Did Jeff Sessions make illegal border crossings a sin?

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This is a statement of anecdotes, not data, and the U.S. government has traditionally given preference to refugees and asylees with family ties.
 
That is up to U.S. customs to determine. The Northern Triangle of Central America is well-reputed for its gang activity, corruption, and human rights violations.
 
JourneyForTruth said:
True but when this caravan got to Mexico they were offered asylum…they refused it and wanted the good life of American. Therefore they are in SIN.
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They are committing a serious act. It is above our pay grade to judge their culpability.
JourneyForTruth said:
ONCE PEOPLE SUCCESSFULLY GET IN OTHERS WILL TRY.
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I’ve got news for you: they are going to try even if others fail. (Which of us can say we wouldn’t in the same situation?)
JourneyForTruth said:
he governor of New Jersey signed a law Wednesday allowing illegal aliens to apply for state financial aid programs to help pay for college beginning this fall, and the state has wasted no time in implementing it.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-govern...ows-illegal-aliens-apply-state-financial-aid/
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This is hard to tell; a lot of times both the state and federal governments have been very happily accepting taxes from them for many years. It isn’t just that they’re forced to do it by having to pay payroll taxes. It is because they are less likely to be summarily deported if they abide by tax laws while they’re here. (Unless there is a request having to do with a criminal investigation, the IRS is usually prohibited from disclosing taxpayer information, even to other federal agencies.)

There is good reason for the US to be jealous of her borders, but financial losses probably is not one of them. Particularly if one considers how much extremely difficult manual labor is done for low wages by the labor of people here illegally, it is most likely the nation profits financially in spite of the irregular legal situation. That doesn’t mean illegal immigration doesn’t matter, but it is probably out of place to spend any time resenting undocumented workers for financial reasons. Chances are they are a plus for the economy.
 
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Decreeing certain actions as sinful [or not] is controversial.

Maybe if Jeff Sessions got appointed by the Holy Father as a Cardinal … which could be done.

You don’t need to be a bishop to become a Cardinal.

In Texas, there is a controversy over illegals receiving I.D. cards from the Church.

So, who is doing what to who.
 
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Decreeing certain actions as sinful [or not] is controversial.
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Any act that is against the governments laws is a sin, unless you have needs above that law but there is a right way to go about presenting that. In the end if you lose in court you HAVE TO OBEY THE LAW!
 
In response to your question: “Do you see our current process for legal immigration as just?”

I’m not sure its “unjust”, as in its OK to ignore “an unjust law”. Perhaps there is a particular aspect in the overall body of immigration laws that is unjust, but you would have to identify that. I certainly think aspects can be improved. I know with my wife’s family, her father came over first. Her mother came over a year later, and then the kids. It was 2-3 years before the family was all together. That process can be improved.
I think employers need to bear more of the burden of the law…why aren’t the punished for hiring illegal immigrants (in order to possibly pay them less)? On the other side, I have a co-worker in Mexico…she is a manager at our Tijuana plant, and makes a nice living. She planned to be in San Diego when she gave birth in order for her child to have citizenship, and thus allow her and her husband come to the US. That doesn’t seem fair.

The problem with the overall discussion is that people want to make the topic of immigration a binary discussion: you are either for or against. In reality, there are many aspects of immigration…some good, some bad. Good discussion so far.

Blessings.
 
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That happens in every case where the parent is incarcerated. Is incarceration also cruel and inhumane, regardless of the crime?
 
Further, disease carriers are only excluded as long as they remain diseased. We have no issues with isolating a tuberculosis patient for two weeks while administering antibiotics, and afterwards allowing the cured patient into the country.
 
The Catholic Church ought to be involved in sponsoring these immigrants. We can’t reasonably demand others bare the costs for what our consciences demand. Rather, let us ensure that the immigrants we desire to welcome will not burden our neighbors, but let us bear that burden as a corporal work of mercy.
 
Ridiculous comparison. This is a punitive measure designed to make undocumented immigrants suffer by splitting up the families upon arrest. You don’t take children into custody if their dad robs a bank. This is designed to be cruel.
 
MonteRCMS said:
Maybe if Jeff Sessions got appointed by the Holy Father as a Cardinal … which could be done.
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It would be unusual to elevate a Methodist to Cardinal. I dare say it would be unprecedented.

Even if he were a Cardinal, he would not have the authority to declare things sins that were not already sins.
 
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Hereiam said:
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.
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No, actions are sinful by their nature. Circumstances can mitigate the guilt, but stealing food is still stealing.
Hereiam said:
Man made law, still must pass the litmus test of being a just and moral law.
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That is true, but not relevant here.
Hereiam said:
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.).
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These are unrelated to the discussion at hand, and serve only to distract. Limiting who enters a nation is not the same as massacring persons within a nation.
Hereiam said:
I get it. You don’t agree with open borders.
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You do not know my opinion on “open borders”, and my particular opinion is not relevant. The issue is whether it is a sin to illegally cross a border. The United States, or any nation for that matter, has a just interest in limiting who enters the nation. You do not need to politically agree with the particular limits set to recognize that it has a just and moral interest in doing so.
Hereiam said:
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!
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That is patently non-nonsensical. There is not anything inherently sinful about stating that regulating borders is a legitimate state interest, and that to defy a legitimate state interest is thus a sin.

Whether one “likes it” or not does not change the moral character of an action.
 
Thank you for another unabashed defense of Trump…he needs all the help he can get.
 
Hereiam said:
Saying any action is, definitively, a sin is an ill conceived claim.
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No, this is done all the time. It is always presumed that there are circumstances that either mitigate the culpability or that put the action into a different category.

For instance, even though it is a sin to steal, not all taking of someone else’s things without their permission is stealing. If the police seize things you own but do so in compliance with a court order, that is not stealing. It is lawful taking. The authority the judge has to allow them to do it under some circumstances is a necessary part of our societal contract that allows our laws to be enforced.

If someone crosses our borders without permission, that might or might not be criminal. As a judge might recognize, there could be a reason that makes an otherwise-illegal crossing into a legal act, such that the person who did it could justly be found “not guilty.”

When someone commits a crime against a law the government has the authority to make and enforce, that is a sin unless there is a morally-mitigating reason. Even when the act is moral, the person has to submit to the reality that they may still have to endure the legal penalty for doing it.

If someone crosses our border in violation of laws that make what they are doing a crime, then in the absence of mitigating circumstances they commit a sin. The Church teaches that we are subject to civil law except when we are compelled by moral imperative to act against it.
Hereiam said:
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!
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As runningdude noted, there are circumstances that can mitigate or even remove the culpability of essentially any sin, but willfully violating a nation’s sovereignty has the gravity of a sin and could be (depending on the nature of the violation) a serious sin.

There is no reason to believe that everyone who crosses the border illegally or violates immigration law by any other method has a compelling reason to do it, let alone a morally-mitigating reason. I say this because, for example, some of the persons who committed the suicide bombing of the World Trade Center gained the opportunity to do it by violating US immigration law. They weren’t here because they were forced to flee for their lives or to help their family survive. They were here to commit a crime.

People do sometimes violate our immigration laws because they want to be here for reasons that have nothing to do with survival or any other reason so compelling that overrides the just demand of a nation that she be allowed to govern her own sovereign borders.

Violating our borders when it can be justly avoided is morally wrong.
 
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There are a number of phenomenal Catholic organizations involved in this ministry, my favorite of which is Casa Juan Diego in Houston. Charity can’t assume the entire safety net, however. They need to make enough money to avoid needing social welfare; that there is an entire class of people called “the working poor” shows how dysfunctional things are in this country.
It may be better to shift our perspective to view immigrants less as “burdens” and more as our neighbors in Christ, as commanded in the Gospels.
 
Look, it is completely reasonable that aliens not be dependent on public welfare. That means that they should pull their own weight, and if there is any gap to fill, private charity must fill it. Giving taxpayer funded handouts to anyone who comes in is a surefire way to bankrupt the country, not to mention provoke civil unrest. If every parish sponsored one family, I don’t think there’d be any decent people forced to resort to illegal immigration. The only people who’d have to sneak into the country are those whose entry we refuse for moral turpitude, whom we have every reason to round up.
 
Disobeying the governing authorities without just cause is a sin. To be justified in breaking a civil law, you must demonstrate that the law itself is unjust.
 
Is it possible to make the wages, working full-time, that they do and avoid the need for welfare? Crunch some numbers and get back to me on that one.
 
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