More Church Leaders Call for Opposition to Immigration Law
Bishop John C. Wester of Salt Lake City said he would like the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to support an expected legal challenge to the law, noting that the bishops’ first concern is for the well-being of the people who will be affected if the law takes effect. Bishop Gerald F. Kicanas of Tucson, Ariz., earlier in the week called for the USCCB to become involved in a legal challenge.
“A law like this has a great capacity for hurting people who are just going about their business, getting an ice cream,” he told Catholic News Service April 28 in a phone interview, paraphrasing President Barack Obama’s comment a day earlier to an audience in Iowa.
“Now, suddenly, if you don’t have your papers, and you took your kid out to get ice cream, you’re going to get harassed—that’s something that could potentially happen,” Obama said. “That’s not the right way to go.”
Obama has asked the Justice Department to evaluate the law’s constitutionality. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder told reporters April 27 that his office might challenge the law in court; the mayor of Phoenix is contemplating a similar challenge. The sheriff of Pima County told reporters he would not enforce the law in his territory, which includes Arizona’s second-largest city, Tucson. The sheriffs of Maricopa County, home to Phoenix, and at least one county on the Mexican border wholeheartedly embraced the law.
Bishop Wester said although the U.S. immigration system is broken, the Arizona law is not necessary.
“Instead of putting energy into that, why not put your energy into pushing federal legislators to pass comprehensive immigration reform?” he asked. Comprehensive reform legislation has been introduced in the House and is in the drafting stages in the Senate. Such bills typically include mechanisms for enforcement at the border and in the workplace, a path to legalization and citizenship for people already in the country, and changes to the system for work- and family-related immigration visas.
Bishop Wester said an antagonistic, fractured political climate in Washington makes for dim prospects for a comprehensive reform bill, especially in an election year. But as was shown at a pro-reform immigration rally in Washington in March that drew more than 200,000 people, he said, people are becoming energized about calling for reform quickly.
Religious leaders of many denominations around the country criticized the legislation. The Catholic bishops of New Mexico called the law “wrongheaded” and said they are concerned that “legal immigrants and U.S. citizens would probably be interrogated by the police if they look Hispanic, or in any other way, foreign.” They said they hope the law’s implementation will be stopped.
The law criminalizes the act of being in Arizona without immigration documentation. Federal law treats that as a civil violation. The Arizona law also requires police officers to arrest those they suspect of being in the country illegally and permits lawsuits against individuals or agencies who people think are not enforcing the law.
In New Mexico, Archbishop Michael J. Sheehan of Santa Fe, Bishop Ricardo Ramirez of Las Cruces and Bishop James S. Wall of Gallup, whose diocese includes part of northern Arizona, said they believe the law “would lead to racial profiling, community distrust and a pervasive fear among immigrants.” As with all the statements from church leaders and most of those from political leaders, the New Mexico bishops laid the responsibility for fixing immigration problems with the federal government.
“It is clear that we need immigration reform at the national level in order to deal with the disparities in the present immigration law,” they wrote. “We bishops are concerned that other states might try to initiate such a wrongheaded law as well.”
They added that the law “is not in keeping with the best traditions of our nation.”
In New York, Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan on his website blog echoed Los Angeles Cardinal Roger M. Mahony in decrying the Arizona law.
Archbishop Dolan attributed the law’s passage to a climate of fear during a time of tension and turmoil in society.
“It’s a supreme paradox in our American culture—where every person unless a Native American, is a descendant of immigrants—that we seem to harbor an ingrained fear of ‘the other,’ which, in our history, is usually the foreigner (immigrant), the Jew, the Catholic or the black,” he wrote, saying that this is another of history’s “periodic spasms of ‘anti-immigrant’ fever.”
“Arizona is so scared, apparently, and so convinced that the No. 1 threat to society today is the immigrant, that it has passed a mean-spirited bill of doubtful constitutionality that has as its intention the expulsion of the immigrant,” wrote Archbishop Dolan. “What history teaches us, of course, is that not only are such narrow-minded moves unfair and usually unconstitutional, but they are counterproductive and harmful.”
The ethos of Catholic culture, however, is one of welcome, he wrote, saying that the church has been a spiritual mother to immigrants—”who were and are mostly Catholic, who have found a home in parishes and schools which helped get them moved in and settled in America.”
He said that even from a purely business point of view, “a warm welcome to immigrants is known to be good for the economy and beneficial for a society.”
In addition, welcoming immigrants, helping them become legalized and naturalized as citizens, “to help them feel at home, to treat them as neighbors and allies in the greatest project of human rights and ethnic and religious harmony in history—the United States of America—flows from the bright, noble side of our American character,” Archbishop Dolan said. “To blame them, stalk them, outlaw them, harass them and consider them outsiders is unbiblical, inhumane and un-American.”
A few days before Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer signed the bill into law April 23, Cardinal Mahony blasted it on his blog, calling it “the country’s most retrogressive, mean-spirited and useless anti-immigrant law.”
Arizona’s bishops—including Bishops Kicanas, Wall and Phoenix Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted—opposed the bill as it came through the Legislature. On April 26, Bishop Kicanas on his diocesan website called for the USCCB general counsel to review the legislation with an eye toward having the conference join friend-of-the-court briefs in support of overturning it.
A statement issued by the USCCB April 27 from Bishop Wester called the law “draconian,” and said although its legal impact is limited to Arizona, its potential effect on how immigrants are perceived and treated extends nationwide.
With nearly three months before the law takes effect, calls for economic boycotts of Arizona grew on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. The Los Angeles City Council and the San Francisco Board of Supervisors were considering resolutions that would require their governments to cancel contracts with Arizona companies and bar city employees from traveling to the neighboring state for business.
Politicians in the adjacent Mexican state of Sonora threatened to cut off Arizona’s largest trade partner and the Mexican federal government warned its citizens to be careful while traveling in the state because of the risk of harassment.
I guess, in this case, I have to conscientiously disagree with the bishops conference. All we owe any human being is dignity, and a modicum of respect. The Bishops seem to forget that these folks came here illegally. I only ask that they go through appropriate channels.
The law in AZ is an echo of the federal law that goes unenforced (as does most immigration law), and has been unenforced for 20 years, since Reagan naturalized them all (his only real mistake, IMHO). There has to be probable cause before anyone can be stopped. It’s the same thing for seat-belt laws. Only if you break the law some other way do you get fined for not wearing a seat belt. But just like all of us, when we travel abroad, need to have ID with us-valid ID, so people in the US must also. We need to carry a drivers license, and we’re supposed to carry a social security card. But since these are given freely to illegals, the government has blurred the lines.
I don’t have anything against these poor Mexicans, but let them seek citizenship the proper way.
This is one of those issues where both sides have truth on their side. The people in AZ, who from the latest polls seem to favor this new law; are angry that our borders are not secured and that bloodshed and murder are happening here in AZ. There are stories that drug dealers and the Mexican army have crossed our border and fought while our government reminds silent. They have brought their war to AZ and something has to be done. AZ is in deep trouble. We do need to close our borders and not just have open borders with only a barb wire fence to keep people out.
I also understand the Catholic Bishops and why they feel the way they do about this law. They want Illegals to be treated like human beings and not have the police do racial profiling.
I was talking to someone about this issue and they told me that Mexico doesn’t have an open border and doesn’t let anyone just walk into their nation and live and work there. They deport them. There seems to be a double standard of one standard for Mexico and other countries to close their borders and make people imigrate there the proper way. While the United States is condemned for trying to do the same thing as other nations do to secure their nations. Why does Mexico get to speak out and influence what we do here in AZ, which is still part of the United States.
There are Americans who need jobs and AZ has been hit really hard and people are still looking for work. They take jobs away from Americans. A nation has a duty to its people to secure their borders and be putting their nation first. We don’t seem have that in our government anymore.
Right now the polls show that 70% of the people support this new law and 30% disagree with the law.
As a Catholic, I must look at what the Bishops are saying. I believe that there are items in this Law that the Catholic church believes are wrong. Our Bishop in Phoenix is against this law. He is very conservative. He speaks out about the issues and what he thinks. We need real Immigration Reform in this country.
I am absolutely against mistreatment of any human being, and I stand with the bishops on that. And I understand the potential for misuse of the law. But every law has abuses, even within the Church (do you think every attempt to get an annulment is valid?), and that’s because we’re human.
I think, rather than scrap the whole law, they need to let it be known what parts they’re afraid of. And I think the US needs to get their backbone back, and put a stop to this stuff, or else, really stop it and annex Mexico. Bishop Cordileone in Oakland is a conservative, too, he’s probably against it. But they need to get their fears on the table.
David,
I am sorry I didn’t get back to you sooner. I wanted to think about things before I responded to you.
I know David that you don’t want to see anyone treated badly. I don’t think you are an evil monster who enjoys to see people being treated badly because of the color of their skin, the place of their birth, or the religion they practice.
I am just one woman who is trying to be a Catholic in good standing. It is very hard David to keep in good standing so I can receive communion and all the other sacraments of the church. I don’t want to be a Catholic that only goes to mass at Christmas and Easter and who doesn’t pray the rosary or read the daily readings. I feel like I have fallen so many times and have caused Jesus and Mother Mary so much pain because I have chosen things of the world. I listen to my Bishop when he says something. That is why I voted the way I did, because I wanted to vote in what my Bishop said a Catholic had to vote. I followed the Bishop dictate on the voting in the 2008 election.
During the election and even now, I see Catholics judging other Catholics because they disagree with one aspect or one teaching of the Cathoic church. Yet, the same Conservative and Pro life Catholics refuse to listen to the same Bishop who during the election told the rest of us Catholics we had to listen too. It just seems like there is a double standard because those who were so strong in having us follow the words of the Bishop on the abortion issue choose to ignore him on this issue of this new Law on my state of AZ. I on the other hand am listening to the words of my Bishop and oppose this new Law.
Yes, we need to do something because we do have a big problem with the violence of the drug wars spreading into America. There are reports that the Mexican milatary came into AZ fighting those drug lords and our government does or says nothing. We need secure our borader and need more than just a barb wire fence. Yet, I don’t think this law as written today is the avenue that we should take.
I think I am going to try and go to mass tonight and not tomorrow. So I am going to end with this.
We are debating the question of states’ rights vs federal rights. That same question was the reason for the Civil War that started in 1860. That same question is being asked today as the country is getting more and more divided.
Have a nice weekend
Chrisy
Bless you, Christy. I know it’s so hard to be a faithful Catholic. I appreciate you for trying. Mother Theresa told us that the most important thing we can do is persevere, whether or not we’re successful. (as a side note, I know priests who ‘listened to their bishops’, and voted for Obama-I don’t know how, but they did) I used to be one of those who judged like that, now rather than judging, I try and do something. I believe that the most important thing we can do to change someone’s mind is to change their heart, and to do that, we must educate. So I don’t go pointing or judging people because of their stance on abortion. I will fight tooth and nail to get the good word out, but I truly try to love the sinner and hate the sin. I believe, in the case of the immigration law, that the Bishops are not wrong, that they are so very interested in these people’s human dignity. Where I think they’re misguided is that the law does not infringe on human dignity. Certainly, it has the potential, but that’s where we as citizens need to be involved-when you see injustice you should do all you can to stop it or expose it.
In this case, the federal government is supposed to be doing something about unlawful entry into the country, and they are not. In many states, those borders are shared by the states. Since the Federal Government will not, or cannot, enforce the existing laws, I don’t blame AZ for doing something.
Christi, I really appreciate your thoughtfulness, and the way you care for our fellow humans. And I appreciate the same from the bishops. Thankfully, the bishops have stopped being silent on a lot of hot button issues. I will always support bishops, even if I have minor disagreements with them. Where I disagree, I am allowed to disagree. Human dignity and life are paramount to our salvation!
God bless you.
David,
God bless you too. This morning as I was walking my dog it said on the radio that our gov. signed into Law the clarification that there will be no racial profiling. I think that is a good thing and hopefully now that there is a clarification our Bishops will now approve of the new Law. I know I feel better about the Law now that they have added into the Law that there will be no racial profiling.
I am like you in that I love the sinner but hate the sin. I never give up on people, I just pray for them. I believe in prayer. I know prayer saved me and it can save others as well.
I think all of us just want to be good Catholics and try the best we can. When I pray my rosary and it is the sorrowful mysteries I think about how my sin has caused Jesus pain. I don’t want to cause Jesus pain.
We do have a problem here in AZ, and the federal government was not doing their job in securing our border. People are dying trying to cross into our state because in the Summer temps are tripple digits and might get as hot as 115 degrees and even hotter sometimes. There is a lot of human trafficing of people who are being held as slaves. Some women are held as sex slaves and they can’t escape and are beaten or even killed if trying to escape. Others work in factories for very long hours and all the money goes to the men who hold them hostage. American Border Patrol agents are murdered and Mexicans and Americans are murdered. The Drug Lords and the Mexican army has crossed into AZ and fought and not one word from our federal government.
One of the things that make me mad at Progressives is that they seem to not care about the violence, the human trafficing of people being held against their will, the Mexican army crossing into AZ. All they care about is racial profiling and distorting what the Law really says. There is now no racial profiling in the Bill as of today.
Both sides need to be honest. Both sides need to work together to find a solution to what is happening here.
God Bless
Chrisy
Chrisy, you and I think a lot alike. While we might hold a different opinion, we can see the other side. have you been to my blog http://www.rootofjesse2.wordpress.com? I will add you to my regular reading list.
I really like your blog. We are both open minded about things which is a good thing.
God Bless
Chrisy
I’m pretty strongly opinionated, but I also know that I’m not always right.
David you sound like an honest man. It takes a great man to know that they sometimes make mistakes and then work to correct those mistakes.
I think your strong Catholic faith is the reason that you are the great man you are.
Have a great day.
God Bless
Chrisy