New Sanctuary Movement

[meeshy]

rebuttal:
A reply intended to show fault in an opponent’s argument.

I don’t intend to respond to this same issue again.

Peace,
Meeshy

 

[YinYangMom]

Ok, boys, let’s get back to the topic before posts start disappearing.

The New Sanctuary Movement is not sanctioned by the USCCB as a whole. As I have stated before, there are only a few parishes who are participating in this.

Meeshy, perhaps since this thread and the other one about the immigration reform marches are so similar we both tend to mix things up which muddies our responses.

Since you claim the NSM is not sanctioned by the USCCB then it appears you agree with me that the Catholic church should not participate in this movement.

So, for this thread, is it possible you and I are of the same mindset, both concerned about the ‘few parishes’ who joined the Movement without checking with the USCCB first? That was my primary objection when I started this thread.

For the other thread we will remain divided because you believe the USCCB approach is complete and I find it to fall short of what really needs to be done to solve the problem, but we can continue that discussion over there.

Stating that an option is viable is opinion. Stating that an option is not viable is also opinion. This forum is made up of many opinions. That’s what a forum is–the chance to express one’s opinion.

Well you’re the one who said the option was not viable and objected to anyone suggesting it was. Why the change of heart?

Before calling someone’s post arrogant or nasty, one should look at one’s own posts first.

That wasn’t me so I’ll leave that between you and whomever it was.

 

[meeshy]

YinYangMom,

You are correct, as a movement in general I don’t agree with New Sanctuary. However, there might be details to which we are not privy which have inspired the particular parishes to become involved. I have an open mind about it. And if the Bishops, in the future, give their approval as a whole then I will support their decision.

While I disagree with your opinion on “tough love,” I support your right to state your opinion.

The good thing about these forums is that a lot of education goes on here. We agree with certain things, we disagree with other things, we learn, and sometimes we form new opinions.

The best way to approach it is probably the method used in 12-step groups: “Take what you like and leave the rest.”

Peace,
Meeshy

 

[alainnkate]

Immigrants offered sanctuary in U.S. Churches

By Jill Serjeant

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Alarmed by immigration raids on illegal workers, a coalition of U.S. religious groups is launching a sanctuary movement on Wednesday to harbor immigrant families who risk being torn apart.

Roman Catholic, Protestant, Jewish and Muslim groups are opening churches and synagogues to shelter families who face deportation.

“This is a natural for the religious community,” said Kim Bobo, founder of the national Interfaith Worker Justice organization and one of the “New Sanctuary Movement” coordinators.

“It is natural for us to find a much more public role, to stand up with the immigrants, to challenge the direction of the nation and suggest that we need a much more comprehensive immigration program,” Bobo told Reuters.

full article . . .

This bothered me because of the blatant distortion of the truth here. Note that the opening statement correctly addresses the real issue: immigration raids on** illegal workers** but then they talk about families about to be torn apart while dropping the word ‘illegal’ from future references to ‘immigrants’.

This is not a matter of immigration.
It is a matter of illegal immigration.

The only matter I can see the Catholic church justifiably taking a stand for is coming to the aid of the children about to knowingly be abandoned by their parents.

When the law catches up with the illegal immigrant then that person is faced to pay the piper. If they brought their children with them then the children go back with the parents. If they had their children here in the states here then they’ve lived with the knowledge that one day they will have to decide what to do for those children when the time comes.

If it is the decision of the parents to leave their U.S. born children behind then I can see where the Catholic church would be wise to use her resources and networks to establish homes for those children until they are 18. **The parents do not have to break up their families. **Our government does not force them to leave any U.S. born children behind. The children do not face political persecution in their parents’ country. They won’t be arrested or tortured or killed. They will have a different lifestyle but they still get an education, health care and a home.

It seems to me the Church harboring people they know have broken the laws borders on scandal. How is participating in this New Sanctuary Movement an act of social justice for the Church?

 

[alainnkate]

The last time that I checked, the word illegal indicated breaking the law - let’s call these people what they are CRIMINALS. It is shocking to me to learn that any Religious organization would encourage DELIBERATE law breaking, and then offer to harbor the CRIMINALS - what is wrong with you? These people have come from a very rich country; let’s help them develop their own country, and not encourage them to live off us. We are a country, until now, that has been built on the principal of Legal Immigration.
Kathleen Barnard, St. Augustine, Fl.

 

[Verisimilitude]

The idea that sanctuary laws are “pro-immigrant” is perhaps the greatest myth of all. Keeping illegal criminals in the community subjects all immigrants to the thrall of crime and impedes economic growth in immigrant communities.
…
No one knows for certain the percentage of illegals in gangs, thanks in large part to sanctuary laws themselves. But various estimates exist:

–A confidential California Department of Justice study reported in 1995 that 60 percent of the 20,000-strong 18th Street Gang in southern California is illegal; police officers say the proportion is actually much greater. The bloody gang collaborates with the Mexican Mafia, the dominant force in California prisons, on complex drug-distribution schemes, extortion, and drive-by assassinations. It commits an assault or robbery every day in L.A. County. The gang has grown dramatically over the last two decades by recruiting recently arrived youngsters, most of them illegal, from Central America and Mexico.

–Immigration and Customs Enforcement conservatively puts the number of illegals in Mara Salvatrucha as a “majority;” police officers, by contrast, assert that the gang is overwhelmingly illegal.

–Law enforcement officials estimate that 20% of gang members in San Diego County are illegal, according to the Union-Tribune.

– The L.A. County Sheriff reported in 2000 that 23% of inmates in county jails were deportable, according to the New York Times.

–The leadership of the Columbia Lil’ Cycos gang, which uses murder and racketeering to control the drug market around Los Angeles’s MacArthur Park, was about 60 percent illegal in 2002. Francisco Martinez, a Mexican Mafia member and an illegal alien, controlled the gang from prison, while serving time for felonious reentry following deportation.

– In Los Angeles, 95 percent of all outstanding warrants for homicide in the first half of 2004 (which totaled 1,200 to 1,500) targeted illegal aliens. Up to two-thirds of all fugitive felony warrants (17,000) were for illegal aliens.

–The Los Angeles Police Department arrests about 2500 criminally-convicted deportees annually, reports the Los Angeles Times.

manhattan-institute.org/html/mac_donald04-13-05.htm

April 13, 2005, Testimony of Heather Mac Donald, Senior Fellow, Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security, and Claims

---

Five months ago, Carlos Barrera, an illegal Mexican in Hollywood, Ca., mugged three people, burglarized two apartments, and tried to rape a five-year-old girl. Barrera had been deported four years ago after serving time for robbery, drugs, and burglary. Since his reentry following deportation, he had been stopped twice for traffic violations. But thanks to special order 40, the police had never mentioned him to the immigration authorities, reports the New York Times.

In September, 2003, the Miami police arrested a Honduran visa violator for seven vicious rapes. The previous year, Miami cops had had the suspect in custody for lewd and lascivious molestation. Pursuant to Miami’s sanctuary law, however, the police had never checked his immigration status. Had they done so, they would have discovered his deportable status, and could have forestalled the rapes.

=====

According to testimony given to the US House of Representatives Armed Services Committee by General Peter Pace, the Vice Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Hamas has joined Hezbullah and Al-Qaida in the Triple Frontier Zone in Latin America where the borders of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay converge.

Mexican drug lords had put prices on the heads of American law-enforcement agents strung out along the border.
newswithviews.com/Kouri/jim2.htm

====
Again, we need help in middle America. The problem is that people who are illegally entering this county are finding life in the Midwest to their liking and its our tax dollars that are supporting them and placing a tremendous strain on the system. I don’t have the answers as to what INS can do to help, but right now it appears that their priorities are not on helping law enforcement investigate, detain and deport criminal and illegal aliens.

judiciary.senate.gov/oldsite/walker.htm

===
In Los Angeles, 95 percent of the outstanding murder warrants are for illegal aliens, as are perhaps two-thirds of the 17,000 outstanding felony warrants.

In 2000, nearly 30 percent of federal prisoners were foreign-born.

nationalreview.com/dunphy/dunphy200401220906.asp

 

[a_cermak]

The reason my city (Chicago) does not have police inquire as to anyone’s papers (“legality”) is that it is desireable when you have a community to have good relations with the police. If people are fearful of the police, they are less likely to report crime, to report suspicious individuals, etc. By having the illegals be a part of the community (they’re here for good or ill, anyway), it makes everyone safer because crime is not allowed to fester in darkened corners of the community. The same would be true of social workers and educators. Irregular immigrants don’t live in their own little fiefdoms. They tend to live, in Chicago, in communities that have legal immigrants and citizens as well.

It’s also why I support the driving certificate that the state of IL is debating. The idea is, immigrants (whether legal or illegal) can’t currently get driver licenses, so it would be safer for all of us who share the roads, if the immigrants could be certificated (like a license but not useful as proof of identity) and insured. At least some immigrants do get learner’s permits so they can carry insurance (not knowing that the insurance is void if they have an accident because they aren’t licensed).

I live in a neighborhood that has a lot of immigrants. Probably some of them are irregular. I don’t really care. It is the job of ICE to deal with, not me. But I do care when the laws cause me to be less safe.

So that’s a reason sanctuary cities exist, it’s simply a pragmatic response to a situation.

 

[CCM08]

“To pardon one offense is to encourage many more.” Some good old wisdom from the ancients. Here’s a question, during the early industrial era in the United States American works faced low wages, unfair employment practices, unsafe working conditions, corrupt political systems, and many of the same things that central and South Americans face. What did Americans do in response to these problems? Did they flood into Canada or try to get to Europe? The answer is, of course, no they didn’t do any of these things. They stayed and they worked through a difficult process that took many years. In the end they brought about a revolution in labor practices, as did Europeans during roughly the same period. Unless “Hispanics” are in some way inferior I fail to see why we should expect less of them. The truth is illegal immigration is a very self thing. They all can’t come here, and it is very unjust to reward the lawbreakers while leaving those that didn’t resort to criminal behavior in poverty. Futhermore, the labor drain this places on Mexico means that even if reforms were brought about there may be no labor force to make use of them.

At the end of the day improved levels of social advancement cannot be given, they must be earned. The changing demographics of the United States will simply mean importing Mexico’s problems here, not solving any of them. The reason is simple, until central and South American peoples learn to live without the corruption and domination of organized crime in their societies the same problems will arise in areas of the US they control. The truth is Mexico and other central and southern America states would do well to become client states of the United States or European powers and learn how to rule themselves from nations that have already gone through their problems. No matter how much you want to do the bleeding heart thing on the immigration issue the only real long term solution is a vast reform of these states. Without that anything we do is merely going to make life worse for Americans, both now and in the future.

 

[Ender]

And if the Bishops, in the future, give their approval {to the NSM} as a whole then I will support their decision.

I won’t. When the bishops stray from their role of leading us in matters of faith and morals and get into choosing political solutions they lose their right to be taken more seriously than anyone else.

The best way to approach it is probably the method used in 12-step groups: “Take what you like and leave the rest.”

This is what happens when bishops choose sides on political issues: people (justifiably) feel free to ignore them. The problem with this is that it reinforces the belief that they can also be ignored when they properly speak out on moral issues like contraception and abortion. NSM is a bomb the bishops really shouldn’t get too close to.

Ender

 

[Al_Masetti]

LEGAL immigration is good. Legal immigrants are generally well vetted.

Illegal immigration is bad. They are not vetted.