A Resolution by the National
Conference of Catholic Bishops
Spanish Version
1. We, the bishops of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, at our annual meeting in Washington, D.C., call upon our federal policymakers to reexamine our immigration laws and enact legislative and administrative reforms which uphold the basic dignity and human rights of immigrants and preserve the unity of the immigrant family.
2. Immigrants from lands across the globe have helped build our great nation. Newcomers have contributed to our nation by strengthening our cultural and social fabric and adding their energies and ideas to our economy. Their presence has enriched our local communities, rural areas, and cities, and their faith in God has enlightened our increasingly secularized culture. In this Jubilee Year 2000 and throughout the new century, we recommit ourselves to celebrate and embrace newcomers and acknowledge the rich contributions they make to our nation.
3. The Catholic Church has historically held a strong interest in immigration and how public policy impacts immigrants seeking a new life in the United States. We believe that the current configuration of our immigration laws combined with immigration policies pursued by our government in the last several years have had the negative effects of undermining the human dignity of immigrants and dividing immigrant families. We urge our federal policymakers to revise our nation’s immigration laws and policies in a manner which includes the following elements: legalization for the maximum number of persons in an undocumented or irregular legal status, particularly those who have lived here for several years and built equities in and otherwise contributed to their communities; enforcement policies, most particularly along the United States-Mexico border, which respect the human dignity and human rights of all immigrants, regardless of their legal status; revision of the 1996 immigration laws, which undermine the procedural due process rights of immigrants in our country, limit protections for asylum seekers, and are retroactive in nature; revision of the 1996 welfare law, which severely restricts the eligibility of legal immigrants for public benefits; repeal of mandatory detention of immigrants and development of alternatives to detention, especially for women and children, as well as the release of immigrants who have completed their sentences but are indefinitely detained because their country of origin will not accept their return; enforcement of and respect for the civil and workplace rights of immigrant workers, especially those in industries which rely heavily on foreign workers (i.e., agriculture, meat and poultry processing, service); a more efficient legal immigration system with reduced waiting times which is equitable, generous, and based upon family reunification; U.S. foreign and economic policies which fully address the conflict, poverty, and denial of human rights which pressure persons to come to this country; and a religious worker visa program which is permanently authorized and which more efficiently permits foreign religious workers into our country to perform pastoral work on behalf of the Catholic Church in the United States and all other U.S. religious denominations.
