CNS FILE PHOTO/J.D. LONG-GARCIA/CATHOLIC SUN

Walt Staton of Tucson, Ariz., and Dane Rossman of New Jersey, volunteers with the humanitarian group No More Deaths, look last September for illegal immigrants left behind by their smugglers in the Sonoran Desert near the U.S.-Mexican border. Members of No More Deaths patrol the Arizona desert looking for illegal immigrants left behind by smugglers. Immigration issues were the focus of a two-day gathering in Northern Kentucky last week sponsored by the Sisters of Charity Foundation.

Hope remains for solution to immigration dilemma in U.S.

Gathering sponsored by foundation zeroes in on the journey

By Dennis O’Connor

HEBRON, Ky. — As Christians in the United States and throughout North America come to grips with the dilemma that has emerged over immigration policies, one observer sees our Judeo-Christian doctrine of hope as an integral part of the issue’s discussion.

"Migration is a central narrative of our faith tradition," said Donald Kerwin, executive director of the Catholic Legal Immigration Network. In the context of immigration, we must think of the "exile and exodus of the Jewish people. We remember the Holy Family’s flight from Egypt. We think of St. Paul on the road to Damascus and our earliest missionaries. Migration in our experience has been the mystery in plain view: and it is how we have encountered God."

Kerwin, who gave the keynote address for the opening of "Together on a Journey of Hope," a two-day immigration affinity meeting sponsored by the Sisters of Charity Foundation, brought experts on immigration from across the country to the Cincinnati area to discuss the current immigration debate.

"Migration is the central narrative of our nation," Kerwin said. "Our parents or grandparents came to the United States for similar reasons" that today’s immigrants are seeking refuge within our borders. "And those immigrants of yesterday suffered the same suspicions as today’s immigrants."

Kerwin noted that in the midst of a politicized discussion of immigration that saw Congress paralyzed last year, unable to pass any progressive immigration measures, a hope by certain segments of the population would have immigration be the defining issue for the upcoming presidential elections. The reverse, however, appears to be true, he said. Recent Gallup polls show that fewer than five percent of registered voters nationwide list immigration as a "front-burner" concern, listing instead worries such as the war in Iraq and economic woes tied to the current mortgage crisis.

Still, Kerwin noted that immigration plays an important role in the national discourse.

"We (as Christians) don’t see immigrants in idealized terms," Kerwin said. "They are human beings. We see immigrants as brothers and sisters in our tradition, from a civic perspective. When you welcome immigrants, it benefits all of us."

Kerwin explained one example in the healthcare realm. "When you deny healthcare to immigrants, you endanger public health. When you deny immigrants to police by tasking police officials with enforcing immigration violations, you endanger public safety. Rights such as these in our country are the good that’s common to all of us."

Kerwin noted that in his position as head of the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, he has been engaged in debates with opponents to progressive immigration reform. The questions this group continues to ask, he explained, is one surrounding legalities.

"The question these folks ask is ‘what about the rule of law?’ The fact remains that we do need such a system of law. We are a nation of immigrants with a creed" in place. "And, yes, we want enforcement of our laws, but we want it to be humane. We want to protect long-term border residents" who have had a tradition of going back and forth across those borders to work. "We also want to insure that error-prone government databases don’t put lawful workers out of work," he said, explaining recent reporting on errors in Social Security data nationwide. "And, we want to make sure we are able to protect asylum-seekers," a rich tradition of the United States.

When going head-to-head in such debates, Kerwin said that the "other side" has had a propensity to resort to name calling.

"We work through this rather ugly atmosphere" in spite of the criticisms, he said. "We’ve been called promiscuous regarding an ‘open border.’ Opponents link the current child-abuse crisis within the church to our work on immigration, and the critics claim that we’re making money on the undocumented. Unfortunately, this is the framework within which we are operating at this point."

Kerwin added that although Catholics support the rule of law, the system that monitors the immigration process doesn’t always honor the rule of law. "If immigration honored that rule, the law would be truly prospective. It would be stable, fair and predictable. It would be consistently applied, and it would honor human rights." The challenge, Kerwin said, is that the migration laws in the United States are unevenly applied.

"There is also a misperception about who it is we are talking about," he said. "There is a notion that these people who are in the country are jumping the line to immigrate. The truth is, these people are the line. These are people waiting for family-based visas," but they often are caught in a bizarre limbo. "If you leave the United States, you are not guaranteed the right to come back in," he continued. "To us, the question isn’t so much about what don’t we get about the illegal in illegal alien. To the contrary, what our opponents don’t get is that we are talking about God-given dignity. What they don’t get is the rights that these people are in fact guaranteed by our laws. They don’t get how these immigrants contribute to the good of our nation."

The simple solution offered by those who would fence off our borders would be a mass deportation.

"But any attempted deportation by roundup of 12 million people would be a catastrophe," Kerwin said. "It’s a slow-moving catastrophe right now."

Kerwin said that many Americans seem to have lost sight of what has been a great tradition in this country, of welcoming immigrants into our society and allowing them to integrate. It has resulted in a unique viewpoint that casts people in the United States as a distinct people who have inherited their current rights.

"To me, that vision seems most un-American," he said.

Other speakers at the affinity meeting included Sister of Divine Providence Alice Gerdeman, who spoke on the unique role religious communities play in the immigration picture; Mirna Torres of the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, who spoke about staying focused on long-term change; Arlene McNamee, from Catholic Social Services in the Diocese of Fall River, Mass., who talked about dealing with the consequences of immigration raids; Elena Segura, from the Archdiocese of Chicago, who talked about energizing diocesan groups on immigration issues; and Carmen Maquilon, from Long Island, N.Y., who talked about best practices in immigration outreach.