Florida Catholic | Bishop Wenski’s Column

Comprehensive reform is the best way of stemming illegal immigration

Published: 04.04.08

Congress should well heed the ancient advice given to physicians: Primum non nocere: First, do no harm.”

While many are distracted by this year’s seemingly unending primary season, anti-immigrant forces in Congress are trying to pass an “enforcement only” bill, HR 4088, also known as the SAVE Act. Everybody on all sides of the ongoing immigration debate agrees that the status quo is unacceptable — our nation should not tolerate the emergence of a new underclass in our society composed of undocumented workers.

However, the SAVE Act, proposed by congressmen Heath Shuler (D-N.C.) and Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.), would only make an unacceptable status quo even worse. Our immigration system is broken because of antiquated and inadequate immigration laws. Heightened enforcement alone will not heal a broken system. It will aggravate the unacceptable status quo even more by driving immigrant workers and their families further into the shadows. Already immigrant communities across the United States live in fear and anxiety. And the increasing use of local police to enforce immigration laws has strained relations between law enforcement and immigrants, including many who are U.S. citizens. Anti-immigrant rhetoric has strained relations across ethnic and class lines throughout America.

Since 1994, when a buildup of border enforcement personnel along the United States’ southwest border began, more than $30 billion has been spent for border security. In spite of these “enforcement” measures, the number of “illegals” has grown from about 5 million (in 1994) to an estimated 12 million today. Building more detention centers and higher fences is an expensive — and inefficient — use of taxpayers’ money. And, the employment verification system proposed by Shuler-Tancredo would be futile without provisions for legalizing the current undocumented work force. An “earned” legalization is not about “amnesty” or rewarding lawbreakers; it is about bringing some rationality to our labor markets, a rationality needed for the well-being of employers as well as employees. Forcing workers underground by implementing an untried employment verification system with little built-in protections against abuse is not rational and could result in harmful unintended consequences to the nation’s economic growth and social well-being.

The Shuler-Tancredo bill provides no remedies to provide legal workers to employers; it offers no relief to families whose U.S. citizen members wish to regularize relatives without legal status; it does no favors to Border Patrol who have already testified in Congress that a legal worker program would allow them to focus on criminals crossing the border.

Comprehensive reform — derailed by those who today are promoting HR 4088 — would offer the best way of stemming illegal migration. Comprehensive reform with a path to legalization for those already working in the U.S. and with provisions for addressing future labor needs would alleviate the flow of undocumented workers into the country and would allow better management of the border. Comprehensive reform would make enforcement more doable — for Border Control agents could focus their resources on apprehending and detaining real criminals instead of chasing economic migrants seeking better opportunities in the U.S. Stepped-up enforcement could work — with a comprehensive reform. It won’t work without it. Congress should well heed the ancient advice given to physicians: Primum non nocere: First, do no harm.

Remember to attend the Festival of Faith — May 8-10, Orange County Convention Center, South Concourse, International Drive, off I-4, Orlando — celebrating the Diocese of Orlando’s 40th anniversary and the “Year of Evangelization.” For more information, visit the Web site: www.festivaloffaith.org.

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Comprehensive reform is the best way of stemming illegal immigration

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