Illegal Immigration

[Ridgerunner]

If the U.S. believed in closing the borders, the federal government wouldn’t be trying to sue the State of Arizona, and we wouldn’t even be having this conversation.

WHAT persecution and exploitation? PLEASE provide documentation for that statement. None that I know, at least from Mexico, are seeking political asylum; in fact, most who come illegally are young and healthy and it has been documented that many are even leaving their jobs in Mexico in order to seek higher wages in this country. The only exploitation being done is by dishonest employers who hire them in violation of federal law in order to increase their own profit and depress the American wage base.

Correct. Anybody who has had substantial experience with illegals knows this. It may be noted in passing that the unemployment rate in Mexico is far lower than ours is. It’s just that the pay is better here. The pay is better still in Lichtenstein, I understand, but I can’t go there to work just because I would get better pay than an American in the U.S. would.

But I would differ with you in the assertion that only dishonest employers hire illegals. Lots of very conscientious employers screen applicants with the one tool available to them. But it’s illegal to question the ID of anybody whose ID is valid on its face if his SSN checks out as real. That’s true even if the employer recognizes him or her as a former worker who was removed previously by ICE. So the makers of fraudulent IDs use real social security numbers. If you ask me, the worst exploiter is the U.S. government, which countenances all of this fraud for political purposes.

 

[pnewton]

Bishop Joseph F. Martino said, “The USCCB doesn’t speak for me.”
**They have no concept of how things work because they fail to understand that the USCCB is not an authoritative Catholic body. In fact, it has no authority whatsoever. **

Ironic that a blogger with zero canonical authority is denigrating the USCCB for their lack of authority which, by the way, I totally disagree with his assessment. At the very least they carry the authority as the bishops that they are for control within their own diocese. While it is true that they can pass nothing binding on another bishop, that does not mean that they can not teach with the authority of the offices they hold.

It is regretful that in order to bypass instruction that proves uncomfortable that anyone would resort to attacking the source of the intstruction. This thread is on illegal immigration, not the USCCB. It would be far more appropriate to respond to what the USCCB has said than attack them for who they are, especially for matters unrelated to the subject at hand.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Does the US believe in closing its borders? YES.
Notice that this policy contrasts sharply with democracies in Europe today, where the borders are open between various countries, such as France and Gernany, or such as Austria and Hungary, or such as Germany and Austria, and as well many others. It appears, then that these members of the European community, are much more advanced, much more cultured, and much more civilised since they have no problem in maintaining free and open borders between their member countries.

I don’t think this works. Nowadays there is virtually no difference between, say, a Frenchman and a German except the brand of liquor they prefer. Try to gain citizenship in a European country, though. The only one that even remotely encourages it is France, but even there you have to have been born in a former French colony unless you’re already a citizen of the EU, and few EU citizens would need to bother. As a person born in the old Louisiana Territory, I could become a Frenchman if I learned French a little better, moved to France and “adopted French culture” and could somehow prove I did. That’s what it takes. My wife, however, was born in Indiana, which was never a French territory, so she doesn’t have the same privilege and would have a terrible time getting it and possibly never would. And that’s true notwithstanding that her ancestors all came from Alsace. Go figure.

 

[qui_est_ce]

I don’t think this works. Nowadays there is virtually no difference between, say, a Frenchman and a German except the brand of liquor they prefer.

True, Germans do like Jack Daniels

Try to gain citizenship in a European country, though. The only one that even remotely encourages it is France, but even there you have to have been born in a former French colony unless you’re already a citizen of the EU, and few EU citizens would need to bother. As a person born in the old Louisiana Territory, I could become a Frenchman if I learned French a little better, moved to France and “adopted French culture” and could somehow prove I did. That’s what it takes. My wife, however, was born in Indiana, which was never a French territory, so she doesn’t have the same privilege and would have a terrible time getting it and possibly never would. And that’s true notwithstanding that her ancestors all came from Alsace. Go figure.

Hah! My mother was a French citizen when I was born, which makes me a French citizen as well. Or so I thought, because my older brother was drafted into the French National Service when he was captain in the US Air Force.

When I was studying in France in college, I needed a job to support myself. I had to prove French citizenship. The people were astonished that an American could possibly want to claim French citizenship! It gets compliqué because I was born in Germany.

Ask any international source. Which passport is the most valuable on the black market?

 

[pnewton]

As to the OP, I do think it is surely permissible for Catholics to oppose illegal immigration. This is not an area of mortal sin. However, it is equally permissible to opposed any law that is deemed to violate God’s law, the higher moral law. While nations have the authority to control immigration, they do not have the divine authority to do so immorally. This is where I part ways with the current immigration law and side with the majority of the US bishops, including my own. I can not support any law that favors the legal immigration of the well-to-do over the legal immigration of the poor. Knowing that one day I will be judged for how I treat the poor, I will always support immigration reform that will end the barriers for the poor to come to America.

 

[starshiptrooper]

While nations have the authority to control immigration, they do not have the divine authority to do so immorally. This is where I part ways with the current immigration law and side with the majority of the US bishops, including my own.

Which immigration laws are immoral in your opinion and why?

Knowing that one day I will be judged for how I treat the poor, I will always support immigration reform that will end the barriers for the poor to come to America.

Coyotes charge thousands of dollars to bring aliens across the border. So the current invasion we face is not just a bunch of impoverished people.

 

[pnewton]

Which immigration laws are immoral in your opinion and why?

The quotas on immigration have a tier system that allows professionals preference over laborers, thus permitting those with that are better off the choice of immigrating, and denying the choice to those with little to offer.

Coyotes charge thousands of dollars to bring aliens across the border. So the current invasion we face is not just a bunch of impoverished people.

I simply can not agree with you on this. I live too much in the middle of this community and know too many of these people. Also, I do not agree with using an emotionally charged word like “invasion” and misapplying it to illegal immigration. While I do not care for political correctness, neither do I value the rhetoric of propaganda.

 

[d97c]

We need to be like Greece when it comes to erecting a fence and protecting our border. NO MORE ILLEGAL ALIENS
dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1343885/Greece-follows-U-S-example-building-giant-border-wall-illegal-immigrants.html

 

[Ender]

However, it is equally permissible to opposed any law that is deemed to violate God’s law, the higher moral law.

Not exactly. I doubt that we will be given a pass either legally or morally for disobeying laws we don’t like. It is a long way from disobeying laws that are obviously immoral to disobeying those we dislike because we believe them to be harmful. I think the law implementing Obamacare is harmful - am I justified in disobeying it?

While nations have the authority to control immigration, they do not have the divine authority to do so immorally. This is where I part ways with the current immigration law and side with the majority of the US bishops, including my own. I can not support any law that favors the legal immigration of the well-to-do over the legal immigration of the poor.

This is precisely the kind of law I mean when I say that we have neither the legal nor moral right to disobey it. There is no question of morality here, only a disagreement over how certain restrictions should be applied, and the bishops do us a great disservice to imply that the choices we face are moral rather than prudential.

I will always support immigration reform that will end the barriers for the poor to come to America.

That’s your right, just as it is mine to disagree with it and push for a different set of quotas, but let’s not pretend for a moment that your position is morally superior to mine. I am prepared to debate which of our positions will be best for all concerned but I am not prepared to entertain the suggestion that my position is immoral - or even less moral. The question is amoral.

Ender

 

[sidbrown]

We don’t have check point between our states either. And all Europeans are required to carry identity papers with them at all times. Whether or not they are checked at the border or elsewhere is up to the paper checker guy.

There is no paper checker guy at the border.

 

[pnewton]

Not exactly…

If you read my post more careful, what I said is that I will opposed laws I deem immoral. Americans have the civil responsibility of opposing any legislation we deem contrary to the moral law. That is the way a democracy works. I was not referring to civil disobedience, although that too can be permitted.

vatican.va/archive/catechism/p3s2c2a4.htm
**2242 **The citizen is obliged in conscience not to follow the directives of civil authorities when they are contrary to the demands of the moral order, to the fundamental rights of persons or the teachings of the Gospel. Refusing obedience to civil authorities, when their demands are contrary to those of an upright conscience, finds its justification in the distinction between serving God and serving the political community. “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” “We must obey God rather than men”:

I am prepared to debate which of our positions will be best for all concerned but I am not prepared to entertain the suggestion that my position is immoral - or even less moral. The question is amoral.

I will not debate my position. If I follow my bishop and priest, I do not need to debate with anyone else. My opinion is grounded in the teachings of Christ and the teachings of the Church, specifically Populorum Progressio and Veritas in Veritate. I refer to my betters on this issue. When I meet my maker I do not want to ask him, “When did I see you a stranger and not welcome you.” (Matthew 25:44) It is when we help the least of people that we do the work of charity the most.

 

[d97c]

Pnewton quoted the catachism—
2242 The citizen is obliged in conscience not to follow the directives of civil authorities when they are contrary to the demands of the moral order, to the fundamental rights of persons or the teachings of the Gospel. Refusing obedience to civil authorities, when their demands are contrary to those of an upright conscience, finds its justification in the distinction between serving God and serving the political community. “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” “We must obey God rather than men”
Now I will quote the catachism

Here is what the Catechism of the Catholic Church has to say:

2241 The more prosperous nations are obliged, to the extent they are able, to welcome the foreigner in search of the security and the means of livelihood which he cannot find in his country of origin. Public authorities should see to it that the natural right is respected that places a guest under the protection of those who receive him.

Political authorities, for the sake of the common good for which they are responsible, may make the exercise of the right to immigrate subject to various juridical conditions, especially with regard to the immigrants’ duties toward their country of adoption. Immigrants are obliged to respect with gratitude the material and spiritual heritage of the country that receives them, to obey its laws and to assist in carrying civic burdens…unquote!

Look-----There is a limit to the number of immigrants that a nation can absorb. Common sense tells you this: No nation can absorb an unlimited number of immigrants.

Precisely how many a particular country can reasonably absorb is a determination that must ultimately be made by the laity, who are charged with ordering the temporal affairs of society and suffusing them with the Christian spirit.

The laity **are not served in this task by individuals **who speak as if Catholic teaching requires an open border policy that does not recognize that there is a limit to the number of immigrants that a country can reasonably absorb or the responsibility of the laity in making the practical determination of what this number is.

You need to recognize the state’s right to set legal requirements that must be met for immigration.

Again, this is something that common sense would tell you needs to be there. A state cannot reasonably be expected to absorb immigrants of any and all types. For example, a state may reasonably refuse immigration to murderers or terrorists–to name two very obvious examples.

Ultimately, it is the laity via their role in ordering the temporal affairs of society to determine, in the case of a particular country, what the reasonable conditions are to which immigration to their nation should be subject.

As before, the laity are not served in this task by those who would advocate an open borders policy that fails to recognize the state’s right to set conditions on immigration and the laity’s responsibility to determine in practice what those requirements are to be.

The catachism mentions the duty of immigrants to respect the laws of the nation to which they are immigrating.

This includes respecting the laws of the nation regarding whether or not the person is able legally to be in the country.
Immigrants are morally bound to respect the laws of the nation to which they are immigrating, including its laws regarding whether they may legally be there.

Discussion of this subject is not served by those who speak as if this were not the case.

 

[qui_est_ce]

There is no paper checker guy at the border.

My papers were checked at the Hamburg airport on a flight coming from Frankfurt in 2009.

 

[qui_est_ce]

The quotas on immigration have a tier system that allows professionals preference over laborers, thus permitting those with that are better off the choice of immigrating, and denying the choice to those with little to offer.

I disagree with you on this. Most of the professionals to whom you are referring are doctors and scientists. They can’t get the scientific training in their own countries to advance in technologies that help fight disease and other benefits for the common good.

In our area, there are many Mexicans working landscaping jobs. They are temporary workers in the summer, get paid well, and go home when the landscaping season ends. They don’t want to immigrate, they just want to work and go home to their families.

One can be civil and accommodating to the alien without liberalized immigration laws.

Sometimes the solution is to help the people and government of a country improve themselves rather than allowing their labor force to hemorrhage into the US.

 

[Ender]

My opinion is grounded in the teachings of Christ and the teachings of the Church, specifically Populorum Progressio and Veritas in Veritate.

So is mine. What you don’t recognize is that those documents do not contain specific prescriptions for resolving the problems of immigration; they identify the objectives and concerns to be addressed but do not specify how to achieve them, but our disagreement is over the specifics: which policies will work and which will not.

I refer to my betters on this issue.

Your betters? What makes a priest or even a bishop necessarily more knowledgeable about the intricacies of immigration policy than your next door neighbor? I will point out again: there are no moral questions here, only practical ones. What works, what doesn’t; what will be the effect of building a wall; what will happen if we grant blanket amnesty?

When I meet my maker I do not want to ask him, “When did I see you a stranger and not welcome you.” (Matthew 25:44) It is when we help the least of people that we do the work of charity the most.

And what will you say to him when he asks why you were so quick to uncharitably judge those who disagreed with you on the solution to practical problems? Your claim here is not merely that you want to help the poor but that I and all the others who reject your position, do not. You fail to see that merely wanting to help gives no special insight into what actions will in fact be most helpful, or that reasonable and equally concerned people can support diametrically opposed solutions.

Try this: assume for a moment that I’m actually a good person who, like you, is trying to find the best solution to the problem of immigration. Where is the sin in believing that your (and the bishop’s) proposals won’t work? At most, I may be mistaken … is that now a sin? It is only by assuming the worst about me that you can consider my immigration proposals to be immoral, and that is not because of the proposals themselves but because of the reason you believe I hold them. What you condemn are my motives, something you cannot know and something you are commanded not to judge. You might give some consideration to how you will answer questions about lapses in charity.

2478* To avoid rash judgment, everyone should be careful to interpret insofar as possible his neighbor’s thoughts, words, and deeds in a favorable way

*Ender

 

[Tigg]

Also, I do not agree with using an emotionally charged word like “invasion” and misapplying it to illegal immigration. While I do not care for political correctness, neither do I value the rhetoric of propaganda.

And I contend that invasion need not be an armed force, but can be dictated by the sheer numbers alone of 20-32 million by conservative counts. If we still have a national identity then the realism of those numbers at the very least, begins to dim the concept of borders and a sovereign nation.

 

[Elizabeth502]

Jesus’ own consciousness of poverty, and exhortation about it, was local. His orientation was to the poverty among us, already there. No need to look for it globally. There is nothing either in his preaching, or in the CCC, which would imply that He would ever approve of neglecting the local poor in preference to the foreign poor. Perhaps there are some, even many, Americans, whose only acquaintance with poverty is that of our neighbors to the South. But others of us have worked in public settings for years, with entrenched poverty that is unspeakable – among those who are native to this country. Most of these are black; some are white Anglo. ***Their communities have been disproportionately affected by illegal immigration. *** It has put these local poor even more at risk than previously, with respect to social services, with respect to public education.

The localities and the concentrations are everything. Nationally, a relatively wealthy nation such as ours can absorb a larger quotient of poverty (and rehabilitate it) than can smaller and less wealthy countries. But locally it is a different story, even in a “wealthy” nation. The disproportionate concentrations of illegal residents have resulted in mini-Third Worlds in certain areas of the U.S., with equally poor citizens – residents & non-residents, competing for scarce resources in regions & States overwhelmingly affected. Recent local and national recessions have exacerbated these economic realities. Resources, even in a “wealthy” nation, are finite. Certainly this is true of publicly available resources, on which our currently legally residing poor citizens depend.

When legal residents whose only language is English are deprived of an English education due to their classes being conducted in Spanish, justice and charity are not being served.

 

[starshiptrooper]

The quotas on immigration have a tier system that allows professionals preference over laborers, thus permitting those with that are better off the choice of immigrating, and denying the choice to those with little to offer.

So, we just don’t want vagrants over here. What is wrong with that?

When my Great-Grandfather came LEGALLY from Czechoslovakia in 1927 to the United States, he had to prove he had a job before coming here.

I simply can not agree with you on this. I live too much in the middle of this community and know too many of these people.

If you know these people, then you should be doing your patriotic duty and handing them over to law-enforcement agencies.

Instead, you are condoning theft by allowing illegal aliens to use social services that they do not pay taxes for.

Also, I do not agree with using an emotionally charged word like “invasion” and misapplying it to illegal immigration.

The word “invasion” can be used to mean other things besides what happend on June 6, 1944. According to Webster’s Dictionary, invasion can also mean a violation or encroachment. Illegal aliens certainly violate our laws. So applying the term invasion to the vast number of illegal aliens is quite correct.

 

[tafan]

starshiptrooper:

When my Great-Grandfather came LEGALLY from Czechoslovakia in 1927 to the United States, he had to prove he had a job before coming here.

Very possibly part of your family folklore, but doubtful if true.

 

[qui_est_ce]

Jesus’ own consciousness of poverty, and exhortation about it, was local. His orientation was to the poverty among us, already there. No need to look for it globally. There is nothing either in his preaching, or in the CCC, which would imply that He would ever approve of neglecting the local poor in preference to the foreign poor. Perhaps there are some, even many, Americans, whose only acquaintance with poverty is that of our neighbors to the South. But others of us have worked in public settings for years, with entrenched poverty that is unspeakable – among those who are native to this country. Most of these are black; some are white Anglo. ***Their communities have been disproportionately affected by illegal immigration. *** It has put these local poor even more at risk than previously, with respect to social services, with respect to public education.

The localities and the concentrations are everything. Nationally, a relatively wealthy nation such as ours can absorb a larger quotient of poverty (and rehabilitate it) than can smaller and less wealthy countries. But locally it is a different story, even in a “wealthy” nation. The disproportionate concentrations of illegal residents have resulted in mini-Third Worlds in certain areas of the U.S., with equally poor citizens – residents & non-residents, competing for scarce resources in regions & States overwhelmingly affected. Recent local and national recessions have exacerbated these economic realities. Resources, even in a “wealthy” nation, are finite. Certainly this is true of publicly available resources, on which our currently legally residing poor citizens depend.

When legal residents whose only language is English are deprived of an English education due to their classes being conducted in Spanish, justice and charity are not being served.

Great post Elizabeth. I think some here are quick to label those who favor strict immigration laws as incompassionate, not knowing how much private charitable hours and dollars they donate to help the unfortunate on a local level.