“Arizona is ground zero for our nation’s broken immigration policies,” [Methodist Bishop Minerva] Carcaño said. “At our borders and in our congregations, schools, workplaces and service programs, we witness the human consequences of our inadequate, outdated system.”
Bishop Gerald Kicanas, who heads the Roman Catholic Diocese of Tucson, outlined eight principles for immigration reform, among them supporting programs that reduce poverty in developing nations so people won’t have to leave, creating a process for undocumented immigrants in this country to earn legal status and citizenship, and reducing the detention of immigrants for non-violent crimes.
A recent Zogby poll suggested that religious leaders are often at odds with their members over the issue of immigration reform. Commissioned by the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank in Washington, D.C., that favors less immigration, the poll said 64 percent of Catholics and Protestants favor cracking down on illegal immigrants, compared with 23 percent of Catholics and 24 percent of Protestants who support a legalization program for undocumented immigrants.
>>creating a process for undocumented immigrants in this country to earn legal status and citizenship
We already have that. If you are here illegally, having broken numerous laws to get here and stay here, you go back to your home country, get in line like everybody else, and apply for legal entry. Not hard to understand, and more than fair considering the others did NOT break our laws.
APB
(Proud son of a naturalized parent!)
[blockquote][i]Miriam Mendiola, 34, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico, described to the crowd how she was shackled before and after giving birth in December. The woman said she was arrested and jailed in October after she was caught using a stolen Social Security number to work at a clothing store. Mendiola was released from jail on Dec. 25 and is now facing deportation proceedings. The Rev. Jan Olav Flaaten, executive director of the Arizona Ecumenical Council, said to the gathering, “I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to live in a country where we treat people that way.”[/i][/blockquote]
Um, [i]HELLO![/i] Jay, she was CAUGHT using a STOLEN Social Security Card AND was in the country illegally. As soon as she was arrested, she should have been deported. Why is she only FACING deportation charges? The real question is “Why is she still here?”.
Jim Elliott
Florida
Correction:
“Jan”, not “Jay”.
🙄
Wow — you’re not going to believe this, “religious leaders,” but some people are actually jailed for stealing and committing other crimes.
Incredible, I know, that we live in such a dreadful country that jails our citizens but merely deports the criminal non-citizens.