"When aliens reside with you in your land, do not oppress them. You shall treat the aliens who reside with you no differently than the natives born among you; have the same love for them as for yourself; for you too were once aliens in the land of Egypt. I, the Lord, am your God."                                                                                       Leviticus 19: 33-34
 

Experience
In August 2001, LCWR and CMSM passed a Joint Assembly Resolution on Immigration. The resolution called on the U.S. Congress, the President, and the Immigration and Naturalization Service to commit themselves to a humane immigration policy that respects the dignity of each person.

In the wake of the government's response to the events of September 11, the need for a humane immigration policy that respects the dignity of each person has become even more acute. Prior to September 11, there was a sense of hope among immigration advocates and in the immigrant community as President George Bush and President Vicente Fox of Mexico met to discuss immigration reform.

Hope has now dimmed in the immigrant community; it has been replaced by fear. Approximately 1,200 South Asian and Arab men were rounded up in sweeps after the terrorist attacks and held in secret detention. Not one of those men has been charged with terrorist activity. Local police have become more active in enforcing immigration laws, leading to reluctance in the immigrant community to report crimes. Employers have reported undocumented workers to the INS or fired them. Workers at social service agencies have reported undocumented clients who sought their services.

I regularly meet in my office with immigrants who have lived here 5, 10, 15, or 20 years or more. They have worked hard, paid taxes, bought homes, and raised their United States Citizen children to be good citizens. Yet they live in fear: fear that the INS will show up at their place of work or their home and arrest them, fear that they will lose their job if they complain about conditions or ask for a raise, fear that their teenage children, who arrived in this country as infants, will succumb to despair as they discover that they can not go to college despite their good grades, and that their undocumented status condemns them to a life of minimum wage jobs, and the constant danger of deportation to a country they have never known. These immigrants react in different ways when I tell them that despite all they have accomplished, they are not eligible for a work permit or permanent residence, and they could be deported at any time. Some shrug their shoulders stoically, while a light of hope goes out of their eyes, some react with anger, some cry, and some simply will not believe me.   

Social Analysis
According to the National Immigration Forum, immigrants annually contribute some $10 billion more to the U.S. economy than what they cost in social services. The National Academy of Sciences found that the average immigrant annually contributes $1,800 more in taxes than he or she receives in benefits. Over their lifetimes, immigrants and their children will each pay an average $80,000 more in taxes than they will receive in local, state and federal benefits combined. 

Immigrant labor is needed. Hundreds of thousands of employers rely on immigrants to perform work that most natives will not do. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that by 2008 there will be 6 million more jobs than people to fill them as the "baby boom" generation begins to retire.

The clear benefits that immigrants bring to the United States are not rewarded kindly. Since 1995, the total annual budget for border control has tripled, to $2.5 billion. In that time, roughly 1,600 immigrants have died trying to cross the border. Immigrants are regularly exploited by unscrupulous employers who pay sub-minimum wage, provide poor working conditions, withhold wages, and threaten to report workers to the INS if they complain. Families are torn apart as immigrants are arrested, jailed, and deported for minor criminal convictions that were not even deportable offenses at the time they were committed. 

Refugees fleeing persecution and seeking political asylum are held in local and county jails for months or years as they try to prove their asylum case. Unaccompanied immigrant children, frequently fleeing abusive situations in their home country, are regularly placed in juvenile detention centers beside youth who have committed violent crimes. The number of detained immigrant children rose to 4,900 in 2001. Eighty percent of these children appear in immigration court without a lawyer or guardian, while the INS is represented in the proceedings by a trained immigration attorney.

Reflection
 Too often we look with suspicion on the outsider, the foreigner, those who are different from us. Yet we know that in God's family there is no outsider, no foreigner, no alien. Scripture reminds us that we are neither Greek nor Jew, slave nor free, but that all are one. 
 
In a homily he gave in New Jersey in October 1995, Pope John Paul II asked, "Is present-day America becoming less sensitive, less caring towards the poor, the weak, the stranger, the needy? It must not!  Today, as before, the United States is called to be a hospitable society, a welcoming culture. If America were to turn in on itself, would this not be the beginning of the end of what constitutes the very essence of the "American experience?"

If we are truly to become a nation "under God" we must revise our immigration laws and practices to reflect the belief that we are all one under God, and to uphold the dignity of all of God's children, those born among us and those who are newcomers to our shores.

Action
1. Participate in the SEIU "Million Voices for Legalization" campaign. This campaign is seeking to gather a million postcards to send to the White House and Congress before the November elections. You can sign on the web site at www.unionvoice.org/campaign/rewardwork. 

2. Call your senators and representative and urge them to support immigration reform legislation that:
       a. legalizes the maximum number of persons in undocumented status;
       b. restores immigrants' procedural due process rights that were undermined by the 1996  
           immigration law;
       c. restores section 245(i) of the immigration code to allow families to remain together in the 
           United States while applying for residency;
       d. provides Salvadoran, Guatemalan, Honduran, and Haitian refugees the same benefits that 
          were given to Central Americans from other countries recovering from civil conflict.

3. Invite immigrant families to speak at your gatherings about their experiences in the United States.

The Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) has approximately 1,000 members who are the elected leaders of their religious orders, representing 76,000 Catholic sisters in the United States. The Conference develops leadership, promotes collaboration within church and society, and serves as a voice for systemic change.