Speakers say U.S. should let workers go back and forth across border

By Beth Griffin
Catholic News Service

MARYKNOLL, N.Y. (CNS) – Speakers at a Maryknoll forum said a just and humane U.S. immigration policy would allow people to cross borders to work for a guaranteed just wage, when work is available, and then return home freely.

Such a policy would give urgent attention to the root causes of involuntary migration, be national in scope and draw a clear distinction between national immigration policy and national security policy, they said, and would provide more legal routes to immigration than currently exist.

But it's not likely to happen any time soon, concluded the three panelists who addressed the topic "Faces of Immigration" at the forum, held March 12 and attended by 140 people.

Marie Dennis, director of the Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns, said there has been a "flurry of legislative proposals" in Congress recently that "are largely very restrictive and focused on enforcement and building a wall."

She said that despite the bleak prospects for the imminent passage of comprehensive national immigration laws "the legislation itself is insignificant; what is important is the conversation around the legislation. It is the debate and dialogue that will shape the legislation."

Dennis said, "The issue of migration, and its expression here as immigration is ... a huge social, political, economic, cultural and environmental challenge that demands simultaneous attention to the local reality and to the root causes. Why would people leave home? What are they looking for? Where are they going?"

She added that it is "important for us to expose and understand the 'drivers'" of migration, which she said include poverty, war, violence, the lack of a sense of a future and environmental degradation.

There are 192 million people throughout the world who fit the United Nations' definition of a migrant, according to Eva Richter, an executive member of the U.N. nongovernmental organizations' committees on migration, the status of women and human rights.

She said the United Nations considers a migrant to be any person who is living in a country that is not their country of origin, for whatever reason.

Richter said migration is being encouraged by the United Nations, because the financial remittances sent home by migrants are "far in excess" of "all other direct aid that some countries get. For some countries, the only external source of money is through migrants."

She said some countries give cash bonuses to people who leave and send money back from another country.

Richter said remittances help both individual families and governments. The latter use them for development projects that are otherwise precluded by huge debt and lack of infrastructure.

Richter added that former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in 2006 that migration and development go together and that migration should be seen not as a problem or an evil, but as something to be encouraged but regulated.

She said that the current secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon, has addressed migration saying, "Migration is not about wealth and poverty. It is about the kind of societies we want to live in. ... As we learn to make migration work for development, we must protect the rights of migrants."

Richter said migrants are referred to as "human capital" and are "tremendously exploited. In many cases, they leave their human rights behind." She said that the United Nations is discussing how to "make migration a paying proposition for everyone" and that nongovernmental organizations are insisting that the human rights of migrants be respected.

Maryknoll Sister Darlene Jacobs, a missioner and educator, said that Christianity, Judaism and Islam "talk about welcoming the stranger and in each mistreating a stranger is a sure way to bring down the wrath of God." She said that "the story of the hospitality of Abraham and Sarah from the book of Genesis is a paradigm for our response to strangers."

She cited passages about kindness to strangers in the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, and concluded, "The Christian message is clear. We are to demonstrate love and compassion for our neighbors. Jesus' teaching is unequivocal on who our neighbor is. We can recognize who our neighbor is; can we be a neighbor to that person?"

Sister Jacobs said, "Immigration is a very emotional issue. Maybe we need to use our minds less and our hearts more."

She cited five principles on migration from Catholic social teaching: people have a right to make a living; they have a right to migrate to support themselves and their families; sovereign nations have a right to control their borders; refugees and asylum seekers should be afforded protection; and the human rights and dignity of undocumented migrants should be respected.

Sister Jacobs said that the Justice for Immigrants campaign of the U.S. bishops urges the faithful to address the conditions that make people immigrate and work to make immigration-policy reform a public priority.

She urged the audience to bring the Justice for Immigrants programs to their parishes and open a dialogue about it with their pastors.

She raised and rebutted six myths used to argue against welcoming immigrants and concluded by saying, "We live in a nation of immigrants. We belong to a church of immigrants. We are migrants on a spiritual journey and we are taught by the good Samaritan that our salvation depends on it."

(Editor's note: More information about the campaign Justice for Immigrants: A Journey of Hope is available on the Web at: www.justiceforimmigrants.org.)