Thread: At Casa Juan Diego, there are no borders

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/met ... 00072.html

Dec. 3, 2005, 6:53PM

ONE NATION, TWO WORLDS
At Casa Juan Diego, there are no borders
They come seeking sanctuary at this small complex of buildings just a couple miles west of downtown Houston. They need a place to catch their breath before setting sail to a life in America.
By TONY FREEMANTLE

Every day of every week of every year, a newly arrived illegal immigrant, usually a young man at the end of a long and dangerous journey, knocks on Mark Zwick's door at Casa Juan Diego.

They come seeking sanctuary at this small complex of buildings a couple of miles west of downtown Houston. They need a place to catch their breath, a safe harbor before setting sail on a life in America.

Zwick lets them in. He gives them a bed, food, medical help if they need it. He will help them get their first job. If they are on their way elsewhere, Zwick will pay their fare and give them a ride to the bus station.

So what if it's a crime to harbor illegal immigrants, to transport them, to help them avoid apprehension. Those are the laws of man, which do not apply if they contradict the laws of God.

"We're doing only what any Catholic should do," Zwick says. "We're not unique. It's all there in the books. It's breaking the law for some. For us it's keeping the law. And it's much harder to keep the law than it is to break the law."

Catholic social teaching states that there is no such thing as an "illegal" immigrant. All people have a God-given right, more fundamental than the rights of a nation to control its borders, to seek better lives anywhere they can.

It is this doctrine that has allowed the Catholic Church in America, from the Conference of Bishops down to lay activists such as Mark and Louise Zwick, to become perhaps the most powerful voice among opponents of efforts to restrict immigration and stem the tide of illegal and legal immigrants.

And it is a doctrine, says David Simcox, the first executive director of the influential Center for Immigration Studies and a Catholic himself, that not only enables immigrants, but "crimps" the noisy debate on immigration policy. Catholic policy makers and their millions of constituents find it intimidating to dispute "the Holy Spirit and the Magisterium of a 2,000-year-old institution."

The Catholic Church is by no means the only institution that succors the newly arrived and abets illegal immigration, but it is by far the largest.

In Houston, Catholic Charities offers an extensive array of services to immigrants, including illegals.

Simcox estimates that nationwide, about 10 percent to 15 percent of the Catholic Church's charitable budget goes toward aiding immigrants and refugees, of which probably two-thirds would go to illegal immigrants.

Since many immigrants come from predominantly Catholic Latin America, Simcox says, the church's immigration policy is "probably a mixture of idealism and altruism on one hand and probably real politik on the other in the sense that they have much to gain by encouraging the entry and resettlement and ultimate acceptance of what will be their church of the future."

At Casa Juan Diego, the obligation is much simpler. The people that come to the door are in need.

"We know, from our own experience, helping thousands of people, making sure those who don't have food get food, which we do for about 4,000 families a month, it would be chaos," Zwick says. "If the Catholics who do care about the immigrants stopped helping with the immigrants, we would have chaos."

tony.freemantle@chron.com

If you thnk that the US treats Mexican immigrants unfairly do a realty check.

Apply for a tourist visa at the local Mexican Consulate they are easy to get.

Once in Mexico make a cardboard sign with your skills written in Spanish in the corner attach a photocopy of your visitors visa.

Stand at the corner of a large hardware store and solicit work.

Within about a day you will be picked up by the agents of the Mexican Immigration Police. They will incarcerate you expect that you will spend three weeks in a jail and receive summary process and then be sent back to the U.S.





As for the Catholic argument

The priests in this country do not face the same daily risk of replacement as do American day laborers. Priests in America make more than twenty times what they do in India and China.

If the American laborers have a moral obligation to regard their welfare and themselves on only an equal footing with illegal aliens working at discount how about you dong the same thing to save money for your church.