Catholics and the DREAM Act

I am a member of a pro-life group in my parish which has regular discussions (about many different Catholic issues, not just abortion) via an email list. The discussion of the DREAM Act which Congress just rejected again has been fairly moderate and balanced (supporting the act only in conjunction with strict enforcement and opposing it as a stand-alone piece of legislation); because pro-life group members are more conservative than Catholics in general, this should not be taken to mean that Catholics in general are neutral, they mostly support the DREAM act. I wrote this:

This act is being misrepresented by news stories which focus only on
the most sympathetic class of illegal immigrants covered by the
legislation and imply that it is only about them. Actually it is a
fairly broad amnesty which will lead in practice to a much broader one,
both because of family reunification and because of colossal fraud.
Democrats resisted strongly all attempts either to narrow the scope of
immigrants covered, or to institute safeguards against fraud. Their
actions show that the bill is a Trojan Horse.

There is a great deal more to say about the issue of uncontrolled
immigration, and there are agendas involved which Catholics have been
slow to recognize and naive about. The main points I would like to make
are that
(1) Christians in one country do not have a political obligation to
vote or to support policies which allow mass immigration from a poorer
country in order to make the immigrants better off, no matter
what social and economic calculations indicate about comparisons
between how many immigrants would be better off and by how
much, compared with how many of the citizens of the destination country
would be worse off and by how much. At most, Christians have an
obligation to provide humanitarian sanctuary to immigrants fleeing
violence or catastrophe. A policy to allow mass immigration may or may
not be wise, but it is certainly not indicated as a necessary corollary
of Catholic doctrine, and those who pretend that it is should sit down
and shut up.
(2) Furthermore, in a society where citizens have indicated
over and over a concern that mass immigration may be a bad idea, only
to have the laws their elected
Representatives passed be blatantly non-enforced, the
encouragement given by some influential Catholics, both lay and
clerical, to lawbreaking and non-cooperation with validly elected
authorities is sinful.

Someone replied

I agree that the Dream Act is
not as narrow in scope as some have presented it, but to imply that
it would open the floodgates to uncontrolled immigration is
misleading. Most Americans are very concerned about the social and
economic consequences of immigration: according to a CBS/New York
Times Poll 74% of Americans think illegal immigration weakens the
economy and 78% think the US should be doing more to stop it; and a
Gallop survey shows that the majority would like better border
control. These social and economic concerns whether real or
preceived should not be ignored by elected representatives; it is
probably not a prudent time to introduce immigration policy that
favours any kind of amnesty without introducing further controls on
illegal immigration even if there are some who are sympathetic to the
plight of illegal immigrants who came to the US as children; according
to a Gallup Poll 54% of Americans favour granting legal status to
illegal immigrants brought to the US as children: “Americans are more
likely to say they would vote for than against a law that would grant
legal status to illegal immigrants brought to the US as children if
they join the military or attend college.” Church doctrine does not
mandate as a corollary *mass* immigration in order to make immigrants
more econmically prosperous or better off. (I’m not sure who is
arguing that!!!), but those of us who are immigrants and/or have lived
in immigrant communities understand immigrant issues on a personal
level; for they are a part of our own experience. Coming from
countries where one has little if any prospect of economic
prosperity doesn’t justify breaking the law or guarantee a right to
enter the US or a pathway to US citizenship, but I think we can all
understand why a person from such a country breaks the law and why
their children should not suffer the consequences of their parents
wrong-doings. While certainly a debatable question, one must consider
what immigration policies best serve the common good, and when so doing
one should take into account the difference between positive law and
those laws that are based on moral truth. I happen to support a policy
of leniency toward *some* illegals, but I understand the concerns of
others who do not support my view. These are not easy questions.

For those interested in a very thoughtful discussion about immigration
policy, I would like to suggest the Brookings-Duke Immigration Policy
Roundtable, “Breaking the Immigration Stalemate” William Galston, Noah
Pickus and Peter Skerry:
Breaking the Immigration Stalemate.

and I responded

The way in which mass immigration becomes a corollary is if the right
to work and seek a better life for oneself is interpreted, as many have
done, to mean the right to migrate to a country where prospects are
better. Too much of the debate has been framed in terms of “rights”
that are not merely protections against oppression, but claims
involving sacrifices by unrelated parties.

The DREAM Act would not “open floodgates” but it would have a major
impact, and the legislative chicanery surrounding it and the refusal of
its supporters to strengthen protections against fraud or limit its
scope indicate that greater immigration in and of itself is their
objective. (In my opinion, the movers behind the DREAM Act and other
amnesty legislation are motivated more directly by political
calculation about the benefits to them in particular of importing new
voters of a particular political tendency, or by economic calculation
about the benefits to them in particular of having more cheap labor,
than by humanitarian concerns.)

In the case most relevant, immigration of Mexicans and Central and
South Americans to the USA, the Catholic bishops in the USA have an
interesting dilemma. Since the immigrants are mostly Catholics, and the
Catholic church is a universal church, one can take a more global
perspective and say that *as Catholics* we should not mind people
moving from one diocese to another, and further that the cultural
consequences are not serious (as they would be in the comparable
situation in Europe where the influx is mostly Muslim), while the
economic betterment for the immigrants may outweigh the negative
economic impact on US citizens. But the part of culture that the Church
concerns itself with (Catholic culture) is not the problem, there are
major cultural and social effects associated with this immigration that
have nothing to do with Catholicism. Also, American politicians have a
duty to represent the interests of the existing American citizens and
should not be balancing a net harm to American citizens against a net
benefit to non-Americans which is arguably greater; Americans may
decide for themselves to restrict immigration, and (I cannot stress
this enough) the resulting situation is NOT AN INJUSTICE.

The use of the word “justice” is very dangerous in social contexts. It
would undoubtedly be true that if a person with 100 million dollars is
made to give 1 million dollars each to 50 random people, there is a
strong sense in which overall “happiness” is increased, but this kind
of involuntary redistribution is UNJUST. The existence of unequal
circumstances does not in and of itself imply injustice (the use of the
word “injustice” does the very important work of implying that a remedy
must be sought and that the situation should not be tolerated).

As Christians, we have an obligation to be charitable, but we may (and
indeed must) CHOOSE the beneficiaries of our charity, and should reject
claims from any would-be beneficiaries that we ought to sacrifice
something for them in particular, because nobody can give everything
everyone asks them to. In the context of the immigration debate, this
manifests itself as well-meaning Catholics telling other Catholics that
they “ought” to help the would-be immigrants not only in the sense that
it would be a good thing to do so, but in the sense that such help is a
duty it would be sinful not to obey. This must be viewed in the same
sense as other appeals to charity — it is sinful to be uncharitable in
general, but how much one gives and to whom is properly within one’s
discretion and nobody has a CLAIM on charity. If the immigration issue
were properly and honestly framed as an appeal to charity rather than
to justice, we would avoid a lot of improper guilt-tripping; since it
is framed (by Catholic immigration advocates) as an appeal to justice,
there is no natural limit to the resulting recommendations as there
would be in the case of an appeal to charity, because hundreds of
millions of would-be-immigrants are similarly situated with respect to
any claims of justice and one may not deny justice arbitrarily.

Furthermore, as an appeal to charity it would clearly not involve
conflict with or non-enforcement of existing laws, as might be the case
with an appeal to justice if the laws were unjust. In America in recent
decades, voters have absorbed the message that A taxing B to provide
for C is not “charity” on the part of either A or B, and have therefore
not, in general, been misled into supporting socialistic redistribution
on the basis of moral sentiments; in the case of immigration, where the
negative consequences for the citizens already here are not obvious as
they would be in the case of a tax, the manipulation of moral
sentiments (by framing freedom to immigrate as an issue of justice) is
still effective.