Last week the U.S. Catholic bishops urged President Obama to act
faster on his promises of federal immigration reform.
In the meantime,
they want Catholics to understand how the current patchwork of local
laws is affecting 12 million people living and working in the country.
“Our position is that the system's broken,” said Kevin Appleby,
Director of Migration and Refugee Policy at the U.S. bishops'
conference. “The law needs to be changed.”
“We think that a lot of these people need to be brought out of the
shadows. They've been
working and contributing to society, despite the
fact that they're out of legal status.”
The bishops, Appleby said, understand the importance of the rule of
law – but they also see a
fundamental injustice in the current state of
affairs.
Almost all Americans, he explained, benefit from illegal immigrants'
labor. But some citizens push for these same immigrants to be deported,
and many others simply ignore the problem.
“We use their work, but we don't give them any protection of the
law,” said Appleby.
“If they're going to be working and contributing to
the country, we have to give them that protection – we can't have it
both ways.”
In recent years, the federal government has shifted much of its
traditional responsibility for enforcing immigration law onto the
states. Consequently, many states have begun to pass or consider
measures targeting illegal immigrants, similar to those now being
challenged in Arizona and Utah.
The states have also relied upon two local enforcement programs
Appleby says are fraught with problems despite their good intentions –
the Congressionally-authorized 287(g) program, and the Department of
Homeland Security's Secure Communities initiative.
The first program authorizes local police to enforce federal
immigration laws, while the second aims to prioritize the deportation of
felons.
“We certainly agree with the goal of getting seriously criminal
aliens out of the country, and the 'Secure Communities' program has that
stated goal,” said Appleby.
The problem, he explained, is that “a lot of the people getting
caught up in it haven't committed any offenses at all, other than being
out of status.”
“Although the purported reason for this program is to deport criminal
aliens, at least a third of the deportees have never committed a crime
whatsoever,” he pointed out. If Secure Communities “worked properly,” he
said the bishops “would have no problem with it. It's just not working
properly.”
Secure Communities' failure to focus on the “worst of the worst”
offenders is not the only problem. It's also made immigrant communities
reluctant to cooperate with police at all, making many communities
significantly less safe.
And, Appleby noted, it's diverted local police departments' attention
away from their ordinary responsibilities, by saddling them with the
task of enforcing federal immigration law.
“On the surface,” he said, the Secure Communities program “looks very
reasonable. But when it's applied in local communities, there are some
ill effects that really need to be scrutinized.”
But these programs, and state laws with similar or greater unintended
effects, will most likely continue in the absence of comprehensive,
nationwide immigration reform.
Appleby thinks the discussion about immigration reform should be
refocused – from a gridlocked debate pitting humanitarian concerns
against the rule of law, to a discussion about what is truly in the best
interest of the United States.
“Those who are against immigration would make the argument that it's
in their best interest that all these people go away,” Appleby
acknowledged.
But he explained that the bishops consider this position shortsighted and impractical, as well as unfair.
“Immigrants, by and large, benefit our country. We need these
immigrants, because they do a lot of things for our country that we
need. But our laws aren't fit to make them legal.”
“Immigration reform may, in fact, be helpful over the long run for
our economic future,” Appleby noted. He pointed out that it could help
the U.S. government's own financial situation, by bringing underground
sectors of the economy into the open where they can be taxed.
“Solving this problem is important to the common good of everyone,” he said.
Politicians, however, have plenty of incentive to accept the status quo.
“From Washington's perspective, it's working to have a hidden
underclass doing these jobs,” Appleby observed.
“It keeps the economy
going, but we don't have to offer them the protection of the law. That's
wrong.”