Sunday, March 26, 2006

Outrageous!

I haven't been following the immigration legislation as closely as I ought, but the general vibe I've been getting is that it is bad, or inadequate at best. This little bit of info made me realize it's even worse than I thought:

The U.S. House of Representatives has passed legislation that would make it a felony to be in the U.S. illegally, impose new penalties on employers who hire illegal immigrants, require churches to check the legal status of people they help, and erect fences along one-third of the U.S.-Mexican border.

Are you kidding me?! Requiring churches to check the legal status of the people they help? Someone refresh my memory, because I didn't think law enforcement was really something the church helped the government with here in the U.S. And maybe my version of the bible is outdated or something, but I thought it said to help the oppressed, not help the people with green cards.

7 Comments:

Blogger Alicia said...

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

12:32 AM  
Blogger Alicia said...

Ridiculous! Ludicrous! **enter other synonymous terms here** Who does the US government think it is?? So not cool!

We should write letters or something...

(PS: Sorry, I messed up my first post and started over. I figured you may want to know so you wouldn't be overcome with curiosity... )

12:35 AM  
Blogger Joni said...

Just for the moment, I love Sen. Dick Durbin. Check out his sweet amendment:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12034586/

3:28 PM  
Blogger Victoria said...

Wow, I *heart* Dick Durbin. He rocks. I wonder what Indiana's representatives are doing about this. How do I find that out anyway? Maybe I'll have to shoot off an email or two tonight.

I want to know what they seriously think declaring being an illegal immigrant a felony will do. With the number of such individuals already in the US, I can't see that ever being prosecuted. And let's be honest, illegal immigrants do alot of work that US citizens aren't willing to do. The way I understand it a substantial portion of the agricultural economy rests of their labor. A program to assimilate these individuals into US society might be better placed at this point. I understand the concern about terrorism and national security, but the vast majority of illegal immigrants are just looking for work not for blowing things up.

I'd also like to point out the irony in one of the protests against this legislation (not that I disagree with their protesting). Students walked out of classes and waved Mexican flags. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5307590 I'm not sure I like the statement that makes.

9:58 PM  
Blogger Victoria said...

Ok, so I'm going to comment right after myself.

On NPR this morning they were talking about the summit that Bush, Mexican President Fox, and Canadian Prime Minister Harper were involved in over the last three days. Apparently, one the hot topics was immigration. Fine, we should talk about this with Mexico. But why aren't we talking about improving the Mexican economy so that Mexicans don't have to cross the border to find work? It seems like this would be in the self interest of the US, and especially of Mexico. Crazy politicians anyway.

9:39 AM  
Blogger Jay Michaud said...

I'd like to see the reference to the article quoted in the original post.

Requiring churches to check the legal status of people they help would not make much extra work for churches; they would merely have to ask to see a birth certificate, driver's license, state ID, or immigration papers. The morality and the politics of the issue are entirely different matters. I think it would set a dangerous precedent in that it would permit the government to interfere with some of the core work of religious groups. I would hope that the courts would not uphold such a law (because it would, of course, be challenged).

Now that I've said that, I'd like to submit a line of reasoning for review, and hopefully some thoughtful discussion. (This line of reasoning is from a Christian, not secular, perspective, since the original post was about how this would affect churches).

1. Entering the United States without following the prescribed (legal) immigration procedure is illegal.

2. Illegal acts are sinful unless to acting legally would require disobedience to the Bible or immorality. (Perhaps immorality fits under the heading of disobedience to the Bible, but I like to be thorough.)

3. Thus, immigrating illegally is a sin.

4. Questions: Why would the church willingly help cover up sinful behavior? Are there ever situations in which the church should do so?

If we get past the emotive "NO" reaction to requiring churches to report illegal immigrants, are there reasons why churches should or should not do so, and does the answer to that question change if the reporting is a legal requirement? Further, if a church volunteer is reasonably certain that someone helped by the church is an illegal alien (alien, in this instance, being the government's term for a person living in the United States who is not a citizen), does that volunteer have a moral responsibility to report the crime to the proper authorities? (More broadly, does a Christian have a moral responsibility to report all crime to the authorities; e.g., your spouse shoplifted, your neighbor burned trash on a non-burning day, etc. Obviously, there is definitely some discernment for completely trivial lawbreaking that law enforcement officers do not want to know about: "Officer, I just wanted to let you know that my aunt always drives at 57 mph in a 55 mph zone.")

10:59 PM  
Blogger Joni said...

Jay,

I apologize. It was sloppy of me to not include the website in the original post. I think this is probably the site I first saw the story on, but it's an AP story and was published by many news outlets:
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/03/26/D8GJAGB80.html

And as for checking the legal status of people they help not being much work, it seems that there we disagree. You say that "they would merely have to ask to see a birth certificate, driver's license, state ID, or immigration papers." Not quite. If a law gets passed requiring that churches and other charitable organizations check status, you can bet there will be a load of paperwork to fill out to prove that they're doing it. In addition, what about the validity of the documents? Do they have to check that, too? Because a lot of illegal immigrants have some kind of paperwork so they can get jobs--it just happens to be forged.

And beyond the amount of work question, who carries their birth certificate around with them? Why should you have to have a driver's license or some other bit of paperwork to get a decent meal from a charity? Can you imagine if, for example, Mel Trotter Ministries in GR had to demand documents of all the homeless people, drug addicts, and alcoholics that they help? These people just don't have documents, whether they are legal or not. At least, not that they carry with them. So the documents would have to be requested from various state and federal agencies. (Again, this sounds like work.) And you're right, Jay, this would be a dangerous infringment by the government on churches.

On churches or church workers reporting illegal immigrants: I don't think that this is morally required, for a very specific reason. Normally I would say that yes, we should report crimes. And I'm not saying that individuals should not report other individuals who are here illegally (although this too would be a difficult situation, especially if you feel that the penalties for crossing the border illegally are grossly disproportionate to the offense, which would probably justify you in not reporting based on the injustice of the law itself). Also, I don't think that churches should be actively involved in smuggling people here illegally. (Maybe that went without saying, but I wanted to cover my bases.)

The reason I don't think that churches (or other charitable organizations) are morally obligated to report illegal immigrants is twofold: because of the particular function that these groups serve and because of the effect that reporting would have on that function. Churches, etc. serve the spiritual, physical, and emotional needs of people. Let's take the physical: they feed the hungry. If you're an illegal immigrant and you have no food, you can get it from a church or other charitable organization. This is especially important because these folks can't exactly just sign up for welfare. It's charity or going hungry. If churches, etc. reported illegal immigrants, they'd stop coming for food. And they would be hungry. Or maybe even resort to crime. For churches and organizations to carry out their work--to help the people who need it the most--they need to be able to function without reporting illegal immigrants. I think this doesn't go for all illegal activity, but I think reporting other sorts of crimes would be less likely to deter an entire class of people from seeking assistance. I'm sure not everyone finds this line of reasoning convincing, but I do. Sinlessness should NEVER be a prerequisite to receiving assistance from the Church, and in this particular situation, I think that a culture of churches reporting illegal immigrants would be tantamount to requiring documentation (proof of sinlessness with regard to status) before offering help. And I think that that would be unacceptable.

12:54 AM  

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