Letter: Catholic bishops are wrong about amnesty
By Julius Hollenhorst, St. Cloud
Published: October 26. 2007 12:30AM

Cardinal Roger Mahoney and the American Conference of Catholic Bishops are wrong on amnesty for illegal immigrants from Mexico.

One issue Mahoney and the bishops promote is that the illegal immigrants are here without families. Gosh, they come here illegally and complain their families are not here.

Haven't Mahoney and the bishops ever thought about the 160,000-plus U.S. military members in Iraq who are without their families? Or the 100,000 other service people worldwide without their families? Not to mention the many people who work jobs that take them far away from their families.

Another ridiculous statement: "The illegal immigrants do the jobs we won't do." So who has been doing these jobs all the years before these immigrant arrived? Been there, done that.

Also, it's a bad idea to just impose a fine on people who enter illegally and then give them citizenship after they pay it. You can't just buy your way into the United States.

... The present immigration laws work just fine. The problem is the Mexican government. Mexico has vast amounts of natural resources. But these are controlled by a handful of wealthy people. If Mahoney and the bishops want to help, they should confront Mexico's government. However, the Mexican clergy generally panders to the wealthy.

Of course, Mahoney couldn't even control sexual abuse in his own diocese. ...
http://www.sctimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/ar ... 006/NEWS01