Thread: Catholic immigration advocates learn legislation lobbying st

Catholic immigration advocates learn legislation lobbying strategies
By Patricia Zapor
4/19/2007
Catholic News Service (www.catholicnews.com)

WASHINGTON (CNS) – Providing a way for illegal immigrants to regularize their status is not "amnesty," a roomful of immigration advocates was told April 18.

And when one is confronted by people who argue that the Catholic Church has no business trying to influence legislation on behalf of immigrants, quotations from scripture about welcoming the stranger and protecting those in need of protection can be helpful, they were advised.

In preparation sessions preceding a day of lobbying on Capitol Hill as part of a Justice for Immigrants national gathering, participants from 66 dioceses got a crash course in how to effectively present the church's position about what a comprehensive immigration reform bill ought to include and why.

"Be clear that you are inviting and informing, not forcing," said Joan Rosenhauer, special projects coordinator for the Department of Social Development and World Peace of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

"It's not like accepting the divinity of Christ or the existence of the Trinity," she said. "You can be Catholic and not support the latest bill the bishops are backing in Congress." Sometimes, failing to acknowledge that "will turn off people who know better," she added.

Start by explaining Catholic teaching and tradition about migrants, Rosenhauer suggested. "What does it mean to love our neighbor? To support a preferential option for the poor?"

Kevin Appleby, director of migration and refugee policy for the USCCB, explained the recent history of immigration legislation; the numerical realities of legal and illegal immigration; and how to answer critics.

The coalition of religious, ethnic, business, agriculture and union groups that has been pushing for comprehensive immigration reform actually was relieved that a bill did not pass out of Congress last year, he said.

The only immigration legislation to become law in the 109th Congress dealt with some expansion of the Border Patrol and approval of the construction of 700 miles of a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border, which Appleby said "will not be built." Essentially no funding was approved for it in last year's budget and it is unlikely to get funded this time either, he said.

He added that it is worth explaining that there are only 5,000 visas available for the 500,000 people who enter or stay in the United States illegally every year, 90 percent of whom find work within six months.

Appleby cautioned the group about the language they use to discuss the issue and what they allow others to use. For instance, providing a way for some of the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States to regularize their status and eventually become citizens is not amnesty, he said.

The nation's 1986 legalization program might accurately be described as an amnesty -- which Webster's Dictionary defines as "a giveaway," he said. But financial penalties and other requirements in current proposals for legalization make what is on the table this year quite different, according to Appleby.

Doug Rivlin, communications director of the National Immigration Forum, said groups such as the forum and the USCCB "have a solution" to immigration problems, while those who most vocally resist a comprehensive approach only "have sound bites" about the problems.

Recent immigration workplace raids and rapid deportations that split apart families play into the hands of immigration restrictionists who argue that illegal immigrants should be driven out of the country, he said.

"They want to ramp up enforcement so that people become so miserable that walking back to Chiapas (in Mexico) sounds like a good idea," Rivlin said.

"We're trying to get it so people come in with a visa instead of a smuggler," he said, and so that people aren't pitted against each other in society and in the workplace on the basis of their immigration status.

Frank Sharry, director of the National Immigration Forum, illustrated a strategy recommended by Rosenhauer: Tell stories about real people and situations to illustrate the need for change.

He told of visiting a town in the state of Guerrero, Mexico, where nearly the entire population of adults and older teens had emigrated to Chicago. The effects on the town were obvious, from the dearth of adults to the fancy new basketball court, with a logo of the Chicago Bulls on the floor, paid for with remittances sent from relatives in the United States.

The town had effectively become "a bedroom community for Chicago," Sharry said, albeit one where "the commute is deadly," costing thousands of dollars and covering thousands of miles.

"How much better would it be if those workers could just get on a plane with a visa," instead of risking their lives crossing the desert illegally, he asked.

"The status quo is a bad guest worker program," Sharry said. "The workers have no rights, face huge dangers and assume all the risks."

Sharry recalled watching a client at the Massachusetts immigration assistance agency he worked for in the late 1980s come into the office to show off her new legal residency permit, one of the first issued after the 1986 legalization program.

Her pride and joy at declaring she would no longer have to be at the mercy of people who knew she wasn't a legal resident is a scene he expects to see repeated again and again soon, he said.

"We are on the verge of 12 million moments like that," Sharry said, "where people don't have to be afraid to leave the house, where they can stand up to their bosses and feel free to join a union."

http://www.catholic.org/national/nation ... p?id=23834

I sure wish the Catholic church would stay out of the illegal immigration business.

You might want to check this book out. Could explain a lot of things.

http://cuttingedge.org/detail.cfm?ID=1443

VATICAN ASSASSINS

While the original Vatican Assassins book (2002) was only 700 pages long, this book is 1,734 pages long, in 50 chapters, and contains 750 startling pictures. Rather than charge more than $150 retail, Eric Jon Phelps has decided to publish this book on CDROM, bringing the price down to $39.99 Mr. Phelps never intends to create an actual book

This book took decades of research and nearly a decade of cumulative writing to complete! Mr. Phelps believes this book is THE defining expose' of the 500-year Jesuit conspiracy to bring the entire world into a One-World Government, Economy, and Religion, all controlled by the Jesuit Pope!

# These are the high points of this incredible book: 1534 - Beginning of the Jesuit Order and its original premise to return both Spiritual and Political Power back to the Pope
# 1773 - History of the Pope's Supression of the Order in 1773
# 1796-1816 Wars of Napoleon Bonapart I shown to be the arm of the Jesuits as Napolen punished every European Monarch who had resisted the Jesuits. One of the targets was the Papacy who had actively supressed the Jesuit Order
# Shows how high-level Masonry, led by the House of Rothschild, became the financiers of the Jesuits in their conspiratorial scheme
# 1814 - Jesuits were revived by a Papal Bull
# 1820 - Russia Expelled Jesuits
# 1829 - England expelled Jesuits
# 1848 - Switzerland expelled Jesuits
# 1871 - Italy expelled Jesuits
# 1872 - Germany expelled Jesuits
# 1880 - France expelled Jesuits
# 1914-1945, Jesuits initiated their second 30-year war, known popularly as World Wars I and II

During the Cold War, Jesuits worked through governments of the world to launch crusades against Asian targets, while simultaneously setting the stage for Neo-Nazi dictatorial system in America

1963, Assassination of JFK

9/11 attacks carried out by Jesuits in order to set off global war pitting Islam against the historic Protestant West

Our suggestion is to buy 3-inch 3-ring binder, printing off one chapter at a time so you will have your own book at the end

Second CDROM contains the 13 original books upon which Vatican Assassins is based.

This CD/PDF E-Book may be entirely reproduced ONE TIME in paperback or hardcover book form by the purchaser by any means available for his personal and private use.

http://www.catholic.org/national/nation ... p?id=23841

Too many Catholics believe immigration myths, bishops’ official says, urging church assault to debunk ‘ignorance’
4/20/2007

Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)
WASHINGTON (Catholic Online) – Too many Catholics believe myths surrounding immigration and immigrants based on misinformation and misconceptions requiring the Catholic Church to respond with a comprehensive fight against ignorance, said a U.S. bishops’ official.

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In an April 17 presentation kicking off a three-day Justice for Immigrants campaign conference here, Mark Franken, executive director of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Migration and Refugee Services, stressed that if the Catholic Church is ever going to “change hearts and minds” it must “relearn what it means to be an immigrant church” and to engage the faithful through education.

“Our biggest challenge is not the attacks from the immigration restrictionists, the racists, or the xenophobes,” he said. “Our biggest challenge is ignorance!”

“Too many of our fellow Catholics believe the myths: immigrants are criminals; immigrants don’t pay taxes; immigrants are a drain on public resources; immigrants don’t want to integrate within our society; immigrants are taking our jobs. None of these perceptions are real,” Franken said, adding that for “many, many people perception is fact.”

“We’ve got to debunk the myths. We’ve got to create empathy with our newest sisters and brothers. We’ve got to answer the question: “What would Jesus do?,” he said.

More than 100 Catholic social-justice leaders, diocesan directors and others active in the USCCB Justice for Immigrants campaign gathered for the April 17 – 19 event, which included going to Capitol Hill and urging lawmakers to pass comprehensive immigration reform. The theme of the convening, which drew participants from more than 65 U.S. dioceses and more than 35 states, was “Offering Hope, Promoting Justice.”

Launched in 2005, the Justice for Immigrants: A Journey of Hope campaign was created to unite and mobilize Catholic institutions and individuals in support of a broad legalization program and comprehensive immigration reform. Its goal is to maximize the church’s influence on the issue toward passage of legislative and administrative governmental reforms and to organize Catholic networks to assist qualified immigrants to obtain the benefits received from those reforms. About 80 U.S. Catholic dioceses have formally launched the campaign locally, with most of the others actively engaged in its promotion.

Retracing some of the history of immigration in the United States, Franken said that 150 years ago, in the midst of the “first great wave of immigrants,” the earliest Catholics to the country’s shores faced “discrimination and hardship, much like today’s immigrants.”

He noted that then there was the Know Nothing Party, which were strongly against immigration and Catholics. But “today, look around,” he said, “we again have a presidential candidate running on an immigration restrictionist platform.”

Those earliest immigrants saw in the Catholic Church a “voice” to speak on their behalf and a “place one could find solace … to feel safe,” he said. “The church provided the welcome, helped educate the children and tended to the sick and elderly among the immigrants.”

Yet, despite this history and the fact that the vast majority of Catholics are descendents of those earlier immigrants, many can no longer relate to the migration experience, Franken said.

“I dare say that many Catholics in this country today are hostile toward immigrants, especially the so-called ‘illegals,’” he said. Most “represent the center of society. They hold positions of power and wealth. Thus they no longer have empathy with today’s immigrants.”

Catholics, like others in the general U.S. population, are split on the issue of immigration, especially as it concerns those in the country “without proper authorization.”

“Catholics’ negative attitudes about immigration,” Franken said, is “based on misinformation and misperceptions” and “considerable misunderstandings.”

He stated that the Justice for Immigrants campaign has been responsible for influencing the nation’s “debate and has created a climate in which the prospects of achieving the kinds of comprehensive reforms envisioned by the bishops are possible.”

The fact that bishops and other church leaders have faced hostile audiences and backlashes from those opposed to comprehensive immigration reforms has “demonstrated to the immigrant communities that the church is a voice for them,” the migration and refugee director said.

“I am convinced that were there not this campaign, we would be facing nothing but ‘get tougher’ enforcement policies and further erosion of hospitality toward immigrants,” he said.

Yet, unless the church reaches through education the average U.S. Catholic in the pew with a message about welcoming the stranger, he said, “we risk becoming a church divided: the growing immigrant population within the church and the others.”

An educational effort in the church must be a top priority, infusing “into the educational curricula of our school systems, our adult education programs, and religious formation studies the church’s teachings on migration.”

“We’ve got to win hearts and minds,” he said.

It is key to engage U.S. Catholics more broadly as well to impress upon the nation the need for more just immigration policies, Franken said.

“Our adversaries, though small in numbers, are extremely vocal with their elected representatives. They are well financed and extremely well organized,” he said. “We cannot continue to allow members of Congress and the President to think that most Americans want to see more restrictive policies. We’ve got to raise our voices louder and multiply the number of voices.”

Relearning what it means to be an immigrant church means, he said, reawakening “among our people a sense of solidarity with the ‘least of our brothers and sisters.’”

“How vibrant would our Church be if we became a more welcoming people? I can tell you this, if we Catholics in this country do not adopt more welcoming attitudes, we risk losing many people who will find this welcome elsewhere,” Franken stressed.

He urged those involved in social action, peace and justice, legal, social and pastoral service providers and other leaders in the church to continue their efforts on behalf of immigrants that “can revitalize the church, whose heritage is rooted in the immigrant experience.”

“By committing ourselves to helping all Catholics understand our faith imperatives toward migrants, we are offering them an opportunity to live out their faith,” he said. “I can think of no greater gift.”