U.S. hearing church’s voice on immigration



By Ana Rodriguez-Soto
Catholic News Service

Miami—The church’s voice is being heard in the current debate over immigration policy, according to the director of migration and refugee policy for the U.S. bishops.

“They’re starting to use our language,” Kevin Appleby told more than 300 attorneys and paralegals gathered in Miami May 17-19 for the annual meeting of the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, or CLINIC.

Appleby said President George W. Bush himself used the terms “earned path to citizenship,” rather than amnesty, in a May 15 speech in which he urged Congress to pass a comprehensive immigration reform law.

“Now the president of the United States is saying it and that’s a victory in itself,” Appleby said.

He cited several events that he said have helped change the tone of the debate away from the punitive approach of the bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives in December.

One such event, Appleby said, was Los Angeles Cardinal Roger M. Mahony’s pledge that church personnel would disobey any law that turned immigrants and those who ministered to them into felons.

The House bill includes provisions that would make people in the United States without documents felons and make those who help them—doctors, lawyers, food pantry workers or priests—criminals for “aiding and abetting” them.

He said another event was Washington Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick’s appearance at a huge immigration rally held in April in the nation’s capital. As a third example, he pointed to the massive immigration marches that took place throughout the country. (Cardinal George took part in an interfaith prayer service at the huge May 1 rally in Chicago.)

“That has changed the debate. That put the wind at our back,” said Appleby.

He added that the bishops’ vocal stance has educated many Catholics regarding immigration issues, even though not all of them agree with the church’s position.

“There are Catholics that are lashing out at us, but at least they’re listening to what we’re saying,” Appleby said.

Referring to the immigration bill currently being debated in the U.S. Senate, Appleby said it contains some “troubling provisions” but also some positive ones.

Chief among its positive features, he said, is that the bishops estimate it could give legal status to up to 10 million of the 12 million undocumented immigrants currently in the country.

“We’re at a point where we can get some real relief for millions of people,” said Appleby.

However, if any of the legalization provisions were watered down, Appleby said, the bishops would reconsider their support of the bill.

As for aspects of the proposed legislation he called troubling—such as the mandatory detention of immigrants, the use of National Guard troops and the erection of a fence along the U.S.-Mexican border—the bishops will push for “as many positive changes to the enforcement provisions as possible,” Appleby said.

He said even if a bill does become law this year, comprehensive immigration reform is still a multiyear, trial-and-error process that will require going back and changing some provisions or tweaking the law’s implementation.

Public opinion polls and votes in the Senate “show that we can win,” Appleby said, especially if the coalition of business interests, labor unions, immigrant rights groups and faith-based organizations currently pushing for reform stays together.

“We have to keep the faith-based voice in the debate. People have to know that this is a moral issue,” Appleby said.

CLINIC is the nation’s largest provider of legal assistance to low-income and indigent immigrants. Founded by the U.S. bishops in 1988, CLINIC represents 156 member agencies, most of them affiliated with diocesan Catholic Charities offices.

And the network is growing, said Jeff Chenoweth, CLINIC’s director of national operations and support.

“The bishops are seeing the need to open and expand direct legal services” to immigrants, Chenoweth said, noting that CLINIC started with 17 member agencies.

He cited places such as Idaho and Wyoming as “new immigrant gateway communities,” and said the need to provide legal services to immigrants “always percolates right out of the parishes.”

“The problem is all around us,” said Appleby, reiterating the reasons for the bishops’ support of a comprehensive immigration reform bill.

“We have people in the shadows who are in our parishes, living on the margins of society,” he said. “Their families are divided. They have no rights in the workplace. And they’re sitting in our pews. We have a Gospel mandate to help them.”