Did Jeff Sessions make illegal border crossings a sin?

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Here what desperate asylum seekers travel by with air conditioning…and who’s paying for this?
 
Seems the Catholic church is teaching that if other countries are not interested in controlling their immigration then the United States has no moral obigation to accomadate asylum seekers and if we do it’s only temporary therefore camps near the border would be appropriate.
“Such policies must also and first emphasize the responsibilities of authorities in all countries to make their cultures more genuinely human.”
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[https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/how-should-catholics-respond-to-migration-caravans-29572]
 
Question? Should the Vatican do likewise?
JourneyForTruth said:
I always thought coming to this country illegally was at least a venial sin but but when you chose to go around the border crossing or don’t show up for your asylum hearings for two years out; are you committing a more serious sin?

"“If you are smuggling a child, then we will prosecute you and that child will be separated from you as required by law,” Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in a Monday address at the Association of State Criminal Investigative Agencies’ 2018 spring conference. “If you don’t like that, then don’t smuggle children over our border.”
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https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/04/illegal-immigrant-caravans-churches-and-criminal-sanctuaries/
 
Illegal immigration is a crime, and thus a sin. It is stealing resources and opportunities from lawful residents. Economic or physical desperation could potentially mitigate the subjective guilt, however.
 
Just say up front that you want to debate the immigration issue. Trying to sneak in the idea that Jeff Sessions has somehow made something a sin is just odd.
 
This has got to be the greatest example of a non-sequitur of the ages!
 
runningdude said:
Illegal immigration is a crime, and thus a sin. It is stealing resources and opportunities from lawful residents. Economic or physical desperation could potentially mitigate the subjective guilt, however.
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There is a long and ancient theological questions that goes along the lines “If your family is starving, is it a sin to steal food to meet their basic survival needs?”

Saying any action is, definitively, a sin is an ill conceived claim.

Man made law, still must pass the litmus test of being a just and moral law.

To deny this is to justify horrific actions of genocide throughout history by the demands of a government (i.e., the Armenian genocide, the Holocaust, the Slovakian ethnic cleaning, etc., etc.).

I get it. You don’t agree with open borders. That’s fine. But to say, because you don’t like it, that it is a sin, might be argued by others is a sin in itself!
 
Lex iniusta non est lex.

An unjust law is no law at all. (St. Augustine)
 
From a morality perspective, there are two actions that are to be considered separately:
  1. The act of breaking a country’s laws.
  2. The act of how a government treats those that breaks their laws.
 
Agreed. I don’t think most of us have a problem in principle with a country controlling admission to its territory (and indeed the.Church agrees that nations may do so).

There is, however, the question of how we are to respond to people who have already crossed the border, sometimes decades ago. Are they stealing even if they are now productive residents? Is deportation and possible separation of families the only imaginable response? How serious an offense is it to be in this country illegally if you have committed no other crime? The law regarding such matters is not divine or natural law and can be debated and changed if we find it unjust or its consequences undesirable.
 
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The question remains the same. Who gets a pass and who gets to determine that?

If they get a pass should all who try to enter our borders, north & south, east & west, get the same pass? How about extreme Islamic terrorists who intend to cause harm? Their just immigrants right? Do they get a pass?

How does this look in your mind?
 
Dude, c’mon. People who come here intending harm are not “just immigrants,” and no one is arguing that.

As for “who gets a pass,” how about people who have been here for X years, are contributing to the economy, and have committed no other crimes?
 
To be clear: are you saying that immigration laws are unjust and we should have open borders?
 
how is that fair for people who would like to come here, but are playing by the rules? Its seems like some want to favor those who “cut in line”?
 
My point is where does the line get drawn? When they come in illegally there is no way to know their “intent”. There is no way to determine where they are from or why they want to come to the USA.

I do support DACA and truly wish Congress would pass legislation to legalize a dreamer program with a path to citizenship. I would like for those who have been here for years to do something to legalize their situation. Especially if there were no further criminal activity. I’m not heartless.

BTW - I’m a woman not a dude.
 
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Not trying to, but in a thread about illegal border crossings, when someone asks ‘Are laws ever unjust?’, it certainly appears as if you are implying the current laws governing our border are unjust.

I certainly don’t want to misrepresent your views…so, just what are they specifically to immigration laws and illegal border crossings?
 
They are unjust. But I’m also not proposing 100% open borders. Can you name a single influential policy-maker who has?

I think a false dichotomy has been established - either putting up draconian, militaristic controls that make legal immigration next-to-impossible for a less-than-wealthy person OR just open up everything for a free for all. I disagree with the current administration and stand behind a just path to citizenship as repeatedly outlined by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. There is always a spectrum between two different extremes. You and I may draw the line in a different place, and that’s certainly worth discussing. But a knee-jerk response that misrepresents somebody as an extremist isn’t the way to go.

Since the question will clearly get evaded, I’ll clarify my intention for it. I asked “are laws ever unjust” because people tend to conflate legality with morality. I’d argue that there is all too often a vast gully of difference between the two. MLK, Jr. reminds us that what the Nazis did in Germany was legal, and what the Hungarian freedom fighters did was illegal. While I certainly can’t place the current immigration crisis on the same level as the Shoah, I do know that as Catholics, we’re called to challenge unjust laws.
 
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