The following was shared with me by a parishioner:
I have been attending mass service at Immaculate Conception for over 9 months, ever since I moved here from ... I am concerned about what I read in today's newsletter with regards to the use of the Love Fund. I am opposed to using the Love Funds to assist those who are here, in America, illegally. I do not have any issues in using the funds were the fund to be used to help those parishioners here illegally to become legal.
I understand there are children involved, however the persons who are being deported have been living here tax free, living off of our services that could be used for our own citizens. If an American were to go to any other country and try to live illegally, they would be deported and not have the luxury of that country's services.
There are plenty of citizens here in the parish, elderly, veterans,unemployed,sick and handicapped, for who the Love Funds would better serve.
My response:
Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts and concerns about the Love Fund. Let me offer you my own thinking on the situation.
1. Clearly the presence of 12 million undocumented people is a concern. It's a concern from a legal point of view: persons living in the US should be documented to assure that the US has control over it's borders. But the fact is, we don't. And I believe we never will until something is done about what is "pushing" our southern neighbors north. This is an issue that the US and particularly Mexico need to deal with, individually and bi-laterally. As long as American businesses find it profitable to outsource jobs for the sake of paying sub-standard wages and avoiding the benefits people need for family security, those suffering in poverty will make all kinds of attempts to remedy their situation.
2. Regardless of their status, every human being has a right to food, shelter, health care, and the pursuit of happiness. These are human and not civil rights. As Catholics we are bound to respect these rights.
3. The presence of children makes this challenge more acute. As human beings, they are among the "poor" who have a unique claim on our assistance. In addition, many are US citizens. Two-thirds of all children with undocumented parents (about 3 million) are U.S.-born citizens who live in mixed-status families. Roughly 1.5 percent of elementary schoolchildren (enrolled in kindergarten through 5th grade) and 3 percent of secondary children (grades 6-12) were undocumented. Slightly higher shares—5 percent in elementary and 4 percent in secondary schools—had undocumented parents.
4. With respect to the burden undocumented place on the tax base, the 1996 welfare reform bill disqualifies undocumented persons from nearly all means-tested government programs: food stamps, housing assistance, as well as Medicaid and Medicare. Studies of the situation indicate that the undocumented pay the same real estate taxes—whether they own homes or taxes are passed through to rents—and the same sales and other consumption taxes as everyone else. The majority of state and local costs of schooling and other services are funded by these taxes. Additionally, the U.S. Social Security Administration has estimated that three quarters of undocumented immigrants pay payroll taxes, and that they contribute $6-7 billion in Social Security funds that they will be unable to claim. I don't have relevant data, but would like to know how helpful this is in light of the losses to the tax base caused by the tax evasion practiced by businesses and individuals using off-shore accounts.
5. These facts don't erase the need to meet the challenge of porous borders, obscene poverty and violence in other countries (for which the US is not totally to blame, but is complicit), or the attraction of jobs in the US that US citizens will not do.
Until some serious work is done to address these issues, we will be asked to help people who are in need of what's basic for them to live with the dignity each human being deserves.
Our parish needs to continue doing its part to be a collaborator in meeting the challenges and in alleviating human need. While we will work for immigration reform, we will attempt to meet those challenges.
Again, my thanks for your email.
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I've been reading the biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer by Eric Metaxas. Fr Dan's response reminds me of Bonhoeffer's statement soon after the Nazi's took power that any church that does not support and worship with Christian's of Jewish decent is not the church of Jesus Christ.
ReplyDeleteThanks for reminding us we are all called to support our brothers and sisters, regardless of the status given to them by our society.
The defense of using the Love Fund to feed hungry immigrants regardless of status may be as simple as Jesus's Sermon on the Mount. But if it is not there, then it certainly isn't solved by the itemized list shown above, every item of which contains a falsehood.
ReplyDeleteBernice Taylor
What happened to the supposed new civility? This past Sunday's bulletin said that those who favor the Dream Act are "mean-spirited." It also directly implied that our immigration laws are "racist". Show me a country with open immigration and I'll show you a place that's not really a country. And if what you hopefully "Imagine" is John Lennon's "no countries," maybe you also prefer "and no religion too," "no hell below us," and "above us only sky." God spare us this tripe. It fundamentally cuts against the grain of Catholicism and Christianity.
ReplyDeleteThis said, you still do not have license to treat your neighbor from Mexico with any less kindness than you would treat Christ Himself.
Even if the question of using the Love Fund for undocumented persons boils down to Christ's Sermon on the Mount (I believe it does), the problem is not solved. The Jesuits, I believe, had a saying: "Age quod agis." "Do what you are doing." The first obligation of American government is to protect its own people, and to see to it that the basic necessities of life and the basic freedoms of being an American are preserved. "Do what you are doing." Don't focus on the quixotic mission of saving the world's poor until you've accomplished the mission immediately at hand: alleviating the poverty of the American poor.
ReplyDeleteBrett Frankel
As I said earlier, each of the above points enumerated by Fr. Dan contains a false element. Perhaps the most obvious one, and one on which his position heavily depends, is that "Every human being has a right to food, shelter, health care, and the pursuit of happiness." This is true. But think about it. Every human being has a right to pursue happiness HERE, in THIS country? This is absurd. To put this forward as a reason for being even more lax than we already have been in enforcing immigration laws shows a lack of serious thought.
ReplyDeleteI'll have some things to say about Fr. Dan's other numbered points in the near future.
Bernice Taylor
There's also this from Pope Benedict:
ReplyDelete"States have the right to regulate migration flows and to defend their own frontiers, always guaranteeing the respect due to the dignity of each and every human person. Immigrants, moreover, have the duty to integrate into the host Country, respecting its laws and its national identity. “
The U.S. therefore has a right exclude immigrants, (provided the exclusion is reasonable) and people of other nations have a correlative duty to respect the U.S.'s decision by not entering illegally. The massive display of disrespect for U.S. law does not endear illegal aliens to the majority of Americans.