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The Catholic New World
Immigration debate continues

By Michelle Martin
Staff writer

A conversation that started with hundreds of thousands of people—immigrants, their families and friends—chanting “Si se puede” (“Yes we can”) on the streets of Chicago continued in the nation’s capital.

Leaders from the U.S. House of Representatives, including Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) and Reps. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), Henry Hyde (R-Ill.) and Peter King (R-N.Y.) met with a delegation from the Archdiocese of Chicago and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to discuss immigration reform.

The meeting, which took place the day before the U.S. Senate passed its own immigration bill, focused on the U.S. bishops’ call for a balanced immigration reform package, said members of the delegation led by Auxiliary Bishop Gustavo Garcia-Siller.

The meeting came about when a group called “Priests for Justice for Immigrants” tried to present tens of thousands of postcards to Hastert at his Batavia office. The postcards, mostly signed by Catholic parishioners, protested a House bill passed in December that would speed deportations, make it a felony to be or to assist an undocumented immigrant and would call for the construction of more than 700 miles of wall on the U.S.-Mexican border.

Sensenbrenner and King were the main sponsors of that bill, which raised an outcry both within immigrant communities and within the Catholic Church.

The church also has concerns with the bill approved by the Senate, but says its provisions that would allow most of the 11 million to 12 million undocumented immigrants currently in the United States to eventually attain legal residency and citizenship are a step in the right direction. The Senate bill also would include a new guest worker program and reduce the wait for visas for family members of legal residence. Such waits can now last more than 20 years.

Differences between the two bills would have to be reconciled before a version is presented to President Bush for his signature—something that seems unlikely before the November elections, said Bob Gilligan, executive director of the Catholic Conference of Illinois, who was part of the Washington meeting.

The meeting served to allow the representatives and the church leaders to hear one another’s concerns first-hand, said Gilligan and others who took part.

“In general terms, the meeting was very positive,” said Elena Segura of the archdiocese’s Office for Peace and Justice. Segura heads the archdiocese’s Justice for Immigrants campaign. “In terms of being able to have a face-to-face meeting with these people, it was good. Of course, we respectfully disagree on a lot of things.”

Segura noted that the U.S. bishops support secure borders, and say so explicitly in “Strangers No Longer,” their 2003 pastoral letter written jointly with the Mexican bishops’ conference.

“That’s part of it. But it has to be a balanced approach,” Segura said.

“We don’t think it’s prudent to do an enforcement-only program,” Gilligan said. “We have to recognize that there are 11 million people in this country (with legal documents) now. We have to respect their dignity.”

As to whether the meeting changed any minds, Segura could not say.

“As Catholics, we always believe in God’s intervention and God’s grace,” Segura said. “We will continue praying.”

But Segura said she and the others in the group—Father Larry Dowling and Father Marco

Mercado–as well as Gilligan and Bishop Garcia—came away with a renewed appreciation of the complexity of the politics involved.

“Now we’re waiting to see who is on the conference committee and how that will come out,” Segura said.

“These are two very different approaches,” Gilligan said. But any conversation that takes some of the antagonism out of the debate is constructive. There may still be a deal this year, but I think it will be an uphill struggle.”


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