Thread: Catholics rally for illegal immigrants

http://www.dailybulletin.com/news/ci_6017457

LOS ANGELES - Southern California Catholics urged Sen. Dianne Feinstein and other legislators to embrace changes to immigration law that would make it easier for illegal immigrants to become legal U.S. residents.
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About 30 people drawn from Catholic and pro-immigrant groups stood outside the white stone-and-glass tower in west Los Angeles where Feinstein has offices. Addressing the media, speakers also demanded legislation that would maintain policies that make it easier for immigrants' relatives to follow their family members into the United States.

"Workers must have a path to citizenship so that we don't have a permanent underclass," said Bishop Oscar Solis, director of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles' Justice and Peace Office.

Representatives of Feinstein's office could not be reached for comment Tuesday. The senator favors a legalization process for illegal immigrants who are already working in the United States. In a statement issued Thursday, she referred to such immigrants as "good citizens without citizenship."

At the close of Tuesday's


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event, diocesan representatives carried boxes full of signature cards to the senator's offices. Solis said about 45,000 California Catholics signed cards that petitioned Feinstein to support pro-immigrant policies.
Jeanette Arnquist, director of the San Bernardino Diocese's office of social concerns, helped carry the messages to Feinstein's staffers. After returning from her errand, she suggested that it is hypocritical for American policymakers to deny citizenship to illegal immigrants when American employers are willing to hire illegal workers.

"What we (Americans) are saying is `Yeah, it's illegal to cross (the border), but once you get here, we're going to give you a job,"' she said.

The Senate is on break this week and is expected to take on the immigration issue when lawmakers go back to work June 4. On Thursday, senators rejected a proposal that would have made it impossible for illegal immigrants to become legal residents.

Proposals, supported by the president, would allow the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants who are already inside the United States to obtain new Z visas that would permit them to stay inside the country after paying fines and undergoing a background check.

Immigrants who receive the visas would be able to return to their homelands and apply for green cards. Illegal immigrants would not be able to go through this process until the government hires 20,000 Border Patrol agents and builds 370 miles of fencing at the U.S.-Mexico border. The proposal also included a plan to levy fines against employers who hire illegal immigrants.

The plan would also include a guest-worker program that would call for about 200,000 Y visas to be issued each year. The guest-worker program does not include a path to citizenship, but visa holders could seek permanent residency under a new points-based system that would grant preferences based on factors including immigrants' education, English-language ability and job skills.

The plan would also eventually nix policies that allow legal immigrants' siblings and adult children to acquire visas simply because they are related to people who have moved to the United States.

President Bush promoted the proposals Tuesday while speaking at a law enforcement training center in Georgia.

"Give us a chance to fix the problems in a comprehensive way that enforces our border and treats people with dignity and respect," he said. "Don't try to kill this bill before it gets moving."

On the other side of the issue, some conservatives have lambasted the proposed changes to immigration law as amnesty for the millions who have illegally crossed the border.

Joe Turner, executive director of Save Our State, an anti-illegal-immigration group, said the president supported "amnesty on layaway" while his organization favors deportation for all illegal immigrants.

Members of the Center for Immigration Studies describe their group as an organization that wants to lower the number of people moving into the United States while supporting those who immigrate legally. John Keeley, the organization's communications director, strongly disagreed with the view that immigrants' family members deserve an automatic shot at green cards.

"It's not intellectually defensible to let everybody and their aunt and uncle get into this country," he said.

The kinds of family preferences that would be eliminated under the proposal are unusual in other countries, said Elliott Robert Barkan, a professor emeritus at Cal State San Bernardino who has studied immigration.

"People may complain, but every other major immigration receiving nation uses a skill scale," said Barkan, who cited New Zealand, Australia and Canada as examples.

However, Barkan declined to say whether family preferences or a points system is a superior method to handle the influx of immigrants.

Barkan also said immigration problems won't be solved on the American side of the border. He evoked the post-World War II Marshall Plan to assert that Mexico needs serious aid to promote economic development and staunch the bloodletting caused by the drug trade.

If Mexico's problems could be alleviated, Barkan said, there would not be a massive number of immigrants seeking to come into the United States.

Proponents of strict immigration rules often say that if someone enters the country illegally, that person should not receive any help from the government. Arnquist, however, said that the case isn't closed after someone steps across the border. "The fact that someone has broken the law doesn't take away their basic human dignity," she said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Contact writer Andrew Edwards at (909) 335-9520 or via e-mail at andrew.edwards@sbsun.com.

I strongly doubt these few Catholics represent the view of the average Southern California Catholic.

Of course they want to add rear ends in their pews on Sunday. As a former Catholic (left because of this and the pedophile crimes) I feel no love for this corrupt political group. They're all aging hippie priests who could care less about America. They're robbing from us to pay Paul. They're destroying America and supporting illegals who are robbing us blind. They are despicable. They should be FIXING MEXICO!!!!

no offense to anyon here who is Catholic but the mother church only cares for her coffers not for the souls of her followers. You only need look at history (William of Oakham, inquisition, adaptation of pagan celebrations, recent misbehavior by priest) for examples of how the catholic church takes care of themselves and damn the rest of us.

Catholic Church = Big Money. It is just another corporation.

How about all the illegals storming the Catholic Hospitals and Schools. Let them pay for their flock! No of course they want us to pay their way! I've had acid indigenstion for weeks!

"Workers must have a path to citizenship so that we don't have a permanent underclass," said Bishop Oscar Solis, director of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles' Justice and Peace Office.

"We must deport illegals and close the border so that we don't have a permanent underclass," ......

Hey, that works, too!

"About 30 people drawn from Catholic and pro-immigrant groups...."

Let us propose that all immigration will just come from Europe just to see the reaction from these "pro-immigrant" groups. They are not "pro-immigrant."

About 30 people drawn from Catholic and pro-immigrant groups stood outside the white stone-and-glass tower in west Los Angeles where Feinstein has offices. Addressing the media, speakers also demanded legislation that would maintain policies that make it easier for immigrants' relatives to follow their family members into the United States.

How many child abuses have been allowed since Mahoney is part of the Archidiosesis of Los Angeles?? I wonder if these people that call themselves "catholics" are going to organize a rally against all the child molesters and pedophiles that Mahoney is harboring in his church instead of advocating to break our immigration laws..Jesus says also that we all should obey the law of the land and I am sure he will be mad at those people... Double standard!!