A Humane, Comprehensive Solution

by Bishop Gerald R. Barnes

U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Migration

As chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Migration, I have been charged with helping to formulate and articulate the Church’s position on immigration. That position has been mischaracterized and misunderstood by many, including Catholics. Let me clarify it.

The Church’s view on migration has been honed over hundreds of years and is rooted in the New Testament, in which Jesus taught us that in “welcoming the stranger” we are indeed welcoming him (Matthew 25:35-36, 40). Jesus himself was a refugee, fleeing the terror of Herod, and, during his ministry, an itinerant preacher with “no place to lay his head” (Matthew 8:20). Thus, the Church’s position on migration is not new. It is faith-based, not based upon perceived institutional interests. We are called, as Catholics, to speak out against laws and conditions that undermine basic human dignity.

We do not encourage or support illegal immigration, as some have claimed, for it is not good either for the society or, most particularly, the illegal immigrant, who is left unprotected by the law and is often subjected to exploitation, abuse and death in the desert. Rather, we seek to mend a broken immigration system that benefits from the toil of illegal workers without protecting them.

Our prescription is to emphasize legality over illegality through the creation of legal avenues for migration and the extension of legal status and a path to citizenship. This includes rigorous enforcement of the laws to be sure, but suggests a more comprehensive approach that reforms all aspects of the system.

While Catholics and others of good will may disagree, it represents, in the view of the bishops, the most effective, humane and practical approach to solving our immigration crisis. While it is true that those here without legal status have broken the law, we also must consider that our immigration laws are broken and do not reflect America’s economic realities.

It is well established that illegal immigrants come to the United States to work and labor in important industries. In many cases, they risk their lives to find jobs to support themselves and their families.

Around the country, these workers are found in agriculture, construction, service and other vital jobs. Without their labor, it is likely that our national economy would falter.

Granted legal status, illegal workers would be better able to assert their rights in the workplace, improving working conditions and wages for all workers, including U.S. workers. Legal workers stabilize the workforce by ensuring that employers have sufficient labor to meet their, and our, needs.

Moreover, such a policy is consistent with the U.S. national security. The extension of legal status to illegal workers would improve national security by drawing them out of the shadows to register with the government. The creation of legal avenues for migration would ease the migratory pressure on our southern border, allowing the government to better control who enters the United States.

Such a policy is a humane solution to our immigration crisis as well, because it enables immigrants and their families to remain together and to fully contribute their talents to their communities without fear. It also would help reduce the deaths of migrants who die in the American desert.

The issue of immigration elicits strong opinions. What is required is education and a reasonable discourse that seeks solutions. Working together, Catholics can play a leadership role in helping to create an immigration system that honors the rule of law but upholds values that all Americans cherish — hard work, opportunity and compassion.

Bishop Gerald R. Barnes is the

bishop of San Bernardino, California.

Killing the Golden Goose

by JENNIFER ROBACK MORSE

Let’s get real basic with the immigration debate. No, I don’t mean a rerun of the debates on the economic impact or the numbers of immigrants or the difference between legal and illegal. No let’s get even more basic. Why are they here and what do they want?

The vast majority of immigrants from all over the world come here for economic opportunity. Why do they do that? Because we’re rich and they aren’t. To be more precise, we have a functioning economy that generates wealth and they don’t.

Why does our economy work and theirs doesn’t? We have the rule of law and they don’t. Believe it or not, that one simple gift of our British heritage continues to pay large dividends to us and to the rest of the English-speaking world.

The rule of law means that one set of rules applies to everyone. There isn’t one set of rules for the people in power and another for the average Joe.

It means that property rights are relatively secure. Whether you’re rich or poor, whether your family is in the government or in the gutter, you can buy, sell and own property and be pretty sure it will still be yours the next day. The rule of law and secure property rights creates an environment in which people can make investments, take financial risks and create wealth. We take it for granted that our savings will be in the bank where we left them.

How can you create corruption without really trying? Have laws that are not uniformly enforced. The principle of the rule of law says that the same laws apply to everyone, and that everyone knows roughly what the laws are and what penalties for non-compliance are.

In many Third World countries, there are so many regulations that it is not possible to do business legally. Large portions of the economy operate underground, illegally, or as it is sometimes called, “informally.”

People who have connections can do better than the average Jose. If your brother-in-law is the police chief, you get your building permits and your business gets protection. If you are some poor sap trying to make a living, you might not. That uncertainty and that unfairness conspire to drain the energy people could be using to build better products, and in the process, hire more workers. Everything about this stifles capital formation and business development.

What does this have to do with the immigration debate? We have a set of immigration laws that are not being enforced. We are also, obviously, not enforcing our labor laws. The employers who hire illegal immigrants are almost certainly not in compliance with every aspect of our labor laws governing hours, wages, benefits and working conditions.

Both the immigration and labor laws lie in wait to be enforced when convenient. That’s a recipe for undermining the rule of law, the key thing that makes us richer than the rest of the world. This is true, regardless of the exact content of the laws. Any laws you don’t intend to enforce or that you intend to enforce selectively actively invite corruption.

If we import Third World politics, we will destroy our First World economy. And everyone, native-born and immigrant alike, will be worse off for that.

Jennifer Roback Morse is a

Senior Research Fellow in Economics at the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty.

Crucified in the Desert

by FATHER DANIEL GROODY, CSC

Especially on Good Friday, Christians gather in their Church communities to walk the Way of the Cross.

It is a time to enter more fully into the mystery of Christ’s life, death and resurrection, and to reflect on the meaning of the paschal mystery amidst the struggle and suffering of our own life and times. In recent months, legislation in Congress has brought to mind the plight of illegal immigrants, which raises many challenging questions about what it means to be Christian and American and respond to people in pain. While much effort has gone into reflecting on the earthly dimensions of immigration, very little has gone on in terms of its profound theological and spiritual aspects.

Immigration is a very complex subject, which brings not only to the border of Mexico and the United States, but also the borders between natural law and civil law, national security and human insecurity, citizenship and discipleship. Each group in the debate has a point to make and a truth to defend, and it is not easy to sort out this complexity. Yet as one contemplates the fact that more than an immigrant a day dies crossing the treacherous deserts, mountains and canals along the border — and thousands have died over the last 10 years since more restrictive polices have been implemented — the priorities become easier to sort out.

Above all, Catholic social reaching speaks about a God of life who challenges the human community to build a civilization of love.

It says that the moral worth of any society is judged according to how it treats its most vulnerable members. It acknowledges that:

— People have the right to find opportunities in their homeland,

— People have the right to migrate to support their families,

— Sovereign nations have the right to control their borders,

— Refugees and asylum-seekers should be afforded protection and

— The human dignity and human rights of illegal immigrants must be respected.

Our teaching also draws its inspiration from the Scriptures, where migration is a fundamental theme. In the Bible, immigration is not simply a sociological fact but also a theological event. Migration is at the core of the history of God’s people (Genesis 12:1-9; 42:1-2; (Exodus 1-18; Matthew 2:13; Deutoronomy 10:19).

In the end of the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus speaks about the judgment not only of individuals but of the nation, which will be determined by how we treat the hungry, thirsty, naked, sick, imprisoned and estranged, that is, the least among us.

When we contemplate that migrants are hungry in their homeland, thirsty after crossing merciless deserts, naked after being robbed even of their clothing by smugglers at the border, sick from heat-related illnesses, imprisoned in detention centers, and if they make it, estranged in the United States, we face even more challenging questions about where we look for Christ today.

If we saw that our identity resides in being a pilgrim Church or an immigrant people, we might see in the stranger not only a reflection of ourselves but the image of Christ (Mathew 25:31-46). In the process, as Father Lydio Tomasi [former director of the Center for Migration Studies of New York] says, we might discover that in the end it is not that the Church saves the immigrant, but the immigrant saves the Church.

Holy Cross Father Daniel Groody is an assistant professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame, and author of Border of Death, Valley of Life: An Immigrant Journey of Heart and Spirit.

Control Borders; Unleash Charity

by THE KNIGHTS OF COLUMBUS

The following resolution on U.S. immigration policy was adopted by the Knights of Columbus Board of Directors in Charleston, S.C., on April 9, 2006.

Whereas, U.S. immigration policy has become an intensely debated and divisive issue on both sides of the border between the United States and Mexico; and

Whereas, Catholic bishops at the Synod for America in 1997 stressed the solidarity and the common destiny of all of the peoples of the Western Hemisphere; and

Whereas, the Knights of Columbus is an international Catholic lay organization that has proudly included brother Knights in Mexico for more than a hundred years, and has thousands of members throughout the countries of Central America and the Caribbean; and

Whereas, we believe that legitimate concerns regarding sovereignty and the lawful and orderly control of cross-border travel must not be the only concerns addressed by a new immigration law; and

Whereas, in his first encyclical Deus Caritas Est (God Is Love), Pope Benedict XVI stresses the centrality of charity in the pursuit of justice, and charity — the product of Christian love — is the first principle of the order; and

Whereas, the vast majority of undocumented Mexicans and other Latin Americans in the United States have come simply to try and build better lives for themselves and their families, but must struggle to do so from the shadows of American society; therefore be it

Resolved, that the Board of Directors of the Knights of Columbus calls upon the president and the U.S. Congress to agree upon immigration legislation that not only gains control over the process of immigration, but also rejects any effort to criminalize those who provide humanitarian assistance to undocumented immigrants, and provides these immigrants an avenue by which they can emerge from the shadows of society and seek legal residency and citizenship in the United States.

The Knights of Columbus, based in

New Haven, Conn., is the largest Catholic

lay organization in the world.

Rights of Individuals and Nations

by FATHER JAMES V. SCHALL, SJ

 Historically, and this probably includes the Indians, all Americans have roots in immigration. This country is based on a “constitution,” an embodied idea, not on blood or tribe. If you are born here, you are a citizen. If you are not born here, you become a citizen only by an act of will, an oath of allegiance, a “naturalization” accepted by this country.

Most of those who come here intend to stay and seek citizenship, as they should. They need to acknowledge our laws and customs, and live according to them. They are not to remain exactly what they were back in the country of origin. They have accepted new civil laws. No one is forced to stay.

Generally, people do not leave one country for another except for serious political, religious or economic reasons. Immigration takes place because of disordered conditions in one or several countries over against perceived advantages in another. Countries with declining populations need other human beings to take the place of the unborn or unconceived. The only place to acquire new labor is from areas in which actual people exist who are willing to move.

Contrary to popular images, immigration into this country is not solely from Mexico. It includes all types of labor, from unskilled to very skilled, from many parts of the world. In any numbers, this immigration does change the country. No nation can have completely open borders and remain itself (though, while we in the United States speak of immigration problems, we are also at war with a self-announced enemy, many of whose adherents are presently immigrating into Europe.

Any country into which new peoples flow must have a reasonable control of its borders, not least for security reasons, but also for economic and humanitarian ones.

That millions of people want to immigrate into a country is a compliment to that country. It demands much of those who come as well as of those among whom they will live. Immigration laws should be primarily designed to make new citizens of those who come among us.

Once this basic principle is understood, we can work backwards to decide both who stays and who enters the land.

Of course, not everyone mixes with everyone. A country has to decide whom to welcome. No one has a right to go wherever he wants on his own terms.

A law that has been poorly enforced or thought out needs revision to deal deftly and generously with those who took advantage of its laxity, provided that they show their intention to stay among us.

The Constitution is a promise, the making of which promise unavoidably reorients one’s soul from earlier national habits and customs. Once both citizens and immigrants understand this principle, the immigration problem comes properly into focus and prudential agreement on the details can be worked out.

Jesuit Father James V. Schall is a professor of government at Georgetown University.

What Christians Should Consider

by JOHN O’SULLIVAN

As I write, the news is coming in that three Catholic cardinals are to join three Democratic senators at a press conference to advocate legislation that would combine border security with a guest-worker program and an amnesty for 12 million illegal aliens. Headline writers will doubtless highlight this event as “Catholics Back Open Borders,” and The New York Times and the White House will present it as an exercise of the Church’s magisterium.

Neither will, of course, be the case.

According to a Zogby Poll just completed, only 34% of Catholics support the bishops’ “comprehensive” reform, while 54% oppose it. Two-thirds of Catholics support the House “enforcement only” bill that the bishops oppose.

But are not Catholics bound to follow the teaching of their bishops? Well, up to a point. The Church is an authoritative guide on matters of faith or morals. But Catholic social doctrine — and its equivalents in other faiths — is a mixture of moral principles and practical considerations. And disinterested experts — from economists to astronomers — are likely to be better guides to the second than theologians or even bishops.

Thus, a Catholic is obliged to obey the bishop who teaches him to justly reward workers. If, however, economist Milton Friedman demonstrates that the method recommended by the bishop is likely to cause unemployment, the same Catholic should look for different means of achieving the same end. That being so, political debate could well encompass fiercely partisan battles by groups of Christians offering opposed policies all rooted in Christian principles and differing on the empirical evidence. And that applies to immigration.

What does the evidence tell us about immigration in relation to, say, “the preference for the poor”? There is a growing consensus among economists that immigration hurts the low-paid in America. This immigrant competition has been especially severe on black Americans. A recent New York Times report pointed out: “In 2000, 65% of black male high school dropouts in their 20s were jobless. By 2004, the share had grown to 72%, compared with 34% of white and 19% of Hispanic dropouts.”

A second relevant principle is the national unity and solidarity of the United States. Pastoral statements by the U.S. and Mexican bishops pay lip service to the rights of nations to preserve their culture and identity through control of immigration. Until quite recently, prominent Catholics promoted severe controls on immigration. Father Theodore Hesburgh chaired the 1979 Special Commission on Immigration and Refugee Policies that proposed a legal immigration ceiling more than 33% lower than the present one. Today, however, the bishops attach little weight to this right — even though rallies are taking place throughout the United States at which Mexican flags are waved and the speakers deny the legitimacy of America’s border and nationhood. Ordinary Catholics may reasonably take a more cautious view.

Of course, in discussing immigration, we are all obliged to keep charity in the forefront of our minds. But that may not point directly to more lax immigration policies, let alone amnesty. Our first obligation of charity is to the least advantaged of our national family. Furthermore, governments are not entitled to dispense charity as if they were individuals.

A man who broke open a trust fund meant for his nephews and gave all it contained to the poor would not become perfect thereby; he would become a thief. A government that transformed America into a socially divided and ethnically balkanized society would be something much worse.

John O’Sullivan is editor-at-large of

National Review. He is currently writing

a book on Pope John Paul II.