORAL distinction between LEGAL and ILLEGAL “migrants”.
The official Catholic Church in the U.S. has become a hustler for the Marxist open borders agenda, refusing to acknowledge that no one attempts to cross the U.S. Mexican border illegally because someone in Mexico put them in chains and forced them to, nor did they do it because they were starving in Mexico. They do it because the chose to, because they chose to break the laws of the U.S. The majority of illegal migrants that cross the U.S. border are not even unemployed before they start their illegal trek.
They are “in the shadows” in the U.S., with all the adverse aspects of that, because they chose to put themselves in the shadows, by breaking the law.
It is a huge moral outrage to be outraged about the consequences of their being “in the shadows”, while not being outraged about the fact that it is a consequence each ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT can rectify, with no changes in U.S. laws, by simply returning to the foreign land they ILLEGALLY came here from. An act that needs nothing but their own choice. But the Catholic official remains outraged about the consequences that the illegal migrant has chosen to place them self in. That is moral hypocrisy.
I cannot consider what Catholic officials say on this issue as “moral” at all. Their words entail denial of too many truths and the importance of those truths.
Frankly, the Catholic Church wants illegal immigration legalised because Hispanics are 99% Catholic, and frankly, Americans have been drifting away from Catholicism - officially or unofficially - for decades. Amnesty is just a cynical ploy for the RCC to pump up its numbers and its coffers.
I still haven’t figured out what exactly the big-name mainstream “Evangelical” groups think they’re going to get out of it, however, so I don’t see why they are supporting it too.
Let the Roman Catholic Church pay for the illegal alien's Social Services Cost, and their education.If that is said, I can guarantee that the good Bishop and his follwers will shut up like clams in a weather surf.
Money? That’s a slur.
A large chunk of the Hispanic population is evangelical.
Fact is that the Church has always been on the side of immigrants, starting with the Irish who were so discriminated against when the began to immigrate to the USA in the 1840s. The “Know Nothing” Party of the 1850s was formed to combat the Catholic threat to Protestant hegemony in the USA. Many of these nativists gravitated to the Republican Party, which was one reason why the Irish and other Catholic immigrant supported the Democratic Party. The Blaine Amendment was proposed by the 1884 Presidential candidate of the Republican Party, and while it never made its way in the US Constitution, is found on the books of many states till this very day. The Immigration Laws of the 1920s were passed in part to limit the number of Catholic immigrants, and the KKK was much more concerned about “Catholic Power: than about blacks of Jews. A former Kluxer and liberal Supreme Court Justice, Hugo, Black, practically read the Blaine Amendment into the Establishment Clause in 1947. So Anti-Catholicism is very much a part of
American political life, and it is natural enough for the Church to take the side of the illegals here. No Communist influence need be a factor here.
Now I disagree with the Church’s position on “comprehensive” reform. I dispute the claim that “enforcement” has failed. It has not been consistently tried, or else there could not be so many illegals in the USA. It is in fact easy for illegals to get across because no administration has tried very hard during the years since the last amnesty, the Bush effort being especially piss poor. The bishop thinks of the USA as a lifeboat. Well, lifeboats can be capsized by too many passengers.
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