The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has proposed a more streamlined process to assist petitioners for legal residency in a more streamlined fashion.
Currently, immediate relatives of U.S. citizens who have accrued a certain period of unlawful presence in the United States are barred from returning to the U.S. for as long as 3 or 10 years if they leave the country.
Immediate relatives can obtain a waiver of the unlawful presence bar if they show that a U.S. citizen spouse or parent will experience extreme hardship if they are required to remain outside the U.S. But in order to obtain the waiver, these individuals must depart the U.S. and wait abroad while the waiver is processed.
As a result, long years of separation keep families divided waiting while the various government processes churn on slowly. This is particularly difficult when very young or very old members of the family are involved in the process.
Under the new proposed process, immediate relatives of U.S. citizens who would need a waiver of unlawful presence in order to obtain an immigrant visa could file a new form form before leaving the U.S. to obtain an immigrant visa at a U.S. Embassy or Consulate abroad.
All individuals eligible for this streamlined process are still required to depart the U.S. and must meet all legal requirements for issuance of an immigrant visa and admission to the U.S.
Those who claim that this new process is some type of new "amnesty" are plain wrong. This new process is intended to hasten the steps for those family members who are clearly eligible for more rapid consideration of their petition. None of the steps in the process are being waived; rather, all of the elements are moved forward in a more certain way.
I support this new Rule and pray that after the 60 days for public comment it will be in effect.
Some estimates are that one million of the current 11 million unauthorized immigrants may be able to secure a more rapid path to legal residency.
This new process will help bring a large number of our residents out of the shadows and to give them a new future in our midst.
Tuesday, April 3, 2012
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
HUNTED IN ALABAMA
The state is driving out its illegal immigrants. Businesses want them back. Meet the men and women in the middle.
An article by Patrick Symmes. Appeared in the February 13, 2012 issue of Newsweek magazine.
The front door is locked on this brown-and-cream mobile home, an aluminum outpost at the end of a pine-tree trailer park beyond Birmingham, Ala. But the back door flaps open in a winter wind. Inside are a bag of red beans, some pet food, and a pair of high heels. Nothing else. Even the beds are gone. "Six people," a neighbor says in Spanish, struggling to recall something from the anonymity of immigrant life. "Men, women, children. The law came in, and one day they just didn't come home."
The law: that would be H.B. 56, Alabama's attempt at the nation's most rigorous crackdown on illegal immigrants. On Sept. 23, 2011, when H.B. 56 came into effect, it cut off all state and local services to the undocumented. No driver's licenses, no registration for cars, no scholarships, no hiring without a document check. Enrolling in one of Alabama's public colleges requires proof of legal residency in the United States. Hiring, renting property to, or simply "harboring" undocumented foreigners is illegal. H.B. 56's one-signature provision--deputizing local police officers to turn traffic stops into deportation proceedings--assumes powers long reserved to the federal government.
The law had its desired effect, sort of. Illegals did flee. Alabama reported a drop in school enrollment, especially in rural areas. This trailer and about 50 like it in a park of 300 were soon evacuated. Immigrants sold their possessions for cash and drove to Florida or California, wherever they felt safer.
But Alabama's crackdown hasn't played out quite as expected. A group of Mexican men unloading a pickup truck explain they fled the state, but after just a month in Florida, they came back. They pointed out an obvious irony: as H.G. 56 scared off some immigrants, others found that jobs were now going begging. And these men had now rented the same trailer for less than they paid in September.
"Alabama's a good place," said 51-year-old construction worker Javier Flores. "There's all types of people."
If Alabama is the GOP's latest front in the war on illegal immigration, then the battle is far from won. The tired and poor, the huddled masses, are still here, yearning to rent cheap and work hard. All the crackdown in Alabama has done is push people deeper into the woodwork. Yet immigrants remain everywhere in Alabama, hiding in plain sight, evading the crackdown with GPS strategies and shared text alerts. Family networks and the surprising kindness of strangers have given them camouflage.
In this tense environment, immigrants drive slowly and stay low. "We couldn't be more hidden," one man says.
In short, the law is immensely popular--and it's not working very well. It has disrupted business in Alabama, and enforcement is proving costly. The state legislature last week began work on modifying the law.
But modify only. "It won't be repealed," says a confident Gov. Robert J. Bentley, a Republican from Tuscaloosa. In one poll, 73 percent of Alabamans supported H.B. 56; Bentley notes that the measure is almost as popular nationally. "I never go on television without getting asked about it," he says.
Bentley, a physician who began working at the state capital in his 20s, calls federal policy a "failure" that requires Alabama to step in and "uphold the state and federal constitutions."
Besides, there's not much percentage in a Republican letting up on the issue. When Newt Gingrich suggested in a November debate that "immigration policy which destroys families" was a bad thing, he walked into a buzz saw of retribution from some conservatives. Last year state legislatures weighed 1,600 bills against illegal immigrants, and passed 300 of them, a populist wave that predates Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party and has a powerful grip on both parties.
Like earlier attempts in Arizona and South Carolina, most of these state immigration laws were blocked by courts; the U.S. Constitution reserved enforcement of the borders to the feds. Alabama H.B. 56 has provoked suits by everyone from the Birmingham Catholic Diocese to the Justice Department.
H.B. 56's very success has stirred moral qualms among Alabamans that could weaken or even undo it. "Jesus Was an Anchor Baby," declared one sign at a recent march on the governor's mansion, and State Sen. Billy Beasley compared H.G. 56 to the racial segregation of Alabama's scarred past. "I know in my heart," told the protesters, "that Jesus Christ would not support what is happening in Alabama."
And then there is an even higher law--supply and demand. Whatever H.B. 56 says, picking tomatoes in Alabama pays about eight times as much as it does in Baja.
Most studies calculate that illegal immigration boosts the American economy. Many immigrants contribute to Social Security without being able to draw on it. But the net gain in jobs is an abstraction compared with Alabama's low wages and stubborn unemployment, which ran more than 9 percent before the bill. Sponsors of H.B. 56 took credit for a subsequent decline to 8.7 percent unemployment, saying legal workers were getting the jobs of departed illegals. But there has been an economic cost, with tomatoes rotting unpicked on the side of Chandler Mountain, and agriculture and the service sector "devastated," according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. Even Governor Bentley acknowledges "some pain, in the short term."
Deepak Bhargava, executive director for the Center for Community Change, says Alabama has only itself to blame. For years the state gave "a wink and a nod" to imported labor and "essentially offered an invitation to bring labor in, to work, and to build families. For them now to persecute the same families is the height of hypocrisy."
It's not just about tomatoes, either. Local police jailed a German executive from the Mercedes-Benz plant in Tuscaloosa, and another checkpoint snagged a Japanese worker at Honda's $1.4 billion plant. Both incidents "did grievous harm to Alabama's reputation," Bhargava notes. Governor Bentley has found himself assuring Chinese and other foreign investors that Alabama welcomes not just foreign investment but foreign investors.
Are the toilet cleaners welcome? Carla and Ruben hide behind drawn blinds every night. They are Costa Ricans who ask to be called by new names. The apartment is cozy; their three handsome sons sit patiently on a white sofa. The couple is educated and middle class but got stuck cleaning toilets for cash in an underground economy. They work to provide for their family, they say, but haven't seen their own parents in 16 years.
Survival in Alabama 2.0: one shopping trip a week, to minimize exposure to the police. A carpool to St. Francis Xavier for the 1 p.m. Mass in Spanish. {Parking at the church is easy since H.B. 56; one third of the lot is suddenly free.) When they set out in the morning, they remind their sons--the youngest a U.S. citizen--not to panic if they disappear. Move to your aunt's apartment, the parents say. Stay in school. We'll call you when we land in Costa Rica.
The couple recalls one of the houses they clean weekly. The owner is a "really important" figure in Alabama whom they won't identify. "He speaks against Latinos," Carla notes, "but hires Latinos to clean his house." The man threatened to fire them if they were illegals--then dropped the matter. If H.B. 56 sputters out, it may be because people in Alabama want a clean house more than they want to clean house.
An article by Patrick Symmes. Appeared in the February 13, 2012 issue of Newsweek magazine.
The front door is locked on this brown-and-cream mobile home, an aluminum outpost at the end of a pine-tree trailer park beyond Birmingham, Ala. But the back door flaps open in a winter wind. Inside are a bag of red beans, some pet food, and a pair of high heels. Nothing else. Even the beds are gone. "Six people," a neighbor says in Spanish, struggling to recall something from the anonymity of immigrant life. "Men, women, children. The law came in, and one day they just didn't come home."
The law: that would be H.B. 56, Alabama's attempt at the nation's most rigorous crackdown on illegal immigrants. On Sept. 23, 2011, when H.B. 56 came into effect, it cut off all state and local services to the undocumented. No driver's licenses, no registration for cars, no scholarships, no hiring without a document check. Enrolling in one of Alabama's public colleges requires proof of legal residency in the United States. Hiring, renting property to, or simply "harboring" undocumented foreigners is illegal. H.B. 56's one-signature provision--deputizing local police officers to turn traffic stops into deportation proceedings--assumes powers long reserved to the federal government.
The law had its desired effect, sort of. Illegals did flee. Alabama reported a drop in school enrollment, especially in rural areas. This trailer and about 50 like it in a park of 300 were soon evacuated. Immigrants sold their possessions for cash and drove to Florida or California, wherever they felt safer.
But Alabama's crackdown hasn't played out quite as expected. A group of Mexican men unloading a pickup truck explain they fled the state, but after just a month in Florida, they came back. They pointed out an obvious irony: as H.G. 56 scared off some immigrants, others found that jobs were now going begging. And these men had now rented the same trailer for less than they paid in September.
"Alabama's a good place," said 51-year-old construction worker Javier Flores. "There's all types of people."
If Alabama is the GOP's latest front in the war on illegal immigration, then the battle is far from won. The tired and poor, the huddled masses, are still here, yearning to rent cheap and work hard. All the crackdown in Alabama has done is push people deeper into the woodwork. Yet immigrants remain everywhere in Alabama, hiding in plain sight, evading the crackdown with GPS strategies and shared text alerts. Family networks and the surprising kindness of strangers have given them camouflage.
In this tense environment, immigrants drive slowly and stay low. "We couldn't be more hidden," one man says.
In short, the law is immensely popular--and it's not working very well. It has disrupted business in Alabama, and enforcement is proving costly. The state legislature last week began work on modifying the law.
But modify only. "It won't be repealed," says a confident Gov. Robert J. Bentley, a Republican from Tuscaloosa. In one poll, 73 percent of Alabamans supported H.B. 56; Bentley notes that the measure is almost as popular nationally. "I never go on television without getting asked about it," he says.
Bentley, a physician who began working at the state capital in his 20s, calls federal policy a "failure" that requires Alabama to step in and "uphold the state and federal constitutions."
Besides, there's not much percentage in a Republican letting up on the issue. When Newt Gingrich suggested in a November debate that "immigration policy which destroys families" was a bad thing, he walked into a buzz saw of retribution from some conservatives. Last year state legislatures weighed 1,600 bills against illegal immigrants, and passed 300 of them, a populist wave that predates Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party and has a powerful grip on both parties.
Like earlier attempts in Arizona and South Carolina, most of these state immigration laws were blocked by courts; the U.S. Constitution reserved enforcement of the borders to the feds. Alabama H.B. 56 has provoked suits by everyone from the Birmingham Catholic Diocese to the Justice Department.
H.B. 56's very success has stirred moral qualms among Alabamans that could weaken or even undo it. "Jesus Was an Anchor Baby," declared one sign at a recent march on the governor's mansion, and State Sen. Billy Beasley compared H.G. 56 to the racial segregation of Alabama's scarred past. "I know in my heart," told the protesters, "that Jesus Christ would not support what is happening in Alabama."
And then there is an even higher law--supply and demand. Whatever H.B. 56 says, picking tomatoes in Alabama pays about eight times as much as it does in Baja.
Most studies calculate that illegal immigration boosts the American economy. Many immigrants contribute to Social Security without being able to draw on it. But the net gain in jobs is an abstraction compared with Alabama's low wages and stubborn unemployment, which ran more than 9 percent before the bill. Sponsors of H.B. 56 took credit for a subsequent decline to 8.7 percent unemployment, saying legal workers were getting the jobs of departed illegals. But there has been an economic cost, with tomatoes rotting unpicked on the side of Chandler Mountain, and agriculture and the service sector "devastated," according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. Even Governor Bentley acknowledges "some pain, in the short term."
Deepak Bhargava, executive director for the Center for Community Change, says Alabama has only itself to blame. For years the state gave "a wink and a nod" to imported labor and "essentially offered an invitation to bring labor in, to work, and to build families. For them now to persecute the same families is the height of hypocrisy."
It's not just about tomatoes, either. Local police jailed a German executive from the Mercedes-Benz plant in Tuscaloosa, and another checkpoint snagged a Japanese worker at Honda's $1.4 billion plant. Both incidents "did grievous harm to Alabama's reputation," Bhargava notes. Governor Bentley has found himself assuring Chinese and other foreign investors that Alabama welcomes not just foreign investment but foreign investors.
Are the toilet cleaners welcome? Carla and Ruben hide behind drawn blinds every night. They are Costa Ricans who ask to be called by new names. The apartment is cozy; their three handsome sons sit patiently on a white sofa. The couple is educated and middle class but got stuck cleaning toilets for cash in an underground economy. They work to provide for their family, they say, but haven't seen their own parents in 16 years.
Survival in Alabama 2.0: one shopping trip a week, to minimize exposure to the police. A carpool to St. Francis Xavier for the 1 p.m. Mass in Spanish. {Parking at the church is easy since H.B. 56; one third of the lot is suddenly free.) When they set out in the morning, they remind their sons--the youngest a U.S. citizen--not to panic if they disappear. Move to your aunt's apartment, the parents say. Stay in school. We'll call you when we land in Costa Rica.
The couple recalls one of the houses they clean weekly. The owner is a "really important" figure in Alabama whom they won't identify. "He speaks against Latinos," Carla notes, "but hires Latinos to clean his house." The man threatened to fire them if they were illegals--then dropped the matter. If H.B. 56 sputters out, it may be because people in Alabama want a clean house more than they want to clean house.
Monday, February 20, 2012
22 NEW CARDINALS
On Saturday, February 18, Pope Benedict XVI created 22 new Cardinals for the service of the Church.
Since Cardinals in the Church wear bright red vestments, both Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict have emphasized the symbolism of the bright red color. It is not a color of distinction or privilege, rather, it is a color which designates the willingness to shed one's blood for Jesus Christ and His Church.
The words of our Holy Father in his homily are poignant:
"...the life and the death of Peter the Prince of the Apostles, who for love of Christ gave himself even unto the ultimate sacrifice, will be an example and a helpful witness of faith for the new Cardinals. It is with this meaning that the placing of the red biretta is also to be understood. The new Cardinals are entrusted with the service of love: love for God, love for his Church, an absolute and unconditional love for his brothers and sisters, even unto shedding their blood, if necessary, as expressed in the words of placing the biretta and as indicated by the color of their robes.
Furthermore, they are asked to serve the Church with love and vigor, with the transparency and widom of teachers, with the energy and strength of shepherds, with the fidelity and courage of martyrs. They are to be eminent servants of the Church that finds in Peter the visible foundation of unity."
The Gospel chosen for the Consistory of new Cardinals was Mark 10:35-45, the story about the ambition of James and John--their request to sit at the right and left of Jesus in the Kingdom of God. Our Holy Father stressed to the Cardinals the need to follow the example of Jesus who came, not to be served, but to serve and hand over his life for all.
The words of Pope Benedict:
"Dominion and service, egoism and altruism, possession and gift, self-interest and gratuitousness: these profoundly contrasting approaches confront each other in every age and place. There is no doubt about the path chosen by Jesus: he does not merely indicate it with words to the disciples of then and of today, but he lives it in his own flesh. He explains, in fact, 'For the Son of man also came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.' These words shed light upon todays' public Consistory with a particular intensity. They resound in the depths of the soul and represent an invitation and a reminder, a commission and an encouragement especially for you, dear and venerable Brothers who are about to be enrolled in the College of Cardinals."
This is the eighth Consistory of new Cardinals since my own Consistory back in 1991. A similar message has been proclaimed by Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI over the years, a message both ancient but ever new.
These words this year provide me a renewed opportuntiy to commit myself with renewed vigor to our Lord Jesus Christ and to His Church, and to offer myself in total service to God's plan of salvation--with a willingness to suffer as did Jesus, and a devotion to the service of others in His name.
Saturday, February 11, 2012
JUST A MINUTE, MR. PRESIDENT!
Mr. President, you are trying to resolve the wrong problem. Your HHS new federal rule governing mandated health care services is not just about women's services and who pays for them.
Rather, the real question is what protections and guarantees are afforded Americans and our various institutions by the Constitution. Your ill-placed focus should be frightening to all Americans.
Freedom of conscience and religious liberty are not concessions grudgingly granted by the Federal Government--either directly, or by way of exemption or exception. Our nation was founded on those basic and inalienable rights as the bedrock of who we are as Americans. Our Constitution was written precisely to reject and to avoid the dreadful English model whereby the king and the government are the granter of all rights, including religious rights--as well as the single power to withdraw, limit, or negate those rights.
As a Catholic American, I am outraged not only by your incredulous contortions to justify your untenable position, I am insulted that you would think that Americans who value and treasure our Constitutional freedoms would even question your overreaching infringement on individual freedom of religion and freedom of conscience.
Your "accommodation" actually makes the entire matter far worse. Every effort must be undertaken to reverse your ill-conceived revocation of our Constitutional rights.
I encourage all Catholics and millions of others of good will in our country to challenge candidates for election to Congress and to the presidency to take a strong stance in favor of guaranteeing and protecting our nation's Constitutional rights.
I fear, Mr. President, that you are knowingly and intentionally trampling upon and reversing our Constitutional rights.
Rather, the real question is what protections and guarantees are afforded Americans and our various institutions by the Constitution. Your ill-placed focus should be frightening to all Americans.
Freedom of conscience and religious liberty are not concessions grudgingly granted by the Federal Government--either directly, or by way of exemption or exception. Our nation was founded on those basic and inalienable rights as the bedrock of who we are as Americans. Our Constitution was written precisely to reject and to avoid the dreadful English model whereby the king and the government are the granter of all rights, including religious rights--as well as the single power to withdraw, limit, or negate those rights.
As a Catholic American, I am outraged not only by your incredulous contortions to justify your untenable position, I am insulted that you would think that Americans who value and treasure our Constitutional freedoms would even question your overreaching infringement on individual freedom of religion and freedom of conscience.
Your "accommodation" actually makes the entire matter far worse. Every effort must be undertaken to reverse your ill-conceived revocation of our Constitutional rights.
I encourage all Catholics and millions of others of good will in our country to challenge candidates for election to Congress and to the presidency to take a strong stance in favor of guaranteeing and protecting our nation's Constitutional rights.
I fear, Mr. President, that you are knowingly and intentionally trampling upon and reversing our Constitutional rights.
Friday, January 20, 2012
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT MANDATE FOR CONTRACEPTIVE/STERILIZATION COVERAGE
In probably the most expansive decision on the part of the US Federal government ever, the Department of Health and Human Services has issued an "interim final rule" to require virtually all private health plans to include coverage for all FDA-approved prescription contraceptives, female sterilization procedures, and related "patient education and counseling for all women with reproductive capacity."
These are listed among "preventive services for women" that all health plans will have to include without co-pays or other cost sharing--even if the insurer, the employer or other plan sponsor, or the woman herself object to such coverage.
This decision from the Department of Health and Human Services [HHS] is from the highest level of Federal government, and I cannot imagine that this decision was released without the explicit knowledge and approval of President Barack Obama.
And I cannot imagine a more direct and frontal attack on freedom of conscience than this ruling today. This decision must be fought against with all the energies the Catholic Community can muster.
For full information on this issue, please go to the website of the U.S. Catholic Bishops: http://www.usccb.org/news/2012/12-013.cfm
For me there is no other fundamental issue as important as this one as we enter into the Presidential and Congressional campaigns. Every candidate must be pressed to declare his/her position on all of the fundamental life issues, especially the role of government to determine what conscience decision must be followed: either the person's own moral and conscience decision, or that dictated/enforced by the Federal government. For me the answer is clear: we stand with our moral principles and heritage over the centuries, not what a particular Federal government agency determines.
As Bishops we do not recommend candidates for any elected office. My vote on November 6 will be for the candidate for President of the United States and members of Congress who intend to recognize the full spectrum of rights under the many conscience clauses of morality and public policy. If any candidate refuses to acknowledge and to promote those rights, then that candidate will not receive my vote.
This is a sad moment in the life of our country where religious freedom and freedom of conscience led to the formation of this new Nation under God.
Let us all pray that the power of the Holy Spirit will come upon all elected officials of our country, and that all will make decisions based upon God's revealed truth.
This decision from the Department of Health and Human Services [HHS] is from the highest level of Federal government, and I cannot imagine that this decision was released without the explicit knowledge and approval of President Barack Obama.
And I cannot imagine a more direct and frontal attack on freedom of conscience than this ruling today. This decision must be fought against with all the energies the Catholic Community can muster.
For full information on this issue, please go to the website of the U.S. Catholic Bishops: http://www.usccb.org/news/2012/12-013.cfm
For me there is no other fundamental issue as important as this one as we enter into the Presidential and Congressional campaigns. Every candidate must be pressed to declare his/her position on all of the fundamental life issues, especially the role of government to determine what conscience decision must be followed: either the person's own moral and conscience decision, or that dictated/enforced by the Federal government. For me the answer is clear: we stand with our moral principles and heritage over the centuries, not what a particular Federal government agency determines.
As Bishops we do not recommend candidates for any elected office. My vote on November 6 will be for the candidate for President of the United States and members of Congress who intend to recognize the full spectrum of rights under the many conscience clauses of morality and public policy. If any candidate refuses to acknowledge and to promote those rights, then that candidate will not receive my vote.
This is a sad moment in the life of our country where religious freedom and freedom of conscience led to the formation of this new Nation under God.
Let us all pray that the power of the Holy Spirit will come upon all elected officials of our country, and that all will make decisions based upon God's revealed truth.
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
GOOD NEWS for IMMIGRATION REFORM!
Ronald Brownstein reported recently on encouraging polling results about what steps our nation should take with the 11 million undocumented peoples living in our midst:
"As the debate over immigration continues to roil the Republican presidential field, a substantial majority of Americans say they would prefer to allow some or all illegal immigrants to remain in the United States, the latest United Technologies/National Journal Congressional Connection Poll has found."
"When asked what should be done with the roughly 11 million illegal immigrants in the country, just 25 percent of those polled said that they should all be deported “no matter how long they have been in the U.S.”
"Another 28 percent of those surveyed said that all illegal immigrants should be allowed “to stay, provided they have broken no other laws and commit to learning English and U.S. history.”
"The largest group, at 39 percent, said that the United States should “deport some, but allow those who have been here for many years and have broken no other laws to stay here legally.”
I am greatly encouraged by these results since some 67% of Americans polled favor some form of path to legal residency for the 11 million. Only 25% believe that all should be found and deported--an impossible task, of course.
These poll numbers reflect the great American spirit, an appreciation of the contributions of all immigrants down through the centuries here, and a realization that so many of our recent immigrants share our values and want to work hard for their families and for the country.
Immigration reform has now surfaced far more visibly in the past two months with the Presidential election campaigns underway. The presence of 11 million people living in the shadows of our society and contributing to our society cannot be ignored--not morally, ethically, or politically.
The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear an appeal from the draconian Arizona immigration law, and hopefully, its decision will help bring more clarity to the discussion in the coming months.
All of us need to press our members of the U.S. Congress to discuss this issue, and to challenge them to respect and work for the position of the 67% majority who favor an earned path towards legal residency.
Let's keep our discussion focused upon the human dignity of our immigrant brothers and sisters, their hard work for their families and all of us, and for our need for workers in so many employment opportunities as the economy improves and as Baby Boomers retire.
Our position as Catholics is based on God's mandates to Moses, as well as the urging by Jesus Christ to see him in all peoples, especially in the strangers in our midst.
Let's keep up our prayers and broad efforts to help influence the current public discussion around this issue, and let's thank the 67% for their enlightened reasoning.
[The United Technologies/National Journal Congressional Connection Poll was conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International from Dec. 1 to 4; it interviewed 1,008 adults by landline and cell phone. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.7 percentage points.]
"As the debate over immigration continues to roil the Republican presidential field, a substantial majority of Americans say they would prefer to allow some or all illegal immigrants to remain in the United States, the latest United Technologies/National Journal Congressional Connection Poll has found."
"When asked what should be done with the roughly 11 million illegal immigrants in the country, just 25 percent of those polled said that they should all be deported “no matter how long they have been in the U.S.”
"Another 28 percent of those surveyed said that all illegal immigrants should be allowed “to stay, provided they have broken no other laws and commit to learning English and U.S. history.”
"The largest group, at 39 percent, said that the United States should “deport some, but allow those who have been here for many years and have broken no other laws to stay here legally.”
I am greatly encouraged by these results since some 67% of Americans polled favor some form of path to legal residency for the 11 million. Only 25% believe that all should be found and deported--an impossible task, of course.
These poll numbers reflect the great American spirit, an appreciation of the contributions of all immigrants down through the centuries here, and a realization that so many of our recent immigrants share our values and want to work hard for their families and for the country.
Immigration reform has now surfaced far more visibly in the past two months with the Presidential election campaigns underway. The presence of 11 million people living in the shadows of our society and contributing to our society cannot be ignored--not morally, ethically, or politically.
The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear an appeal from the draconian Arizona immigration law, and hopefully, its decision will help bring more clarity to the discussion in the coming months.
All of us need to press our members of the U.S. Congress to discuss this issue, and to challenge them to respect and work for the position of the 67% majority who favor an earned path towards legal residency.
Let's keep our discussion focused upon the human dignity of our immigrant brothers and sisters, their hard work for their families and all of us, and for our need for workers in so many employment opportunities as the economy improves and as Baby Boomers retire.
Our position as Catholics is based on God's mandates to Moses, as well as the urging by Jesus Christ to see him in all peoples, especially in the strangers in our midst.
Let's keep up our prayers and broad efforts to help influence the current public discussion around this issue, and let's thank the 67% for their enlightened reasoning.
[The United Technologies/National Journal Congressional Connection Poll was conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International from Dec. 1 to 4; it interviewed 1,008 adults by landline and cell phone. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.7 percentage points.]
Sunday, October 23, 2011
WHY DO WE ALWAYS BLAME IMMIGRANTS?
As election year campaigns ramp up again, we are already hearing the mounting attacks against the immigrant peoples living in our midst. In our rush to find scapegoats for all that ails our country we so quickly blame the current wave of immigrants.
As candidates for President debate various national issues it’s amazing that one of the new electability standard is whether an unauthorized worker was ever on one’s property doing any kind of work. It seems that being untouched by an immigrant in any way is the new litmus test to serve in elected office.
But why did the current wave of immigrants come here? For the same reasons every group of immigrants came: to find a better life for themselves and their families, to become better educated, and to contribute to making the American dream come true for everyone. We have 11 million unauthorized immigrants for one reason: we need them to do all of the monotonous, dirty, and hard work that the rest of us don’t want to do, regardless of the salary.
As one Alabama sweet potato farmer said recently, “If you all stop eating, the immigrants will leave.” He and countless others have tried to attract documented people to do the dirty, long, and difficult work in the fields. And as this farmer pointed out, “They last about an hour, sometimes two hours. Then they just leave."
Every time our national economy is increasing and unemployment falls down to 5% or less, we need every immigrant to take those jobs which are often behind-the-scenes, but essential to make our country run. Agriculture, the poultry and meat industries, hotels and motels, construction, clothing makers, restaurants, tourism, home care workers—these are just a few places where the millions of workers will be found.
Just look back a few years and you’ll find the same pattern over and over:immigrants come when they are needed, and once jobs are scarce, we blame them and try to distance ourselves from them. But that’s an impossible task. It would be far more helpful to our national discussion if we could set aside the harsh rhetoric blaming immigrants, and begin to address this issue in a rational and civil way.
You and I need and use the labor and services our unauthorized immigrants do day after day. These are real people with names and faces. Our brothers and sisters are not “those people” in some global and demeaning fashion.
I long to hear candidates for elected office buck the trend and point to our immigrant roots and history. Please remind us that we have so many unauthorized immigrants because our immigration laws have not balanced our need for workers at the lowest paying jobs with the availability of workers to do those jobs. Our broken immigration system was not caused by the immigrants.
It would be so helpful to our national discussion if candidates for elected office would set aside hurtful rhetoric against immigrants, acknowledge our dependence upon these workers in the lowest paying and more difficult service jobs, and offer ways in which we can bring these people out of the shadows and bring them into the mainstream of our nation’s life.
If we review our history as a nation and recognize the various waves of immigrants who built up our country, and if we look down the road into future years as we witness millions of baby-boomers retiring, we begin to get a better understanding of how today’s immigrants living in our midst without legal documents can be the key to our future labor needs.
I believe deeply that once the average American understands all the parameters of the role of today’s immigrants for our nation, they will open their hearts and minds to them and help find a way to bring dignity and respect to them. I firmly believe this because every poll taken supports this approach. When Americans are asked if they favor massive searches and deportations for all unauthorized immigrants, or whether they favor an earned path to legal residency, the vast majority always choose the earned path to legal residency.
The polls taken by by USA Today, the Pew Research Institute, and the Pacific Institute of Public Policy, even those people who agree with the new strict State laws also believe that it is totally impractical to locate, detain, and deport some 11 million people from our country.
The American spirit of welcome for immigrants seems to trump harsh and unrealistic solutions in dealing with undocumented people here.
As candidates for President debate various national issues it’s amazing that one of the new electability standard is whether an unauthorized worker was ever on one’s property doing any kind of work. It seems that being untouched by an immigrant in any way is the new litmus test to serve in elected office.
But why did the current wave of immigrants come here? For the same reasons every group of immigrants came: to find a better life for themselves and their families, to become better educated, and to contribute to making the American dream come true for everyone. We have 11 million unauthorized immigrants for one reason: we need them to do all of the monotonous, dirty, and hard work that the rest of us don’t want to do, regardless of the salary.
As one Alabama sweet potato farmer said recently, “If you all stop eating, the immigrants will leave.” He and countless others have tried to attract documented people to do the dirty, long, and difficult work in the fields. And as this farmer pointed out, “They last about an hour, sometimes two hours. Then they just leave."
Every time our national economy is increasing and unemployment falls down to 5% or less, we need every immigrant to take those jobs which are often behind-the-scenes, but essential to make our country run. Agriculture, the poultry and meat industries, hotels and motels, construction, clothing makers, restaurants, tourism, home care workers—these are just a few places where the millions of workers will be found.
Just look back a few years and you’ll find the same pattern over and over:immigrants come when they are needed, and once jobs are scarce, we blame them and try to distance ourselves from them. But that’s an impossible task. It would be far more helpful to our national discussion if we could set aside the harsh rhetoric blaming immigrants, and begin to address this issue in a rational and civil way.
You and I need and use the labor and services our unauthorized immigrants do day after day. These are real people with names and faces. Our brothers and sisters are not “those people” in some global and demeaning fashion.
I long to hear candidates for elected office buck the trend and point to our immigrant roots and history. Please remind us that we have so many unauthorized immigrants because our immigration laws have not balanced our need for workers at the lowest paying jobs with the availability of workers to do those jobs. Our broken immigration system was not caused by the immigrants.
It would be so helpful to our national discussion if candidates for elected office would set aside hurtful rhetoric against immigrants, acknowledge our dependence upon these workers in the lowest paying and more difficult service jobs, and offer ways in which we can bring these people out of the shadows and bring them into the mainstream of our nation’s life.
If we review our history as a nation and recognize the various waves of immigrants who built up our country, and if we look down the road into future years as we witness millions of baby-boomers retiring, we begin to get a better understanding of how today’s immigrants living in our midst without legal documents can be the key to our future labor needs.
I believe deeply that once the average American understands all the parameters of the role of today’s immigrants for our nation, they will open their hearts and minds to them and help find a way to bring dignity and respect to them. I firmly believe this because every poll taken supports this approach. When Americans are asked if they favor massive searches and deportations for all unauthorized immigrants, or whether they favor an earned path to legal residency, the vast majority always choose the earned path to legal residency.
The polls taken by by USA Today, the Pew Research Institute, and the Pacific Institute of Public Policy, even those people who agree with the new strict State laws also believe that it is totally impractical to locate, detain, and deport some 11 million people from our country.
The American spirit of welcome for immigrants seems to trump harsh and unrealistic solutions in dealing with undocumented people here.
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