USCCB Condemns Separating Immigrant Children from Families

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It isn t " Oops" for me.It is trying to deal with reality and whatever the truth turns out to be.

I appreciated that one of the articles mentioned also what they were expecting from.their administration in El Salvador…That is recognizing a crisis and forced " desplazamiento" ( Migratión? I do not know how to say it…) and not just normal human mobility.
It is a complex issue. And their own analysis adds to understand .
We are talking about persons,not merchandise to be " sold or bought or used" to convince anyone.
 
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It is useless. It is political.
Gotta walk the walk…then there is nothing else to say.
I very honestly think that people would just melt ,disappear,vanish ,if they had to walk in the shoes of so.many of these adults and children.
Not even for a day.Maybe not even for an hour…
 
They do not have the money.
They owe it.
So they go back to their misery plus a debt.
Planet earth here. How much do you think a simple person working probably in the informal market gets?

Please…
I wish I could share.more Spanish info here .
Or even write in Spanish as it comes out sometimes…
 
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PetraG said:
That is a Catch-22…that is, if a family flees a dangerous situation while they still have the resources to leave, by your judgment they aren’t bad off enough to leave
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To add to the illogic of it, they travel through at least one other country to get “out”. Once they’re in the very next country, they’re “out” of their own. But no, they travel a thousand miles or more to get to the one country with the best economic prospects. I can’t say I blame any of them for wanting to improve their economic situations to the max, but that’s not asylum seeking. it’s money seeking.
 
They’re really just quoting some USCCB person with this. But there are a couple of interesting points.

First, this acknowledges that the Obama administration did, indeed, utilize detention. As we know, it eventually tried to unite minors with parents, but was shot down by the Ninth Circuit when it tried to do that. It then resorted to “catch and release”.

It is true that the ATD (Alternatives to Detention) program does have a high rate of return for hearings. But the candidates for that program are highly vetted, given case workers who check up on them, and wear electronic bracelets that keep track of them. They also receive welfare support while they’re here because they’re not supposed to be working. The surveillance isn’t terribly expensive because of the electronics, but the welfare is.
 
Restatement of fallacy termed “argument from silence”. You can’t conclude anything from the silence of virtually all bishops, other than that they have so far at least, chosen to be silent.
 
PetraG said:
Please Stop Saying That the Bishops Have Just Suddenly Concerned Themselves With This Matter!!
It is NOT TRUE!!
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What I actually asked was “Why didn’t they object to this before now?”

In response to my question you provided a lengthy citation from a 2015 letter …that doesn’t address the question at all. The issue today, the one the bishops are now objecting to, is the separation of children from the adults being held in custody. The issue in your citation is about holding anyone in detention. The title of the article (Bishops Call For Alternatives to Detention in Immigration Enforcement) should have been sufficient to make that point.

So I’ll ask again: if the bishops objected to the separation of children and adults before now, can someone please indicate where?
 
Do you know anyone who’s gotten rich from risking their lives with everything from muggers to dehydration in order to pluck a harvest or clean poolsides for under minimum wage?

(Selfish money-grubbers . . . 😡)
 
blackforest said:
Do you know anyone who’s gotten rich from risking their lives with everything from muggers to dehydration in order to pluck a harvest or clean poolsides for under minimum wage?

(Selfish money-grubbers . . . 😡)
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No. But neither have I ever known an illegal immigrant who picked harvests or cleaned potatoes or did anything else for minimum wage or less.

The ones I have known work in industry or construction. I have lost track a bit of the Central Americans, but the Mexicans (a minority of newcomers now) are incredibly judicious with their money. They are now in the process of buying real estate and small businesses.

I will say I know a guy from Guatemala who works two shifts every day in a poultry plant. He sends virtually all his earnings home, where his wife buys banana-growing land.

“Rich” is a relative thing. The Guatemalan will, in a few years, be very “rich” compared to his neighbors. I know a man and his son who alternate working in a factory, each a half year at a time. The one who doesn’t work in the factory goes down to Mexico and works on planting and expanding a peach orchard. I asked him what peaches cost in nearby Mexico City. “About the same as here” was his reply. So he and his son will be “rich”. I have little doubt of it.

I have known several who have eventually left here to go back and start stores in their home countries.

The thing is the exchange rate. Dollars are enormously favorable over the currency in a lot of those countries. Those who come here and do that sort of thing are getting “ahead of the Joneses” back home to the max. They’re not here to eke out a threadbare existence picking lima beans. No sir.
 
Ender said:
What I actually asked was “ Why didn’t they object to this before now ?”

In response to my question you provided a lengthy citation from a 2015 letter …that doesn’t address the question at all. The issue today, the one the bishops are now objecting to, is the separation of children from the adults being held in custody. The issue in your citation is about holding anyone in detention. The title of the article (Bishops Call For Alternatives to Detention in Immigration Enforcement) should have been sufficient to make that point.

So I’ll ask again: if the bishops objected to the separation of children and adults before now, can someone please indicate where?
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A lengthy citation? LOL…and then you read a letter in which the bishops were objecting to detaining people unnecessarily at all, and you object that this isn’t objecting to taking children away from detained parents?

If you aren’t willing to read what the bishops have written because the documents are too long, how can you claim you even want to understand what they’re teaching? You act as if you just want to find proofs that you’re right and rebut suggestions that you’re wrong, not research the matter and learn what the bishops and Popes have been trying to teach you. If you wanted to know, you’d exert yourself to challenge your own assumptions.

I give up. I can search for the truth with you, but I’m not going to try to convince someone who is deadset against ever changing his mind. It is pointless. The Popes have been defending immigrants for 100 years. If you are willing to learn that, you now know where to look. If you don’t want to change your mind, I’ll just leave you alone.
 
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PetraG said:
A lengthy citation? LOL…and then you read a letter in which the bishops were objecting to detaining people unnecessarily at all, and you object that this isn’t objecting to taking children away from detained parents?
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I read the citation you provided. It had to do with incarcerating people unnecessarily; it had nothing whatever to do with the separation of children. Those are two entirely separate issues. This bishops’ objection in that letter would apply to people who didn’t even have children.
If you aren’t willing to read what the bishops have written because the documents are too long, how can you claim you even want to understand what they’re teaching?
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You provided a link to a 20+ page document from the USCCB that you claimed showed their previous objection to the separation of children from the adults they were with crossing the border. If you aren’t willing - or able - to cite a comment within that document that supports your contention, why should I be held responsible for not finding anything? You extracted a comment from a letter from the Missouri bishops, why didn’t you extract a comment from the USCCB document? Prove my contention is wrong: cite the passage where the bishops opposed the separation.
You act as if you just want to find proofs that you’re right and rebut suggestions that you’re wrong, not research the matter and learn what the bishops and Popes have been trying to teach you. If you wanted to know, you’d exert yourself to challenge your own assumptions.
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I asked a question that challenged your assumptions. I should think it would be up to you to defend your position. It’s not up to me to confirm it.
I can search for the truth with you, but I’m not going to try to convince someone who is deadset against ever changing his mind. It is pointless. The Popes have been defending immigrants for 100 years. If you are willing to learn that, you now know where to look. If you don’t want to change your mind, I’ll just leave you alone.
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I wasn’t talking about generic positions in defense of immigrants. I asked a very specific question to which you have provided no effective response.
 
LeafByNiggle said:
@Ridgerunner: is this not also an arguement from silence?
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Not exactly. There is an obligation to confront sin and evil; there is no such obligation to confront opinions with which one disagrees.

“Not to oppose error is to approve it, and not to defend truth is to suppress it, and indeed to neglect to confound evil men, when we can do it, is no less a sin than to encourage them.” (Pope St. Felix III)
 
Ender said:
I read the citation you provided. It had to do with incarcerating people unnecessarily; it had nothing whatever to do with the separation of children. Those are two entirely separate issues. This bishops’ objection in that letter would apply to people who didn’t even have children.
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As I said, it is silly to say someone who is arguing against incarcerating people unnecessarily at all are not arguing at the same time against incarcerating people and taking their children into state custody.

You want to believe the bishops are objecting to Mr. Trump’s actions on political grounds. I’m convinced that you aren’t going to let go of that notion no matter what I say. You don’t think there is anything wrong with seizing toddlers and five-year-olds away from their mothers for weeks or months at a time, and there is nothing I’m going to do to dissuade you.

Fine. You win. Continue to believe what you want to believe. Keep your mind securely unchanged and unassailable. It was silly of me to think for a moment that any Catholic who resists listening to the bishops would ever listen to anyone else.
 
abucs said:
plus three people does not equal an ongoing process of millions and millions of people who are abusing refugee laws. It is a really bad example on multiple fronts.
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Mary and Joseph met the current UN “refugee” requirements, they were not economic migrants.

Anyone fleeing the Govt sanctioned killing of their infant boy qualifies for refugee/asylum status.
 
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Theo520 said:
Mary and Joseph met the current UN “refugee” requirements, they were not economic migrants.

Anyone fleeing the Govt sanctioned killing of their infant boy qualifies for refugee/asylum status.
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Then they will answer and say, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or ill or in prison, and not minister to your needs?’ He will answer them, ‘Amen, I say to you, what you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me.’ And these will go off to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life. Matt. 25:44-46
(from the Gospel reading for the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe)

The bishops will teach you what that means, but you have to want to learn. If you don’t want to listen to them when they explain the Scriptures to you and how those the words of Our Lord apply to your daily life, but just want to argue and complain that your political life should be free of their guidance, instead, I don’t know what any of the rest of us can do for you. If you want to go your own way, there is no one who is going to stop you.
 
PetraG said:
As I said, it is silly to say someone who is arguing against incarcerating people unnecessarily at all are not arguing at the same time against incarcerating people and taking their children into state custody.
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I think most people can distinguish between the concepts of incarceration and separation.
You want to believe the bishops are objecting to Mr. Trump’s actions on political grounds.
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This is an assumption on your part and is not based on anything I’ve actually said.
I’m convinced that you aren’t going to let go of that notion no matter what I say.
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I am convinced by arguments, not by assertions. You’ve been heavy on the latter and pretty light on the former.
You don’t think there is anything wrong with seizing toddlers and five-year-olds away from their mothers for weeks or months at a time, and there is nothing I’m going to do to dissuade you.
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Again, nothing I have ever said justifies such an assumption. It is your own uncharitable judgment of me that leads you to such a conclusion.
Continue to believe what you want to believe. Keep your mind securely unchanged and unassailable. It was silly of me to think for a moment that any Catholic who resists listening to the bishops would ever listen to anyone else.
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My opinion will be changed by evidence, not emotional diatribes. I have asked for the first, you’ve responded with the second. I have also been very clear about our obligation to assent to comments from bishops. We are not justified in simply dismissing their statements out of hand, but, where they are prudential judgments, neither are we obligated to accept them. The bishops’ opinions are just as subject to critical analysis as are yours, and just as subject to rejection if they are no more reasonable.
 
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