Thread: US Catholic bishops condemn US immigration raids

US Catholic bishops condemn US immigration raids
1 hour ago

WASHINGTON (AFP) — US Roman Catholic bishops on Wednesday charged that immigration raids on US workplaces break up families and disrupt communities, without addressing the country's flawed immigration system.

"The humanitarian costs of these raids are immeasurable and unacceptable in a civilized society," Bishop John Wester, chairman of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) committee on migration, said.

"I call upon the Department of Homeland Security and President (George W.) Bush to reconsider the use of these worksite enforcement raids, and without the implementation of necessary human rights protections, to please abandon them," he told a news conference.

"We ask them and the country, including the presidential candidates, to again turn their energies for building support for a comprehensive overhaul of our broken immigration system," he said.

The Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has focused on rounding up illegals in raids and sending them home since attempts to reform US immigration laws fell apart last year, said Wester.

In a single raid in Mississippi last month, some 595 illegal immigrants -- many of them Latinos -- were arrested by ICE agents, the agency says on its website.

In the past 10 months, thousands of illegal workers have been netted in the raids, according to news reports.

The bishops complained that the "sweeping nature of the raids -- which often involve hundreds of law enforcement personnel with weapons -- strike fear in immigrant communities and make it difficult for those arrested to secure basic due process protections, including legal counsel."

The raids disrupt communities, including legal permanent residents and US citizens, and brutally break up families, often Hispanics, who make up the largest immigrant group and nearly half of whom are Catholic.

"Husbands are separated from their wives, children from their parents. Many families never recover; others never reunite," Wester said.

"Imagine a child coming home from school and his primary care-giver is not there," he said.

But the bishops rigorously denied they were pushing for immigration reforms out of fear the crackdowns would whittle away at congregation sizes.

"The issue that we're trying to recruit and fill our pews is not based in reality. The reality is that people are showing up at our parishes, our social services programs, seeking assistance," said Latino Bishop James Tamayo, whose diocese is located on the border between the United States and Mexico.

Tamayo expressed support for immigration officials who undertake a difficult but essential task, but insisted that workplace raids violated human dignity.

"The Catholic church has always supported the right of a nation to protect its sovereignty and to secure its borders," he said.

"Such enforcement must be tempered, however, in a way that balances the national interest with the basic God-given right and dignity of human beings. These raids fail to meet this test," he said.
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hVy ... 2tZ87BQG7w

America we are fighting our own government, some churches, and an invasion!

How did we get here? Shouldn't the government take a pay cut of at least 75%?
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Oh we have many illegals! But the new fight which we must fight is legal immigration. Dear Lord Help Us!

The i-9's and the green cards are killing the jobs totally for Americans.

Where are the Americans working?

Hate or Love a country? Is the question?

http://tinyurl.com/5tv8k4

BALTIMORE -- A Snow Hill man will spend three years in prision for trying to bribe state and federal officals in a scheme that cluminated in raids on several Lower Shore businesses last fall.

Javed Iqbal, 40, was also given three years supervised release Tuesday for a racketeering conspiracy related to a scheme to bribe officials with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to illegally obtain green cards and the Maryland Comptroller's Office to receive abatement of state taxes, said officials from the U. S. Attorney for the District of Maryland.

REMEMBER THIS BECAUSE THIS IS THE LOOPHOLE... ALL FOREIGNERS WANT I-9'S AND GREEN CARDS AND ETC. THEN THE AMERICANS JOBS ARE THEIR'S LEGALLY AND THE BABIES PRODUCED ARE AMERICANS?

As a former faithful Catholic I just shook my head, AGAIN. I quit the church when I refused to force my husband ( now deceased) to convert, my reply then was YOU have harbored pedofiles by shuffling them from one church to another ( we won't even mention the fact that you KNOWINGLY exposed other children by doing so), and you want to tell me how to run my life? That was 20 years ago! Now they want to tell the entire US how to run the country? GET REAL, I'd love to see the Tax exemption YANKED right out from under them.

I apologize to any still faithful Catholics in advance, but this just frosts my cookies!

The church needs to tend to its sinners and leave upholding the law to the government. If they continue I sahll regularly mail my Senators and Congressmen to repeal the tax exempt status of the church.

Perhaps they want Mexican altar boys?????

Originally Posted by nomas

As a former faithful Catholic I just shook my head, AGAIN. I quit the church when I refused to force my husband ( now deceased) to convert, my reply then was YOU have harbored pedofiles by shuffling them from one church to another ( we won't even mention the fact that you KNOWINGLY exposed other children by doing so), and you want to tell me how to run my life? That was 20 years ago! Now they want to tell the entire US how to run the country? GET REAL, I'd love to see the Tax exemption YANKED right out from under them.

I apologize to any still faithful Catholics in advance, but this just frosts my cookies!

Ahhh nomas, you took my line! I lost ALL respect for the bishops and priests when they started shielding criminals (pedophilic priests and now illegal aliens). I am still a practicing Catholic but I refuse to give even ONE dime to financially support them. They are so adamant about illegal aliens because they receive FEDERAL FUNDS for their so called "outreach programs". This is money meant for the poor, but they spend it on illegal aliens (violating another law). Now illegal aliens are looking for MORE money and the church is running pretty low on cash and the illegal aliens aren't happy with that.

"The issue that we're trying to recruit and fill our pews is not based in reality. The reality is that people are showing up at our parishes, our social services programs, seeking assistance," said Latino Bishop James Tamayo, whose diocese is located on the border between the United States and Mexico.

Yeah well that happens when you give handouts to ungrateful law-breakers. Deal with it with your own money Padre, you're not getting any from me!

"I call upon the Department of Homeland Security and President (George W.) Bush to reconsider the use of these worksite enforcement raids, and without the implementation of necessary human rights protections, to please abandon them," he told a news conference.

Blah, blah, blah! I don't recall them being tortured, starved or beaten. They are treated the same as anyone committing crimes with the added bonus of an expense-pad return trip home. We're supposed to stop enforcing the law? For what? We DEMAND MORE raids and deportations! Don't like, go with them and help them make their own countries better! Vaya con Dios!