I really try to give people the benefit of the doubt. When someone says something completely at odds with reality, I try to figure out why. Do they have bad data? Are they being misled by others?
But now that the US Conference of Catholic Bishops has decided to make lawless immigration its preeminent policy, it’s very hard to do that by accident.
The statement is loaded with hyperbole and deceptive language. Here’s a choice passage:
“We lament that some immigrants in the United States have arbitrarily lost their legal status. We are troubled by threats against the sanctity of houses of worship and the special nature of hospitals and schools,” said the bishops.
Let’s unpack the first sentence first. As numerous court rulings have held, the persons being deported now never actually had legal status; they were simply the beneficiaries of an extra-legal process of deliberate non-enforcement of existing laws. That process was arbitrary, done without a vote by Congress or the consent of the American people. Given a chance to vote, the electorate decisively chose the side of enforcing the law.
I am also curious as to the “threats” allegedly being made against churches. The only ones I’m seeing are where they get shot up by radicalized leftist militants. If there was a single incident of an arrest happening in a church, surely we would know about it. This is pure fear-mongering, and it is also giving false witness, accusing the government of doing things it has not done.
The article I linked to directs readers to a policy paper on immigration that is likewise extremely dishonest. It purports to give a factual background on US immigration history, but it is woefully biased.
To start with, the entire premise begs the question: it assumes a right of migration that supersedes the laws of the host nation.
It is spelled out very plainly:
Under current laws, no “line” for lawful immigration to the United States actually exists for the majority of our immigrants.
So, why didn’t they just “stand in line” to do so? For the large majority of unauthorized immigrants, no such “line” exists. Under the current immigration legal framework, lawful immigration to the United States is restricted to only a few narrow categories of persons
I’m trying to think of any other area where Catholic bishops have formally endorsed simply ignoring the law. While the paper makes the usual arguments about fleeing tyranny, it is honest enough to admit that most people here illegally do so for economic reasons:
Oh, to be sure, they say that it would be better if the law was obeyed, but as a practical matter, they believe in open borders.
The Catholic Church believes that immigrants should come to the United States lawfully, but it also understands that the current immigration legal framework does not adequately reunify families and is non-responsive to our country’s need for labor. Our country must pass immigration reform laws to ensure the rule of law in the United States, while simultaneously ensuring that the laws that rule are responsive to our economy’s demand for labor, rooted in the reunification of family, and respectful of the humanity of the immigrants in our midst. The Church supports immigration reform that would increase the number of visas available for low-skilled workers and facilitate family reunification.
What is interesting is that article cites a figure of 11.1 million illegal aliens from a source that is 15 years out of date. Could nothing more recent be found?
It also makes this remarkable assertion:
Over the past several decades, the demand by U.S. businesses for low-skilled workers has grown exponentially, while the supply of available workers for low-skilled jobs in the United States has diminished.(xxii)
Let’s start with the obvious: business owners always want more laborers because it lowers wages. Illegal labor is even better because they are by definition not protected by minimum wage or worker compensation laws. Also note that the citation for this remarkable claim (once again, 16 years old), is a migration advocacy group.
But on a human level this is literally robbing native-born Peter to pay illegal migrant Paul.
Catholic teaching regarding immigration is very clear: it cannot harm the host country. We know that open borders in fact do harm nations by overloading social services and driving down wages. Any policy that refuses to acknowledge these real, proven effects cannot by taken seriously.
What makes this whole situation so sad is that the bishops know better. They know that their diocesan charities are being strained to the breaking point by native-born people in need, and there simply is not enough resources to add even more unskilled people who do not even speak the language to the rolls.
The proper course of action for the Church would have been to advocate changes to the law, but not facilitate human trafficking, which is exactly what has happened. How many people are being killed in traffic accidents by unlicensed illegal drivers? Are their deaths acceptable losses?
It is demoralizing to see the passion of the bishops regarding this matter and contrast it with the lack of civil disobedience regarding abortion.
A cynic might observe that until recently, there was a lot of government money flowing into Catholic charities to facilitate migration. Thus we have the spectacles of bishops marching in solidarity with criminal trespassers and also wanting to give pro-abortion legislators awards for their “humanitarian” work in promoting immigration.
There is zero evidence that there is a labor shortage in this country, and ample evidence that Americans are being displaced by foreigners because the latter are willing to accept cheaper pay. This in turn leads to family breakdown, rising poverty and societal decay. The fruit of this tree has been proven not just rotten but toxic, and it is demoralizing to see so many shepherds advocating the wholesale replacement of their flocks.
Chateau Lloyd 
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