Sec. 1: Mexican Catholics suffered extreme persecution in the early 20th century
Comment: This is an appalling record of suffering and martyrdom, little-known to most Americans. It motivated the immigration of many Mexicans to the United States in the first third of the 20th century. It would have been unreasonable to delay or impede these refugees’ flight to safety in the face of this emergency. And in fact, their way was not barred: many hundreds of thousands settled in the US in the 1920’s and ‘30’s; their descendants were, for the most part, born here; and all of them are U.S. citizens. They are not among today’s “illegals,” and few of us, if any, as Catholics or as Americans, begrudge their presence here.
Moreover, the 20th century saw many government crimes against persons, leading to many millions of “emergency refugees” seeking safety, with source countries other than Mexico and host countries other than the US. A globe tracing the lines of these war-and-persecution related displacements of populations would look like a yarn ball completely covered by the criss-crossing strands of suffering.
Is it a reasonable inference, then, that all countries of the world should suspend enforcement of all their borders and welcome all comers?
Or should we rather conclude that the priority for immigration should be much more carefully and selectively given to those who are fleeting from murder, from Herod?
I would say the latter.
Sec. 2: Poverty in Mexico, and demand for low-wage laborers in the U.S., spurred recent Mexico-to-U.S. migration. Remittances from family members in the U.S. have provided much aid to those still in Mexico.
Comment: Also meriting some mention could be these perspectives:
U.S. unemployment rate for blacks projected to hit 25-year high
(Washington Post, Jan 15, 2010)
“National black unemployment rate soars to 17.2 percent, rates in five states exceeding 20 percent… the unemployment gap between men and women has reached a record high -- with men far outpacing women in joblessness.”
The dead end kids
(The New York Post, By RICHARD WILNER)
“The number of young Americans without a job has exploded to 53.4 percent — a post-World War II high, according to the Labor Dept. — meaning millions of Americans are staring at the likelihood that their lifetime earning potential will be diminished and their transition into productive members of society put on hold for an extended period of time…"
The costs of the influx of foreign labor are largely borne by young black males, many of whom, reduced to permanent joblessness and degrading dependency, cannot even imagine attaining the status of adult working men supporting wives and families.
Sec. 3: God’s Priorities
“God especially hears the cry of the widow, the orphan, and the foreigner (Exodus 20:20-22) and reminds us to be particularly mindful of their needs.”
This is an exceedingly good point, and yet it may not yield the policy recommendations that many may suppose. Our concern for the widow and orphan may also strongly argue against facilitating the immigration of Mexican and Central American men into the U.S., since it so often breaks up families “back home,” leaving the wife in Mexico a “widow” and the children in Mexico “orphans,” ---yes, with the support of a remittance check, but that’s often a temporary consolation, since so many Mexican men eventually find new partners and form new families in the U.S., leaving their Mexican families truly abandoned.
Labor statistics also show that Hispanic Americans who were born here or who immigrated legally, are, like black people, disproportionately beaten down by illegal immigration. They, too, suffer, catastrophically high unemployment and low wages, undercut year after year by incoming waves of illegals who under-bid them for the lowest-paying jobs in America.
I bow my head to your Exodus quote on the "widows, orphans and foreigners," and give you an Isaiah 58:7
“This, rather, is the fast that I wish:
releasing those bound unjustly, untying the thongs of the yoke …
Sharing your bread with the hungry,
sheltering the oppressed and the homeless;
Clothing the naked when you see them,
and not turning your back on your own.”
The part about "sharing your bread and clothing the naked" has to do with our religous duty as the People of God to respond to the person we see in need "on the road" --- our response as individual believers and as the Church, impelled by grace and motivated by the Love of God.
It does not imply access to the resources of the Governor of Roman Judea or entitlement to benefits from the U.S. Treasury, whose funding is compulsory via taxation. Such entitlements have little to do with grace or love, and everything to do with rewarding people who have disrespected our laws and violated our boundaries with the expectation of being able to game the system.
And this brings us to one more issue from a Catholic point of view: the scandal of lawlessness.
Most people from Mexico and Central America who enter this country illegally, do so, even from the outset, by becoming enmeshed in a web of criminal conspiracy, either as cooperators or as victims, and usually both.
They pay international criminal traffickers to guide them across into the U.S. On the way, since they’ve put themselves into the hands of truly vicious men, they’re often sexually exploited or raped or robbed or beaten. Perhaps they arrive in debt to the coyote, who then makes them an offer they can’t refuse: you can become a “mule” and transport drugs, weapons and other contraband; or you can be a prostitute and work the customers until your debt is paid. Or you could end up in a ditch with a bullet in your head. Your choice, amigo.
Then the illegals turn to the professional crooks, often acting in concert with systematically corrupted U.S. officials, to get fraudulent papers, because none of them are truly “undocumented” for long. They engage in the ”necessary” forgery, fraud, and identity theft. "Honest and young and just looking for a job" --- as some, or many, may have been in the beginning --- they are drawn deeper and deeper into moral disintegration.
From the point of view of the one essential thing--- the person’s soul --- what is the real cost? Multiply lying and fraud: initially under duress, at first with shame, then for advantage, then habitually, then cynically, then callously, then --- you have a subculture corrupted from top to bottom, from the Catholic Bishops of Mexico to the Democratic and Republican National Committees in Washington, DC, down to Chico from Michoacan with a little bag of cocaine sewn into his backpack, and the youngest whore on the streets of Phoenix.
Multiply this by a million. Call it a “Structure of Injustice.” Please. Call it “Institutionalized Violence.” But don’t call it “America Welcomes the Immigrant and the Stranger” because this is not America’s heritage as a Nation under Law and this is not God’s commandment.
Didn’t we learn, when we were young, that this is the way of sin?
And didn’t we learn that there are deadly ways in which we participate in the sins of others? We contribute to the death of souls
It makes me sick that there are Catholic bishops of the United States, already reeling under the cumulative impact of not enforcing the laws against sexually predatory clerics (yes, I know it’s complicated, but there it is in one sentence) who are now bringing more shame and pain upon us by again justifying the non-enforcement of law against this huge engine of injustice known as Illegal Immigration.
Cardinal Mahony says that the people who want to enforce the law in Arizona are comparable to “Nazis” and “Communists.” And here’s Archbishop Jose Gomez’ line: he says that people who favor lawful borders, and turning back felons, forgers and frauds, are akin to “Julian the Apostate.” I myself believe we must require honest lawful conduct by people who come to our country: so, I suppose, that makes me pretty damned bad.
http://insidecatholic.com/Joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=7970&Itemid=101&ed=4
(The linked article is by John Zmirak, re Archishop Gomez’ remarks. I urge you to read this.)
And I offer you this from Proverbs 28:9
Mr. Simoneau, let me be fair: I’m not under the impression that you endorsed Mahony’s and Gomez’ profoundly wrong-headed point of view. You did not call me a Nazi or an Apostate. Nor did you say that this Open Borders perspective --- this enabling of human trafficking, this offering of incentives for those who game the system, this legalizing of lawbreakers --- is the Way of the Saints.
With sincere respect for you --- and trusting you to generously see past my own flaws and faults of thought and expression --- I would truly value your response to this.
[signed]
Comments?
Please don't bash the Church per se, whose doctrines on this subject are at once moral, practical, and persuasive. My gripe is against clerics who drape their prudential opinions with episcopal brocade but ignore some of the key requirements of Catholic Social Doctrine. For instance, this from Para 2241, Catechism of the Catholic Church:
"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."
Bravo-o! Great post, Mrs. Don-o.
Or that they'll print it?
Very, very well argued indeed.
Using an old Mrs Don-o list. This is the best thinking about the matter of illegal immigration that I have seen - anywhere.
Nicely done.
Thank you!
I’ve been saying something basically along these lines for some time, but not nearly as well. Very well said.
Marking for my wife to read later...
Thank you very much for your post.
As you say, Mexico is a resource-rich country. Mexico’s poverty, and the massive immigration into our country from Mexico, is the result of policies of corrupt politicians and companies on BOTH sides of the border!!!! And the corrupt governmental and corporate leaders in the US and in Mexico, backed by the usual cabal of banksters, are in collusion with each other!!!!
This corrupt system thrives on depressing wages of BOTH American and Mexican workers, and on keeping Mexico poor. It also thrives on using massive Third World immigration (also including muslim immigration—many of these muslims infiltrate across our southern border) to destroy Euro-American culture and civilization!!!! This is punctuated by the bogus calls for “multiculturalism” and “diversity”, which is nothing other than cultural genocide.
In recent years, the growth of drug cartels and gangs in Mexico, which are also spilling across our border, has exacerbated the problem. Once again, this is driven by corrupt mis-leaders on BOTH sides of the border (for example, Soros’ well-funded drive for legalization and acceptance of drugs). These gangs are further oppressing (and murdering) the people of Mexico, and the violence of these gangs in Arizona is INTOLERABLE!!!!
obama of course is part of the corrupt cabal, and will do NOTHING to relieve this burdens of the people of Arizona. Therefore, the State of Arizona and her governor had to take action on their own. The evil obama cabal responds by labeling Arizona as “fascist” and “Nazi”. This only adds insult to injury, and only helps the corrupt cabal, not either Arizonans or Mexicans.
You are right, Mrs. Don-o. The Gospel imperative to love the stranger requires us to work to break the TRUE causes of the oppression of the Mexican people. Continuing to accept millions of unassimilable Mexican immigrants only contributes to the oppression, as well as to the destruction of the culture of our American neighbors whom we are called to love as well.
Thank you! Those of us (even Christians) who are not Catholics really cannot speak with the voice of insider knowledge and fellowship that you applied. Nicely done!
Kudos Mrs. Don-o.....
Logical, fact based, brilliant.
In between your citation of the bishops’ failure to cooperate with law enforcement for sexual predators, and your citation of their campaigning for lawlessness in regard to immigration, you could cite their PERSONAL lawlessness in refusing to obey and enforce Canon 915. In other words, the bishops of the United States appear to have developed a quite comprehensive habit of lawlessness.
You really helped me to get my thoughts together, especially as to the reason I'm so aggravated with the US Bishops.
I agree in most part with your post. I am reminded of old ‘saint’ Teddy who apparently promised some across the pond their share of amnesty, maybe not in the numbers advocated from our southern border, but amnesty still the same.
Social justice is not advocating human rights, it is about equalizing outcomes in complete opposition to what our founding fathers acknowledged. There are unalienable rights that can only be endowed by our Creator... and these that attempt to replace the Creator as gods of rights are up to no good.
Outstanding commentary — I can use some of it too!
If I may, please.
The jobs that we used to think of as "first jobs" are held by illegals in many areas. Most young people got entry level minimum wage jobs while in high school and college and many that did not intend to go to college used those jobs to climb the ladder to a real job or even their own business~ especially in the construction trades. Even if the first job was temporary it taught work ethic skills and was very valuable beyond the small pay. Without that "first job" this generation will have a hard time becoming self-sufficient or building a career or business.
Ping!
Catholic ping!
I know zero about Roman Catholic administration (other than my in-laws were mad that their daughter married a generic Christian in an Episcopal Church), but two ideas come to mind:
1. Local churches can petition to get under the authority of a Bishop who is not a communist. To use the example of the Anglican Church in the USA, dissenting Episcopals got under the authority of God-fearing African Anglican Bishops, and told their local bishops to stuff it.
2. Hit them with their money. I assume the RCC using a 10% tithe, where 5% goes to the RCC and 5% can go to other charities. Well, make sure you do this, at least, instead of 10% to the RCC. Then (if permitted), direct your 5% that goes to your church to a specific fund in your church or, better yet, to a struggling parish under a Bishop that is not a communist.