Illegal immigrants: what to do?

I haven’t been following the news lately, because I am a) attending a conference and b) out of my usual time zones.   However, this morning I checked on Pewsitter, because it can give a good overview of most of the top stories and what different people are saying about them.

This is what I saw today.

Sorry, but…. what the heck is going on here?  What is really going on?

I’ll open the combox here, but I will have it on moderation.   Keep it pithy.  Think before posting.  Self-edit.

About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Fr. Z is the guy who runs this blog. o{]:¬)
This entry was posted in Cri de Coeur, Our Catholic Identity, The Coming Storm, The Drill, The future and our choices. Bookmark the permalink.

14 Comments

  1. Elizabeth D says:

    I am a constant Pewsitter reader (though I have also been experimenting more with this new site http://www.newsandfaith.com/ ), but the editors’ stridency against immigration, or Catholics helping immigrants who arrive here, or against bishops who are concerned for immigrants, sincerely bothers me and occasionally angers me. There are very, very difficult and alarming situations and questions at play here, and Obama is in no way trustworthy. But I am with those who see a Gospel call to “err” on the side of welcoming the stranger, protecting the alien.

    Ultimately I am concerned for the Church to be there for these folks wherever they may be, with the Sacraments and parish life, with human caring, with the love of God. It is a disaster if they are coming here and the Church isn’t there for them welcoming them in the life of the Church, offering to baptize, marry and catechize.

    The issue of federal funding has a long history in the Church in the US and new offenses gainst religious freedom threaten the Church’s ability to engage and minister in the civic life of the US. At this point this is a battle that has to be fought; if it gets so bad that we have to begin to refuse federal funding then we should be ready to do so.

  2. Tamquam says:

    The Dems want recruits. Because they are the party of the hard Left they have a demographic problem as Lefties are not as prolifically procreative as the rest of the population. If they can bring in and make citizens a few million more voters they can retain a permanent majority and hold on power for the foreseeable future.

  3. Dienekes says:

    The one constant in my career as an INS agent was that the American people didn’t care about immigration “issues”, if they thought about them at all. Life was good, farm labor was cheap, and it was all just a joke.

    Now we are having a mirror held up to us, and every way we turn we’re forced to look at who we are and what we do.

    …Dorian Grey, 2014.

  4. rcg says:

    Some years ago a radical sister informed a group of us that the US would eventually be majority Spanish speakers. She and the current pastor of that parish work extensively with illegal immigrants to “help” them. The parish at large does not know about this. I do not know to what extent the diocese knows. They are, of course, not the only ones doing this sort of thing ash the tide of illegals in our area grows in our area with high unemployment. Another area I am blind to is the voter rosters as these people slowly merge into our system.

    AS far a broken state, I wonder why we hear nothing about Mexico and its impotence regarding this activity?

    As you may recall ACORN participated in several activities of this sort that essentially moved people into voter areas that were not strong Democrat and either registered new voters without regard to the law or, more insidiously, helped people relocate across districts to change the precinct out comes. Acorn was busted, but since it won the election those people and tactics are now used by the Government. I think this is part of that effort.

    I have been in Central America (El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala. They are indeed broken. But what is more remarkable is that their transportation systems and communication systems are not very robust, either. So how was this sort of migration coordinated, to include help from the Mexican systems?

  5. Bea says:

    Everything going as planned.
    Muslim/Socialist sitting in the White House
    He has a pen, a phone and he’s the POTUS.
    He was voted in with the Catholic vote, thanks to our bishops (some who even donated to his campaign) and now?, they are surprised at his actions?
    He was trained in Chicago curtesy of CCHD (Catholic campaign for Human Development) via ACORN as a community organizer and now he bites the hand that feeds him. He has no more use for Catholics, so he has no qualms for throwing us under the bus.
    Dreams from his father to destroy the West is coming to fruition, while the West ignores the elephant sitting in the living room (AKA the west wing), he entertains the Ramadan Muslims.
    Nothing to see here. All going as planned.

    I know this won’t make it past the moderation but I will not mince on the obvious Truth.
    May we now find the courage to put our heads on the chopping block.
    Think: Martyrs=ticket to heaven.
    Let us rejoice and be glad.

  6. Ben Kenobi says:

    “But I am with those who see a Gospel call to “err” on the side of welcoming the stranger, protecting the alien.”

    Civilization isn’t a suicide pact. What about those of us who are *legal* immigrants? It’s fundamentally unjust to make us jump through hoops and pay a considerable amount of money to do things the correct way. Jesus explicitly says that Christians are to respect the laws of the nations that they are in, and a nation has a right to provide citizenship to those whom they will provide citizenship. Even St. Paul used his citizenship.

    The correct, and loving thing to do is to send them home. All of them. What Obama is doing is exactly what he said he would do, fundamentally transform America. If you can’t win with the electorate you have, you change the electorate!

  7. Mojoron says:

    I know Bp. Taylor from my time in that diocese. From day uno, he has gone out of his way to patronize the Hispanics in the diocese, especially those who live in NW Arkansas and SE Arkansas who work in the agriculture/food processing industries. He will give his homilies at the Confirmations in both Spanish and English. He has expanded the Hispanic ministry in the Diocese’s office. Granted, Hispanics make up a very large group in the diocese. BUT, about 90% of the Hispanics speak-a-da-english and in the opinion of most of the diocese, and some priests, expending excessive resources on Hispanics often goes against the resources that needy parishes need themselves. Priests are asked to learn Espanol in an Immersion language program in Mexico, and then return and say ANOTHER Mass in Espanol in their parish. Short story long, I can totally understand why Taylor has said what he did. In the 2013 Diocesan-wide fund raiser, some of the money raised was planned for Hispanic ministry and guess what, very few of the parishes met their goals. He doesn’t believe that a person here illegally is in fact illegal. Duh!

  8. tioedong says:

    as one central American president pointed out: once President Obama announced the kids would be allowed in, the local coyotes (people smugglers) went to work offering their services. Free enterprise works (sarcasm).

    My only comment? Well, if the local Filipinos could figure out a way to get there, you’d have 100 thousand Pinoys sitting on your doorstep too.

  9. SKAY says:

    The point is to make the US a broken state also. We are 17 trillion plus in debt–and will be passing this on to our present children and grandchildren who no one seems to care about in this whole discussion. They now owe money the day they are born.
    US immigration laws that were passed and signed are being broken by this administration and money that we do not have is being used to do it.
    Tax money is being used for things most of the legal citizens(who are being forced by IRS to pay) do not agree with. The Church should not take a penny from this administration–there will be strings attached everywhere–the first one being their first amendment rights. How can you join with someone who wants to destroy you from within.

    If you say their country’s governments are corrupt–well take a look at ours. Chicago on steroids.

  10. lmo1968 says:

    The USCCB has a brief document that provides an overview of what the child migrants are going through in their home countries that is driving them to come here. http://www.usccb.org/about/children-and-migration/loader.cfm?csModule=security/getfile&pageid=148232

    A recent article in the New York Times states that over half of them are fleeing violence and forced membership in gangs from the drug cartels. Who do you think those drug cartels are selling drugs to? Americans. This is our problem. Our leaders and their leaders need to find a solution to this problem.

    As for those who are coming here, especially the children, I say we are obliged to help them rather than send them back if they are at risk of encountering violence and forced servitude in their home countries. This is Christianity 101.

  11. RANCHER says:

    The current occupier of the White House is becoming more and more bold and expanding his illegal acts (what he is doing re immigration is a felony under Sec 8 USC 1324 (a) (1) (A) (iv) (b) (iii) ) because after little or no opposition in his first 5 years he has learned he can get away with just about anything. The American people are complacent and, except for a few, uninvolved. Congress (both houses and both parties) have made it pretty obvious that they care not about the constitution, not about morality, and not about the law but themselves and only themselves.

    There are two cures. One though inexpensive is illegal and shall not be discussed further. The other is to pray hard that this once Blessed country returns to the principles upon which HE allowed it to be established and to prosper for its first 200 years.

  12. Cathy says:

    I read a report that the first lady of Honduras pledged to personally come in order to gather together and bring back and repatriate the children of that country. Unfortunately, the children are not free to leave, they have to go through the immigration court first. Kind of sounds like the administration would rather hold them hostage than let them go back.

  13. jflare says:

    “The issue of federal funding has a long history in the Church in the US and new offenses gainst religious freedom threaten the Church’s ability to engage and minister in the civic life of the US. ”

    I’m sure that people had all the best intentions when they began receiving federal funding. Unfortunately, even in high school, I began struggling with the logical path between federal funding and charitable organizations. I finally had to admit that I did not consider an organization to be a no-kidding “charity” if it accepted federal dollars for something. Why? I cannot reconcile a charitable intent with providing for that intent with dollars that ultimately can be taken by force.

    As to the current immigration problem, well, I don’t think I’ll see any of the solutions that I would offer being enacted. I think we’d be justified in sending everyone home after they’ve been treated for disease and whatnot, but I think La Raza and various bishops will unleash outrage for that, so we can’t expect that to happen. I think we’d be justified in sealing off the border, but too many will scream about THAT for one reason or another, so I don’t that’ll happen. I think we’d be justified in simply marching into Honduras or wherever and imposing US law, thereby solving the problem there, but I guarantee that someone will scream bloody murder at that too, so I’m running out of options quickly.
    I think it most likely that, as has been happening for years, bishops will all but ignore the potential cultural identities of both self-described Americans (aka US citizens) and any Caucasian group that isn’t Hispanic. I think we’ll have the mother of all guilt trips laid on us if we don’t docilely simply let the immigration wave wreak whatever it’s going to wreak.

    In the end, 50 years from now, given how weak the ties are that bind us all together as a nation, I think it possible that we may still technically have a nation and a Constitution, but the populace live by only the poorest notions of what the Founders intended.
    In other words, I am saying that the “America” that I thought I knew and loved may well be all but dead, even though the Constitution may still technically be the Law of the Land.

  14. SKAY says:

    Person who was allowed by this administration to illegally cross the border with drug resistant TB
    disappears in California.
    http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2014/07/breaking-mexican-immigrant-with-drug-resistant-tb-goes-missing-in-california-video/

Comments are closed.