[Col Freeper]

Evening Markomalley.

All of the issues you raised are certainly important ones.

However, I would argue that they do not provide a response to the original question.

Surely the simple question of "What is the Roman Catholic church's position regarding illegal immigration?" can be addressed, without moving over into those issues.

I recognize that there is a continuing conflict between some Roman Catholic and some non-Roman Catholic posters on FR, and sadly, that it will probably continue.

Personally, however, I am interested in the original question, and the answer.

BTW, I would, and will, be interested in any future posts concerning the other issues you raised (they do need to be addressed and resolved by this country).

I read a number of your posts, and it seems that you certainly have some knowledge concerning this issue, and how you see it impacting, or being impacted by, the Roman Catholic church.

I don't think the question is going to go away, the issue is spreading (I think I recently read that 21 states are now attempting to implement a law like the one recently passed by Arizona, and blocked by a Federal Judge).

Rightly or wrongly, the anger and frustration will be targeted somewhere, and the results probably won't be pretty.

I pray regularly that it will be resolved peacefully.

[markomalley]

Surely the simple question of "What is the Roman Catholic church's position regarding illegal immigration?" can be addressed, without moving over into those issues.

The answer to that has been provided many times before by many who are far more capable than I.

But the short answer is this:

Wealthy countries are obliged, to the degree that they are able to do so, welcome migrants from poorer areas. They are not required to ruin their countries in doing so. They have the right and the obligation (in support of the common good within their own countries) to control immigration.

Societies within those wealthy countries have the obligation to treat immigrants with the full measure of human dignity that they afford natives. They are not to exploit them, use them as slave labor, pay them less than the going rate for the same labor as they would pay natives, and so on.

Immigrants have a responsibility to respond with thankfulness to their society: taking up their fair share of burdens, respecting the culture of the society they've adopted, and respecting its laws.

Thus, a person who crosses the border illegally is already living out of touch with what the Church teaches right off the bat.

But I don't agree that the issues I raised do not provide a response. They are central to that response. The fact of the matter is that our government has tacitly welcomed illegals into the country for decades. They have not sealed the borders. They do not enforce employment law or tax law. They provide socialist benefits to illegals just the same as legal residents (socialism has consistently been condemned by the Church [i.e., the Popes] since the days of Pius IX...and by every pope since that time). They do just enough to mollify those who are outraged by illegal immigration.

So the real message that has been provided to these people (and they are people, remember) is that if you can survive a tough passage into the country, you're home free and can live the good life. They have compadres who send money home on a regular basis; they receive letters and phone calls from friends in the US who say it's no problemo; they watch Spanish-language programming being exported from the US (e.g., Univision) that give the message "come on up," and what do they end up thinking? SHould I live in a sh*t-hole here or should I endure a tough trip for a chance to live in a place where I, too, can get a monster Chevy truck?

That does not excuse the fact that they knowingly violated the law, but I can actually understand it. (I remember as a high school youth, the drinking age was 18...but that didn't stop anybody from buying beer at 16...nobody cared and, thus, it was an ineffective law)

So the bottom line is who's fault is this situation? Is it the fault of the illegal who broke the law in crossing the border and not paying taxes on cash earnings? Yes.

But that's not all.

It is also the fault of the employers who wanted to get away with labor at cut-rate prices while, oh, by the way, avoiding having to pay those nasty payroll taxes like they would if they hired Americans.

And

It is also the fault of the government that didn't secure the borders and that refuses to actually enforce existing laws when it comes to hiring people who are not authorized to work and paying taxes as they should. (Also, I'd wager that state and local governments are violating multiple laws paying welfare out to illegals and to registering their vehicles and giving them identity papers...better known as driver licenses)

Now, back to what the Church teaches. (the above rant was pertinent to it, believe it or not)

Fact of the matter is that these people are human beings. Fact of the matter is that these people have families. Regardless of language or whatever...they are human beings.

Fact of the matter is that, according to Catholic teaching, they are owed a certain amount of dignity just due to the fact that they are human beings.

And as a matter of justice (not social justice, juridic justice), one has to figure out how resolve the situation justly. And, for the most part, I think that is what most of the bishops are struggling with.

The problem is that if you merely deport one family member (either the father or the mother), you've messed up a family.

And, frankly, if all you do is deport, all you do is just create a vacuum that is going to be filled again. Maybe by the same people; maybe by others -- but a vacuum is going to be filled.

The bishops are calling for immigration reform. True. But I don't think that I've heard about the majority of them calling for open borders. There are a couple who have (most notably Mahony), but most want a decent solution: temporary work visas, not separating families, and so on.

And most of them that I have read do, in fact, call for a secure border.

Me, personally, with my knowledge (as limited as it is) of Catholic doctrine, I would call for the following (which I believe would be totally in accord with Catholic teaching:

• Secure the borders and shorelines. Modify posse comitatus to allow troops to patrol those borders. Posse comitatus is only a statute -- it can be modified by Congress with a simple majority vote (not that this will happen with the Dhims, of course)
• I don't personally have a problem with SB1080...but I don't think that it will be all that effective. What would be far more effective is for states to pass laws that made it a criminal offense to hire or subcontract with a person who was not authorized to work in this country according to federal law. Make it a misdemeanor punishable by a fine for homeowners and make it a felony for people hiring/subcontracting with illegals for commercial purposes with jail time for the hiring official(s) and a HUGE fine for the business. And then do raids and put people in jail. Not the illegals...but those who hire them. I mean business owners, managers, HR department heads.
  • With such a law, there is no way that FEDGOV could complain that a state is encroaching on FEDGOV turf, like they are with SB1080. They are merely enforcing state employment law. And possibly state tax law (for those states with state income tax withholding, state unemployment insurance contributions, etc., etc.).
  • In the majority of cases, if the illegal is unable to find work in this country because nobody will hire him/her due to the risk of going to jail, there will be much less incentive to remaining here and the incentive to come here will be far smaller than before
  • And, by the way, I don't think that a concerted effort to make sure that employers comply with employment law has ever been tried before
• At the same time, I would look at most social assistance benefits and make sure that benefits were unavailable to those who are not here legally, with the exception of short-term emergency assistance (like food and medical until somebody is able to take a plane or bus back home). You might be interested to read what Pope John Paul II had to say about welfare states like our own:

  In recent years the range of such intervention has vastly expanded, to the point of creating a new type of State, the so-called "Welfare State". This has happened in some countries in order to respond better to many needs and demands, by remedying forms of poverty and deprivation unworthy of the human person. However, excesses and abuses, especially in recent years, have provoked very harsh criticisms of the Welfare State, dubbed the "Social Assistance State". Malfunctions and defects in the Social Assistance State are the result of an inadequate understanding of the tasks proper to the State. Here again the principle of subsidiarity must be respected: a community of a higher order should not interfere in the internal life of a community of a lower order, depriving the latter of its functions, but rather should support it in case of need and help to coordinate its activity with the activities of the rest of society, always with a view to the common good.100

  By intervening directly and depriving society of its responsibility, the Social Assistance State leads to a loss of human energies and an inordinate increase of public agencies, which are dominated more by bureaucratic ways of thinking than by concern for serving their clients, and which are accompanied by an enormous increase in spending.

  Encyclical Centesimus Annus, 48

  So it is apparent that revising our entire welfare system would be in order. That is a totally different matter, but certainly long-term assistance to those present illegally would be a good place to start.

• Obviously, if a person who is not a citizen commits a crime, they should be on the next bus or plane out of the country (as soon as his/her jail time is up)
• Finally, I think the immigration system needs to be fixed. I know a lot of legal immigrants who spent years waiting in line or doing the lottery just to get permission to come here...and then years and years waiting for citizenship. Yes, right now we have high unemployment and so it makes no sense to bring immigrants in. But when we were for such a long time at 4% - 5% unemployment, it makes no sense for people to have to jump the hoops they had to jump. That has got to have better enforcement to make sure that people here on temporary visas leave when their time is up (perhaps requiring bonds to be given by prospective employers would be a way to help with that). And, obviously, investigations have to be done to make sure we're not importing criminals. But neither are things that should take 5-15 years to happen.

You say, Rightly or wrongly, the anger and frustration will be targeted somewhere, and the results probably won't be pretty.

You are right.

But what kind of anger and frustration would be focused on those people who hire illegals for cut rates, don't withhold taxes on them, don't pay their share of employment taxes (FICA, unemployment, etc.)? I think that the anger which rightfully exists could be spread out a lot.

People have every right in the world to be mad at illegal aliens. But they should be just as angry at those who entice them to come here...and just as angry at the government who winks and nods at the problem or the politicians who try to use the issue for their personal gain.