Join Cardinal Mahony: NO on HR 4437

[XOMichelle]

This bill makes a lot of charitable activities illegal (including what I do at volunteer clinics in LA), increases racial profiling, and increases racial tensions. By making even small charitable acts illegal almost everyone will have broken the law. Since persecuting everyone is not possible, this law opens the door for a local law enforcement to go after the people they want: who will undoubtedly be poor and non-white.

Not only that: but if we kick out all the migrant farm workers the price of fruit will soar. I like cheap strawberries guys (j/k). This is not a good solution-- as much as people don't like to admit it people immigrate to this country because they can get jobs. Employers give illegal immigrants jobs all the time. Your office building is probably cleaned by them, your lawns are mowed by them, and they are your nannies. Temporary visas won't fix the problem either... what happens when they expire and the immigrants say in the country? We have a lot of illegal immigrants: same place where we are now.

This is a bill that is based in intolerance and does not reflect the true workings of the American economy.

ps- don't tell me stuff about flooding social services or terrorism... we don’t have social services to any extent in this country, and this bill is about illegal immigrans who live in the US. It's about Mexican immigrants who want to stay here to raise families and have a better life like our immigrant ancestors did. Besides, the amount you save on produce (because illegal immigrants pick it for you dirt cheap) is probably more than any services illegal immigrants use.


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From the NY times:

Editorial
The Gospel vs. H.R. 4437



Published: March 3, 2006
It has been a long time since this country heard a call to organized lawbreaking on this big a scale. Cardinal Roger Mahony of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles, the nation's largest, urged parishioners on Ash Wednesday to devote the 40 days of Lent to fasting, prayer and reflection on the need for humane reform of immigration laws. If current efforts in Congress make it a felony to shield or offer support to illegal immigrants, Cardinal Mahony said, he will instruct his priests — and faithful lay Catholics — to defy the law.

The cardinal's focus of concern is H.R. 4437, a bill sponsored by James Sensenbrenner Jr. of Wisconsin and Peter King of New York. This grab bag legislation, which was recently passed by the House, would expand the definition of "alien smuggling" in a way that could theoretically include working in a soup kitchen, driving a friend to a bus stop or caring for a neighbor's baby. Similar language appears in legislation being considered by the Senate this week.

The enormous influx of illegal immigrants and the lack of a coherent federal policy to handle it have prompted a jumble of responses by state and local governments, stirred the passions of the nativist fringe, and reinforced anxieties since 9/11. Cardinal Mahony's defiance adds a moral dimension to what has largely been a debate about politics and economics. "As his disciples, we are called to attend to the last, littlest, lowest and least in society and in the church," he said.

The cardinal is right to argue that the government has no place criminalizing the charitable impulses of private institutions like his, whose mission is to help people with no questions asked. The Los Angeles Archdiocese, like other religious organizations across the country, runs a vast network of social service programs offering food and emergency shelter, child care, aid to immigrants and refugees, counseling services, and computer and job training. Through Catholic Charities and local parishes, the church is frequently the help of last resort for illegal immigrants in need. It should not be made an arm of the immigration police as well.

Cardinal Mahony's declaration of solidarity with illegal immigrants, for whom Lent is every day, is a startling call to civil disobedience, as courageous as it is timely. We hope it forestalls the day when works of mercy become a federal crime.