Illegal Immigration a Mortal Sin

[Stylites]

There is a right way and a wrong way to do things.
Violating the law is the wrong way.

Right and wrong are not what Nancy Pelosi and Barney Frank say, although they salivate at the thought of people conferring moral authority upon them. Right and wrong come from God alone, not from Caesar.

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[Stylites]

There are weak arguments on both sides of the immigration. This has always been one of the weaker ones against immigration. I have seen it often, backed by some anecdotal evidence of some horrendous crime committed by an illegal evidence. What I have never seen is any evidence that illegal immigrants contribute to the violent crime rate more than legal immigrants, or for that matter, any other demographic. It is cheap fear-monger used by propagandists throughout history to demonize a group of undesireables.

Exactly. “Tribal justice” is an injustice and uncharitable way of dealing with people, who should be treated as individuals, and not as members of some group.

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[mlund]

There are weak arguments on both sides of the immigration. This has always been one of the weaker ones against immigration.

One of the weakest arguments made in the debate over illegal immigration are those that lean upon the dishonest rhetorical device of trying to conflate lawful immigration and illegal immigration under the guise of “immigration.” It is nothing more than cheap, fear-mongering propaganda employed by those whose best resort in debate is to accuse or imply that those opposing illegal immigration oppose lawful immigrants, and then to further imply everything from a lack of charity and compassion to racism.

I have seen it often, backed by some anecdotal evidence of some horrendous crime committed by an illegal evidence.

Thankfully, that’s not the case here.

What I have never seen is any evidence that illegal immigrants contribute to the violent crime rate more than legal immigrants, or for that matter, any other demographic.

For the large part, the immigrants themselves are not the ones committing acts of violence. (They are, however, much harder to police.) They are far more commonly the victims. Both complicity with and victimization by the cartels has made the cartels powerful. The cartels themselves are not comprised largely by immigrants trying to settle in the U.S. They are operated by criminals who use the smuggling routes through the porous border and the vast undocumented population as a means to obtain wealth and avoid being captured by the authorities.

Because of the “minor crimes” of the illegal immigrants, the cartels are able to operate with the great success they enjoy.

Considering many authorities purposefully avoid investigating the immigration status of so many people, demands for hard statistical data can always be obfuscated away - kind of like the 12 million vs. 20+ million debate. You are, in essence, demanding documented evidence of the undocumented.

Phoenix, Arizona - where I live - is in 2nd place for the kidnapping capital of the world. U.S. Citizens and documented immigrants are not accounting for such disproportionate rates of kidnapping.

azcentral.com/community/swvalley/articles/2010/06/29/20100629phoenix-drophouse-0629-abrk.html

Those 50 unfortunate souls from Guatemla were not citizens, legal visitors, or lawful immigrants. The approximately $200,000 that they supplied to organized criminals operating in Mexico is not building daycare centers.

foxnews.com/us/2010/06/16/closes-park-land-mexico-border-americans/

Those lands have gone out of control because the smugglers that control the smuggling and illegal immigration rackets on the U.S.-Mexican border have experienced increased material success in those regions thanks to lax border enforcement and the corresponding large rates of illegal immigration.

You can also point to the expansion of MS-13 and the 18th Street Gang in LA. As the rule of law has been eroded and the illegal immigrant population has expanded, the opportunities to exploit those channels has empowered organized crime to epidemic levels.

demonize a group of undesireables.

Immigrants are not undesirables. Smuggling cartels probably qualify. Illegal acts that help provide monetary support and logistical cover for those cartels should be quashed - and that included illegal immigration. Those guilty of such illegal acts should be, as a general rule, returned to their nation of jurisdiction to apply for lawful immigration.

• Marty Lund

 

[Stylites]

One of the big problems is the illegal immigration status quo is lawless and it is illicitly discriminatory - especially against those in the greatest need. The current status quo essentially hangs a sign that says, “Welcome all Mexicans - smugglers, farmers, murderers, and otherwise. Welcome all Ecuadorans and Guatemalans who paid through the nose to subsidize the drug-cartels for passage but managed to escape kidnapping once they got here. The rest of you chumps from South America, Asia, and Africa as well as you U.S. tax-payers can all go die in a ditch for all we care. Thanks!”

• Marty Lund

That is a red herring argument, and has nothing to do with the morality of immigration. If Rwandans shared a two thousand mile long porous border with the U.S. then I’m sure someone would be griping about how far away Mexico is and how unfair our laws are to them.

What IS discriminatory in our immigration laws is the way the working poor are treated, and it would behoove faithful Catholics in the U.S. to well-understand that the mindesets of most talk radio hosts are antithetical to Christ. Let us know how well you do serving two masters.

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[Stylites]

It is nothing more than cheap, fear-mongering propaganda employed by those whose best resort in debate is to accuse or imply that those opposing illegal immigration oppose lawful immigrants.

Just an observation: there’s a lot more chatter amoung the “What-Part-Of-Illegal-Don’t-You-Understand-/-Human-Laws-Are-Sacrosanct” types calling for an immigration-moratorium than there are calling for immigration-reform.

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[mlund]

That is a red herring argument, and has nothing to do with the morality of immigration. If Rwandans shared a two thousand mile long porous border with the U.S. then I’m sure someone would be griping about how far away Mexico is and how unfair our laws are to them.

And they would be griping with sound moral cause. The promotion of illegal immigration in many circles (such as La Raza) is rooted in discriminatory favoritism based on perceived race or national origin. If Mexico were suddenly transposed with Rwanda tomorrow I believe that the open-borders movement would be turned on its ear. Look at the way Mexico treats Guatemalans trying to get the U.S.A. already! Nobody on the pro-illegal-immigrant side of the debate speaks to their plight or reforming Mexico’s behavior.

and it would behoove faithful Catholics in the U.S. to well-understand that the mindesets of most talk radio hosts are antithetical to Christ. Let us know how well you do serving two masters.

Yeah, the broad-brush smears without specifics do your argument no credit. Furthermore, such declarations run afoul of this forum’s rules on posting charitably.

• Marty Lund

 

[Stylites]

Those guilty of such illegal [immigration] acts should be, as a general rule, returned to their nation of jurisdiction to apply for lawful immigration.

Or simply given a small fine in order to assuage the hungry cry for vengeance from the law trolls.

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[mlund]

Just an observation: there’s a lot more chatter amoung the “What-Part-Of-Illegal-Don’t-You-Understand-/-Human-Laws-Are-Sacrosanct” types calling for an immigration-moratorium than there are calling for immigration-reform.

Unfortunately, your observation only holds true for dishonest definitions of “immigration reform.” If, in your mind, “immigration reform” means amnesty and “immigration moratorium” means that next-to-nobody gets into the country without a VISA that I suppose your observation could be correct.

If, however, one holds an honest definition of “immigration reform” in mind (one in which illegal immigration is prohibited, not normalized, and lawful immigration statutes are revisited) and an honest definition of “immigration moratorium” (one in which nobody is allowed to lawfully immigrate into the United States) then your position is completely false.

• Marty Lund

 

[Stylites]

If, however, one holds an honest definition of “immigration reform” in mind (one in which illegal immigration is prohibited, not normalized, and lawful immigration statutes are revisited) and an honest definition of “immigration moratorium” (one in which nobody is allowed to lawfully immigrate into the United States) then your position is completely false.

I wouldn’t trust most politicians, or any talk radio personalities or internet yahoos to set the number of available visas, though. And the call for deportation of peaceful people for committing misdemeanor border crossings is a moral disorder.

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[mlund]

Or simply given a small fine in order to assuage the hungry cry for vengeance from the law trolls.

Or you could give them a free car, free house, and free food for the rest of their lives. It is critical to the legal and moral dimensions of handling this issue that law-breaking is not, as a general rule, rewarded.

How about a fine large enough to pay for an individual from China or Africa to immigrate to the United States so that prospective immigrants from poor nations might experience a little more equality instead of the “Mexico-first - everyone else die in a ditch” status quo that people are so eager to defend?

No, money really doesn’t fix this problem, in the end. Only submission to lawful authority, obeying the same rules that apply to non-Latin-Americans seeking immigration, and respect for international borders will fix this problem.

• Marty Lund

 

[vz71]

Personally, I think for MOST illegals, the ‘crime’ is akin to a speeding ticket morally. There are degrees of actual harm inflicted on others. With most illegals, the harm is zero or very small.

That would be their mistake.
The consequences of a speeding ticket pale in comparison to a deportation that tears a family apart.

How are we harmed by illegals coming to harvest our farm fields to the extent that they must face the full extent of the law?

One would have to make a great deal of unfounded assumptions to believe that is all that these illegal aliens do.
Likewise it is problematic to believe that these people are doing jobs that no legal citizen would do.

Most of us can hardly get through the day without violating some law because we have so many of them. Should OUR transgressions be subjected to the full extent of the law? Most judges do not punish to the full extent of the law. Thank God.

Yes, we should.
It is the risk we assume when we choose to violate the law.
It is an idiot that goes to traffic court unprepared to pay the highest fine possible for the crime.

I want better control of immigration. But I also want empathy and compassion for those just trying to take of themselves and families.

Alright, time for me to bring out my total lack of compassion side here…
Same concept as my example above concerning going to court for a traffic fine.
If you are not prepared for the worst possible consequence, then perhaps you should not violate the law.
I can feel all the sympathy and will offer prayers.
But they assume responsibility for violating the law when they do so.
And if the consequence tears the family apart, I will feel sorrow, but not so much that I allow them to get away with it.

 

[pnewton]

One of the weakest arguments made in the debate over illegal immigration are those that lean upon the dishonest rhetorical device of trying to conflate lawful immigration and illegal immigration under the guise of “immigration.” It is nothing more than cheap, fear-mongering propaganda employed by those whose best resort in debate is to accuse or imply that those opposing illegal immigration oppose lawful immigrants, and then to further imply everything from a lack of charity and compassion to racism.

I totally agree. Accusations of racism just because one desires strict enforcement of immigration is a cheap shot and ad hominem.

 

[Geremia]

Human-Laws-Are-Sacrosanct

Only just ones derive from God’s law.

 

[Stylites]

But they assume responsibility for violating the law when they do so.
And if the consequence tears the family apart, I will feel sorrow, but not so much that I allow them to get away with it.

“The neighbors are being shipped off to the concentration camps and the gas chambers, but they violated the law and harbored illegal Jews in their attic, and I will feel sorrow, but not so much that I allow them to get away with it.”

As it says in some people’s Gospel: “Blessed be the merciless, for they shall obtain mercy.”

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[vz71]

But they assume responsibility for violating the law when they do so.
And if the consequence tears the family apart, I will feel sorrow, but not so much that I allow them to get away with it.

“The neighbors are being shipped off to the concentration camps and the gas chambers, but they violated the law and harbored illegal Jews in their attic, and I will feel sorrow, but not so much that I allow them to get away with it.”

As it says in some people’s Gospel: “Blessed be the merciless, for they shall obtain mercy.”

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It is a stretch to attempt to paint just laws as unjust.
The immigration laws currently in place do not fit the definition of unjust.
The laws in place in Nazi Germany were unjust laws.

And your attempt to paint me as a Nazi sympathizer I find to be both ignorant and offensive.
I demand an apology.

 

[Contarini]

The Lair of the Catholic Cavemen blog proved, with the Catechism of the Catholic Church, that illegal immigrants are almost always in a state of mortal sin.Why are bishops not teaching their flocks this?

Maybe because the bishops understand Catholic theology better than some “caveman” blogger?

The blog is ludicrous. It claims that “job stealing” is a mortal sin. What is “job stealing” anyway? It’s not a moral or legal category–just a bit of inflammatory rhetoric used by people with a certain kind of political agenda. They do not support their claim that being paid “under the table” is stealing–they just assume it. And the claim that being in the country illegally constitutes lying is, again, theologically uninformed. Catholic teaching has never held that failing to tell everyone everything is a lie. It’s only a lie if you are asked directly, “Do you have legal status,” and you say, “yes” when you really don’t.

Instead, they constantly oppose any opposition not to deport illegals, going through theological gymnastics that it would actually increase crime rate, split up families, etc., when in fact it encourages people to break more laws and ultimately to offend God, from Whom all civil authority originates.

An unjust law is no law. This is the basic moral and theological principle that you and others who hold your views routinely ignore.

Also, why is immigration seemingly more important than abortion?

I can’t see any indication that the bishops think this.

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

It is a stretch to attempt to paint just laws as unjust.
The immigration laws currently in place do not fit the definition of unjust.

So you say. The bishops clearly think otherwise. Aren’t you supposed to respect their opinion?

Edwin

 

[HectorEli]

No, it’s not a mortal sin…please. And no, they are not stealing anyones job, they took the jobs that lazy americans would not do!

 

[pnewton]

And no, they are not stealing anyones job, they took the jobs that lazy americans would not do!

No need for uncharitable stereotypes.

 

[vz71]

So you say. The bishops clearly think otherwise. Aren’t you supposed to respect their opinion?

Edwin

Actually, I have yet to hear any Bishop proclaim the current immigration laws as unjust.
Can you provide a quote for me?