Walls are being built. Laws are being toughened, and tension is rising, but they just keep coming. Tens of thousands of people stream across the U.S.-Mexico border each year in search of a better life for themselves and their families.

There are more than 35 million foreign-born persons residing in the United States, 23 million of whom have arrived in the past 20 years; at least 12 million are undocumented.

Of interest to Catholic Relief Services is that more than 300,000 of the annual new arrivals are Catholic.

The numbers are telling and point to a bigger problem of economic injustice, said Cullen Larson of Catholic Relief Services at a June breakfast gathering of the Franciscan Coalition, a social justice group sponsored by Raleigh's St. Francis Catholic Church.

The federal government's inability to pass comprehensive immigration reform legislation has led to scores of local and state laws that have cracked down on undocumented immigrants, and have been "harmful to many," Larson said. "People are suffering and dying."

The immigration debate is nuanced, especially for those who claim Christianity as their faith. While Larson said the Catholic Church does not support illegal immigration or open borders, if peoples' lives are in danger, the laws must protect them.

"Nations have a right to control their borders but not an absolute right," Larson said. "People have the right to migrate to support their families."

In a January 2003 joint pastoral letter on migration, Strangers No Longer: Together on the Journey of Hope, U.S. and Mexican bishops called for comprehensive immigration reform:

Address root causes of migration by developing economic, political and social conditions that make it unecessary to migrate.
Allow undocumented residents of all nationalities to earn permanent residency
Allow family members to reunite with loved ones in the United States
Reform labor laws so migrants can work in a safe, humane environment
Restore due process protections for immigrants.
"Our faithfulness as a community is measured by how we treat the most vulnerable among us," Larson told the Indy. "The lack of documents does not take away the human rights of someone desperate to feed his or her family. Jesus welcomed the entire human family to his table."

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