By Archbishop Thomas Wenski - The Archdiocese of Miami
On Wednesday, Feb. 25, Archbishop Thomas Wenski delivered two talks concerning immigration to a meeting of men and women superiors of Passionist communities in the U.S., Mexico and the Caribbean. The meeting took place at Our Lady of Florida Spiritual Center in Palm Beach Gardens. The first talk concerned immigration policy; the second concerned the implications of immigration for church life. Here is the first talk:
Our world today is increasingly globalized. It is a world where goods and merchandise made in one continent are bought and sold in another, half a world away; where information and money can cross borders in an instant; and where people also increasingly move across borders — often in dramatic ways.
Migration is the human face of globalization which has shrunk the world. Pope Benedict said that globalization has made us all neighbors; but then he observed that it hasn’t made us brothers and sisters.
Pope Francis’ first trip outside of Rome as pope was to Lampedusa, a small Italian island where he visited with African boat people. There he warned against the “globalization of indifference.” Those refugees like those that arrive off the coast of Florida or swim the Rio Grande are modern day personifications of the Old Testament Job or the New Testament Lazarus. Lazarus suffered from the indifference of the rich man; and Job suffered perhaps a greater indignity, for he was blamed by his friends for his miseries. We see that indifference — and a strong tendency to blame the victims — in our nation's debates about immigration reform.
These debates so far have produced much heat and little light. Congress’ failure to enact comprehensive immigration reform has created a policy vacuum and has widened the political divide among Americans. And right now, the temporary fix touted by President Obama for a significant number of the 10 or 11 million irregular migrants in the U.S. has been halted by a federal judge. The failure to secure a just and comprehensive reform of our nation’s immigration regime has left us with an inconsistent, ineffective and inhumane national policy. Seventy percent of those living in the U.S. without permanent legal status have lived here for more than five years. So these harsh policies are not going to drive them back “home” – they have no “home” to go to. What we have though is fear – thousands, no, millions of people in communities throughout the U.S. living in fear of a knock on their door in the middle of the night or of an immigration raid to their workplace.
Last Wednesday, Ash Wednesday, I celebrated Mass in an immigration detention prison in Pompano Beach. This is a private “for profit” prison that contracts with ICE to detain undocumented aliens until deportation or in some cases release. After Mass I talked with many of them – men and women – from the Caribbean, Central and South America. Some were picked up just a few days before (one in Puerto Rico; he was flown from there to Florida so that he could be deported back to the Dominican Republic); another one had been living here for 11 years and had the bad luck to be stopped by a traffic cop and had no proof of legal status and so was detained. None them were detained for any criminal activity; none of them in any way seemed dangerous; and not one of them looked like they were destined to live sleeping under a bridge.
The Church teaches us not to fear the migrant — and the Church warns us not to mistreat the migrant. In a way, just as we call Jesus the King of Kings, we can refer to him as the Migrant of Migrants. In becoming a man like us, he “migrated” from heaven. He became a citizen of our world so that we in turn might become citizens of the world to come. And those who will enter into his heavenly homeland will do so because, as he himself will tell us: “I was a stranger, and you welcomed me.”
'...(W)e cynically force immigrant workers to run a dangerous gauntlet through dangerous border crossings and deserts and if they survive they find work waiting for them. This is not rational. This is not just. For these workers are without legal status, without legal defenses – in effect, our present system is creating a new legally sanctioned underclass...'
So we can draw a parallel to Jesus’ coming among us as man and a newcomer’s arrival in a strange land. In this way, perhaps, we can contemplate the face of Jesus in the visage of the immigrant.
Xenophobic politics that focus on the “illegal immigrant” as a problem obscures the human face of immigration. Dramatic, “get-tough” arrests of poor low-wage workers will not solve our immigration crisis. In fact, these arrests hurt our economy. We need them – and for years the U.S. Department of Labor has been forecasting a growing shortage of low-skilled workers. The real problem is not the immigrant but the broken system that does not provide a mechanism for employers to secure legal workers when they need them.
Like the immigrant who arrives to our land, the Eternal Son of God, through his Incarnation, pitched his tent in our midst. And like Jesus who was born in a stable because there was no room for him in the inn, today, even while they toil at jobs that Americans cannot or will not do, immigrants hear again what Mary and Joseph heard in Bethlehem two millennia ago: there is no room in the inn for you.
Catholic Social Teaching has been developed by the Magisterium of the Church – especially by the popes of the last 100 years. The Church sees herself as an expert in humanity – and she does so precisely because of the Incarnation of her head, Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ – true God and true man – reveals to us who God is while at the same time he reveals who man is.
Catholic social teachings depart from revelation – from the Incarnation. Nevertheless, these teachings are not inaccessible to human reason. Now these teachings can be rather complex in their argumentation. They can be very sophisticated in their reasoning. However, I would like to offer a summary of the body of Catholic Social Teaching – a summary I can put in one sentence. To wit, no human being can be reduced to being considered just as a problem.
Today, we are beset with a series of reductive definitions of man which end up defining him as a problem. When we allow ourselves to define a human being made in the image and likeness of God, for God, as a problem, then we will give ourselves permission to apply solutions – even, final solutions.
No human being or class of human beings can be problems. In Catholic social teachings, there are no “problem pregnancies”; only unborn children that must be welcome in life and protected in law. Immigrants are not problems – they are persons, made in image and likeness of God, endowed with inalienable rights by nature and nature’s God (to use a phrase from our nation’s founding documents).
Therefore, any immigration reform proposal must be evaluated from that context, within that light. Therefore, I suggest at least five principles that can be derived from my summary statement of Catholic Social Teachings. The bishops of the United States and Mexico, in their pastoral statement of January 2003, "Strangers No Longer," develop these principles in the hope of offering to lawmakers a means of elaborating a reform of our broken immigration system that will serve the human person.
- Persons have the right to find opportunities in their homeland. Migration should be driven by choice and not necessity. Forced migrations due to conflict or poverty go against human dignity.
- Persons have the right to migrate to support themselves and their families. In other words, as human beings, everyone should enjoy the conditions worthy of human life. When these conditions are not found in one’s homeland, one has the right to seek those conditions elsewhere.
- Sovereign states have the right to control borders. This is a function of sovereign in the service of the common good. But obligations to solidarity trump rights of sovereignty.
- Refugees and asylum seekers should be afforded protection. Those fleeing persecution have a right to seek safe haven and we have a moral obligation to grant safe haven if even temporarily.
- Human dignity and human rights of the undocumented should be respected. Again, the lack of legal documents does not abrogate the human dignity and rights of an immigrant. While much is made of their “law breaking,” it would be more accurate to say that rather the “law is breaking” them.
At the present time, because we need immigrant workers, even those without legal papers can find work. This shows that our system is not working properly – for we cynically force immigrant workers to run a dangerous gauntlet through dangerous border crossings and deserts and if they survive they find work waiting for them. This is not rational. This is not just. For these workers are without legal status, without legal defenses – in effect, our present system is creating a new legally sanctioned underclass. The last time we did this in the United States we called it “Jim Crow” – and our nation has yet to fully recover from this unfortunate policy.
Our laws need to be fixed – they need to be fixed to ensure a just and a complete integration of the immigrant into our society. Immigrants can integrate fully into our national life when legal remedies provide for their permanent status, a path to future citizenship, and the protection of their labor rights. Integration and acculturation into the new society only occurs when the migrant enjoys a position of strength that “legal status and a path to citizenship” represent to his benefit and to the benefit of the entire nation. Without such a position of strength we risk, as I said, creating a new underclass of the marginalized – and this class will be made up not only of the so called “illegals” but in many cases it will be also made up of the “U.S. citizen” children.
Hispanic immigrants can, I believe, renew American society for they represent an antidote to the individualism and moral relativism that has migrated from our elites into our popular culture. Immigrants, and Hispanics in particular, who seek economic opportunity in our nation still believe in the “American dream.” They believe that with hard work and opportunity one can become somebody in this country. This is reflected in all economic levels, from the professional to the humble migrant worker. It is reflected particularly in those whose contributions and potential usefulness to American society many question, namely the poor immigrants who take jobs that Americans don’t want. The jobs that Americans would disparage as “dead-end” jobs are, for these immigrants, truly “entry-level” jobs.
Some express concerns that these new 21st century immigrants will not integrate into American society as successfully as earlier 19th century immigrants did. However, these fears seem to be unfounded. Hispanics do want to learn to speak English and they are generally successful in doing so. Their values, dedication to hard work, strong attachment to the nuclear and extended family, and traditional views of morality have been the core values of America since before its founding.
One of the central teachings of Vatican II was that “man can only realize himself through the sincere gift of himself.” In a culture increasingly self-absorbed and self-centered, Hispanic immigrants witness to a profoundly Catholic “theology of the gift.” For in most cases, they have immigrated not just to seek “self-fulfillment” but to be able to help their loved ones. In many cases, their coming here represents considerable self-sacrifice – as they leave loved ones behind – not to abandon them but in order to help them. The millions of dollars sent home in remittances is testimony to this “theology of the gift.”
Hispanic immigrants offer America opportunity almost as much as America offers opportunity to them. Most studies focus on their “mano de obra,” their contribution to the work force. That is not to be disparaged – especially with low birth rates among more established American populations and the looming entry of the baby boomers into retirement. However, their greatest potential contribution – and America’s greatest opportunity – is the contribution of their traditional values to the renewal of our culture.
Earlier I referenced the pastoral letter issued jointly by the U.S. and Mexican Bishops' conferences in 2003 (at the time, I was the chair of the USCCB’s Committee on Migration). The 2006 Kennedy-McCain proposal had incorporated many of our recommendations – and it was truly a disappointment when the bill failed to pass despite the support of President Bush at the time. I think the pastoral letter is still relevant today and I would recommend that you read it. It’s available in English and Spanish – and I believe it can be downloaded from either the USCCB’s or the Mexican bishops’ conferences’ websites. The phrase “Strangers No Longer” comes from St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. We chose that title because possessing Christ, our citizenship in the kingdom of heaven relativizes all other citizenships and allegiances. If globalization has made us all neighbors, as Pope Benedict affirmed, then it is up to us as a Church to witness to a world of fragile peace and broken promises how to live as brothers and sisters.
