Ok. My dad thinks I should blog on immigration. After a week of watching the borderline racism and histrionics that passes for coverage of the issue on Fox News, I'm almost inclined to. Here's the most sensible thing I've seen on the issue, an opinion piece by Archbishop Jose Gomez of San Antonio. Some excerpts:
"If a stranger lives with you in your land, do not mistreat him. You must count him as one of your own countrymen and love him as yourself ... for you were once strangers yourselves." With these words the Lord, through Moses, settled the immigration debate of the Old Testament days.
Jesus weighed into the immigration issue when he said, "I was a stranger, and you welcomed me." A stranger, in Jesus' time, was an alien, a migrant, who often was an object of suspicion, leaving him the most vulnerable in his society.
It has been said recently that our migrants, our undocumented strangers, are "living in the shadows" of society. A parent, afraid that he will be discovered and lose his only means of providing food and shelter. A family suffering the long separation that being an economic refugee requires. The stranger among us is hungry and thirsty, lonely and in the shadows of uncertainty and fear. . . .
It is an inevitable reality that the world is shrinking. The question is whether the United States, and, in general, the more developed nations receiving immigrants, will have a just and compassionate response to the stranger seeking the hope of a new life in a new land. Will we be able to take advantage of the great positive potential this unstoppable migration phenomenon represents?
While we certainly recognize and affirm the right and obligation of our nation to regulate its borders, we also challenge our legislators to construct a just immigration policy that reflects the value and dignity of every human life.
. . .I write to all people of faith and good will to raise their voices and settle for nothing less than an approach to immigration that brings families together, provides migrants with the opportunity to find work with dignity and recognizes the right of people to flee economic oppression to seek a better life and provide for their family.
. . . Our people of San Antonio are witnesses to the reconciliation between the old and the new, between cultures and languages; witnesses to the coexistence of races, cultures and religions. With its successes and failures, the city of San Antonio is without a doubt a model for the nation. A model that shows America that we all benefit from the migrant's strong work ethic, sense of family and faith in God.
