Jesuit Journeys
Spring/Summer 2006

Immigration Reform:
Citizens under God

Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan

Promoting a “culture of life” means striving to protect all humans – especially where most threatened. These days that certainly includes our immigrants and refugees. I recently met a Hispanic woman in the middle of a problem pregnancy. With the life of her unborn baby in jeopardy, she was scared to go to the clinic for fear her illegal status would be discovered and she’d be deported. Yes, immigration can be a pro-life issue.

I am probably preoccupied with the vulnerability of our immigrants and refugees because I meet them throughout our archdiocese: men, women, and children so grateful to be in America, so searching to find a home here, so eager to work, settle down, and become part of a nation that has traditionally welcomed and embraced the immigrant.

Many are Hispanic and even my primitive grasp of Spanish picks up their anguish as they tell me of their wives and babies still in Mexico, or their trepidation of being sent back, or their gratitude to Catholic Charities for helping them get their “green card,” or their love for the priests, sisters, lay pastoral workers, or brother and sister parishioners who have welcomed them and assisted them.

Deep down, I worry about them too because my own great-great grandparents were “boat people” –refugees from hunger and poverty in Ireland, who came here in hope and also faced prejudice, bigotry, and harassment. Yet their hope in the promise of America never dimmed. Yes, times are difficult and create dilemmas related to national security. However, exclusion, nastiness, intolerance, and harshness have no place among Catholic Christians, especially in a country where every citizen – unless a Native American – is an immigrant or descendent of one.

Legislation that would make all undocumented immigrants criminals; would remove due process protection for refugees, including children; would mandate the detention of families along our borders; and would submit humanitarian workers – including church workers — to five years in prison simply for helping an undocumented immigrant is simply inhuman, un-American, and immoral.

As the Bible reminds us, “… for you, too, were once an alien in the land of Egypt.”

Archbishop Harry J. Flynn

At a recent gathering, a beautiful family came up to me and introduced themselves – all were undocumented immigrants. The father is employed gainfully, and the three children are in school and doing extremely well. Yet the parents are so fearful that their children will not be able to continue their education in the United States, in spite of the fact that all three, and their mother and father as well, are outstanding human beings and outstanding citizens. All have made, and will continue to make, great contributions to our culture, our society, and our country.

It seems to me that every case related to undocumented immigrants and workers needs to be looked at individually. It seems to me that we must put a heart into our immigration laws. Families come to the United States, as did our forefathers and foremothers, in order to make a better way of life for their loved ones. What is wrong with that? It seems basic to every human being.

It is my hope and prayer that legislation will take on more heart and reach out to our brothers and sisters in the Lord Jesus Christ. In recent years immigrants have been subject to laws and policies that do not give them the reverence they deserve as our brothers and sisters. These laws include detention for months without charges, secret hearings, and ethnic profiling.

Let us be welcoming and Christ-like as we look at comprehensive immigration reform. Let us put a heart into it all again.

Pace Martorell

“Mr. Paco, mi mamá regresa de México esta tarde.” Full of excitement and anticipation, Maria (not her real name) tapped my shoulder telling me her mother would return from Mexico that afternoon. She exuded joy while cautiously checking to make sure no one could hear that her mother had left.

Every Thursday I meet with a group of kids in Milwaukee to help them in their transition to high school. They are children of first- or second-generation Mexican immigrants. They talk about their fears and hopes, about coping with living in two cultures, about being smart in communicating with their parents who cling to las tradiciones de familia while they are immersed in cool American ways. Like Maria, most of these kids also have to deal with draining and dreadful immigration issues. Forced long separations because of work opportunities took a toll on Maria’s parents. They finally ended in permanent separation. Her mom then became everything: mother (of two boys, 11 and 18, and Maria, 15), breadwinner, and advocate. I met Maria’s mom when I accompanied her to a school counselor’s office to help straighten out her eldest son’s high school credits. She spoke broken English that was effective more because of the passion with which she expressed herself than for her mastery of the language.

She had a decent job and a boss who trusted and promoted her to cleaning crew supervisor. She was making it economically when she returned home to Mexico to see her dying grandmother and sell a small parcel of land. Leaving the U.S. required great risk because her legalization process forbade her to leave the country. But she was obligated to go, and she went.

Maria looked pale, tired, and sad when I saw her the next day. “They caught her,” she said. I felt a pain in my stomach, absorbing Maria’s profound disappointment and uncertainty. “They sent her back from the airport…” The eldest son and I contacted immigration advocacy agencies, but nothing could be done. A wall of impossibilities now stood between children and mother.

A friend of the family took the kids in, but the situation grew critical when their money ran out. The eldest son left school to look for work. Maria was tempted to do the same and say good-bye to her 3.7 grade point average, but her brother found a job, allowing her to finish the school year.

Some time later I saw Maria’s mom. “Is that you?” I rhetorically asked with great joy! She had made three attempts to cross the border, paying “the coyotes” $3,000 each time and exhausting her finances. In the last attempt she sprained her ankle falling from the border wall and had to walk 16 hours through burning trails in excruciating pain.

“I buried mi viejita (old grandma), and I am back with my kids,” she said. “I just need to find a new job.” There was no doubt in my mind that she would. But her legalization process was irrevocably damaged and clouds of fear will always hover over this mother and her children.

Bishop David A. Zubik

Our service to refugees, Hispanics, and other newcomers here in the Diocese of Green Bay stems from the commitment made by the U.S. Conference of Bishops to “Welcome the Stranger Among Us.”

Refugees and immigrants have been altering the face of parishes and communities across the country for many years. Not unlike the thousands of immigrants who came to our country as Italians, Poles, Irish, or Germans, today’s immigrants and refugees come seeking basic human rights, which often have been denied to them in their country of origin or, in the case of refugees, because there is a well-founded fear for personal safety in their homelands.

Offering a face of faith to newcomers and strangers in our midst is our call as Christians. The Church of Green Bay has always reached out to individuals and families in need of God’s love and we will continue to so in the future.The Church encourages us to love our neighbor and welcome the stranger. Hence, the Catholic Church commits itself to advocacy on behalf of immigrants, migrants, and refugees.

In our Diocese this is accomplished through the work of St. Vincent De Paul chapters, parish social concerns groups, and Catholic Charities. We invite families to learn the language, become employed, and enjoy full benefits of being an American, which includes applying for citizenship. Many do.

As people of faith we are committed to helping families seeking a better life for their children and working to become self-sufficient. While many may voice anti-immigrant sentiments, or feel that refugees have not enriched the communities in which they live, we invite refugees and immigrants to join our communities and faith life and treat them in ways that are respectful and mutually enrich all of us. We are called to be an evangelizing church open to dialogue.

Jill Marie Gerschutz

April 10, 2006, Washington, D.C. – I leave the rally on the National Mall inspired by thousands of immigrants proclaiming “We Are America.” As millions across the country gather, I wonder how many here are undocumented immigrants.

My work as immigration advocate for the U.S. Jesuit Conference places me in the middle of the immigration reform debate as demonstrations nationwide generate legislative momentum. While millions take to the streets, I wonder how Americans – especially Catholics – will contribute to the dialog. How are we called to accompany our brothers and sisters as believers in “the faith that does justice?” And if our faith defines justice as “giving the other his/her due,” how does this translate to national policy? Competing claims reinforce our confusion. We hear media reports that some believe migrants take American jobs while creating security and economic concerns. Meanwhile, the Catholic Church’s Justice for Immigrants campaign tells us to welcome the stranger among us.

Thanks, in part, to my work I can appreciate why so many immigrants choose to violate the law. I hear what it’s like to navigate our broken immigration system. My heart cries out for separated families waiting an average of 8-13 years for visas. Moreover, my sympathy becomes frustration when annual visa limits are reached just a few months into any given year. Combined with the militarization of major ports of entry, the allure of work, despite the lack of visas, has created a humanitarian disaster on our southern border where, in 2005 alone, 500 people died in the desert attempting to come here to provide for their families. And can we ignore the fact that businesses entice and profit from the risks and the sweat of undocumented immigrants?

Does our faith require that we forgive the trespassing of undocumented migrants into the U.S? If so, is paying a fine and waiting in line for documented status sufficient atonement? In a policy consistent with the pope and U.S. bishops, the Jesuit Conference says it is and supports legislation that includes a path to legalization, worker protections, and family reunification options for current undocumented immigrants. Standards of dignity also require that immigrants be embraced as whole persons throughout our society not just for their economic usefulness.

The Jesuit Conference supports reasonable, fair-minded bills – such as those put forth by Senators John McCain (R-Ariz.), Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), and Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) – that include a path to legalization and expedited family unification. Many other proposals would only exacerbate current tensions while failing to recognize the contributions migrants have made and continue to make to our society.

On the personal level, however, it comes down to the fact that, intellectually and spiritually, I believe that immigrants are God’s children and, as such, deserve dignified treatment. That is why my colleagues and I join our migrant brothers and sisters in solidarity on the National Mall, and why our faith calls us to shape an America that welcomes immigrants.

Bishop Bernard J. Harrington

I am a son of Irish immigrants. My dad sailed into Boston Harbor around 1920 from Ireland, via Wales. Upon hearing Henry Ford was paying $5 a day, he moved to Detroit for work before sending for my mother in 1923. They married two weeks after she arrived in the Motor City.

The youngest of four children, I still remember when both my parents became citizens and all the red tape that they went through. I especially remember how important voting on election days was to both, something they always considered a special responsibility and privilege.

Frequently I would bring home a new friend, reporting that he was “Irish” and that his dad was from Ireland – but came here through Canada. My dad would say in his quiet way, “Oh, that means that he entered the country illegally.” A good number of my dad’s and mother’s relatives also came to America. Some became citizens and others “just never got around to it.” Now I realize that a few of my relatives, and many of my boyhood friends’ parents, were undocumented – be they Irish, Polish, or even the Russian family next door.

I also know now that many of these people, whether legal or undocumented, raised families, and their sons fought in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. They also paid their taxes. This little scenario illustrates that dating back two, three, and four generations ago many of our relatives and their friends came to the United States without documents. I wonder how many of the strident voices demanding strict immigration laws now are children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren of parents who entered this wonderful country illegally, yet today are proud U.S. citizens.

While our current attention to this topic is primarily along our southern border with Mexico, a recent front-page article in the New York Times talked about young Irish undocumented immigrants who are nannies and small-company construction workers. In the New York area it’s estimated that there are thousands of such undocumented Paddies and Colleens. The same stories of my father’s generation are being repeated again today.

It might make for good soul searching for all of us to look into our family backgrounds and give thanks to our parents and grandparents for their courage and desire to provide for and raise a family in our country. My mother, Norah Cronin, Harrington had a wonderful Celtic expression: “Those born in the bough don’t forget the turf!”

A little family history might go a long way toward engendering in us all more compassion for the immigrants of today.

Sr. Joan Mueller, OSC, Ph.D.

“My babies will die if they don’t have food.” I had gone to Mass at a little church in South Omaha and was invited by a Sudanese family to visit their home. There I found six children under the age of 10 with no food in the house – absolutely nothing in the refrigerator or the cupboards. The mother processed the situation as she had done in the Sudan. She knew the older children would survive until school started again; but the twin babies were in danger.

Project Welcome started that day four years ago. I found food and clothes for that family, and met relatives. The children of all the families were hopelessly behind in school. All of the women and many men in the community were unemployed. There were housing issues, health issues, food and clothing issues, educational issues, employment issues, language issues, enculturation issues, credit issues. We had two young women and one young man in high school in the beginning. All had children.

Today Project Welcome has over 100 registered Sudanese families with about 20 teenagers. What was a 100 percent teen pregnancy rate is now 0 percent. We employ a full-time social worker, a youth minister, a volunteer coordinator, and a chaplain. We have a Sunday service with a Sudanese choir and lay ministers, a wide range of educational programs including a summer school, math and language camps, a prep camp, sports camps, and tutoring and mentoring programs.

Test scores are significantly improved and our children are now talking about becoming doctors and lawyers. Our fathers and mothers are employed, and we have successfully worked with a number of parents who now own their own homes. A mother’s concern about her babies changed my life. There was a brutal reality about her plea that couldn’t be ignored. The will of God was clear; no elaborate discernment process was needed.

On the other hand, it’s not easy going from the poverty of the third world to the affluence of the university a number of times every day. The transition is difficult and sometimes heartbreaking. My thinking and teaching have become more practical, more immediate. Many of my students volunteer with Project Welcome – many began as undergraduates and continue even as students in professional programs. Their lives have been forever changed.

Teresa of Avila says that the spiritual life is a business deal: you take care of God’s business and God takes care of your business. It is easy to know what God’s business is: feed, clothe, counsel, and, of course, educate, educate, educate. That being done, I go to bed at night reminding God of our need for diapers for our 54 babies, money to pay our Project Welcome team, and resources to finance our educational programs. We have continued without guaranteed resources for four years. When a baby is hungry, God answers prayers.

Meaghan Williamson

Until recently, when people asked me what it means to receive a Jesuit education, I never quite knew how to respond. After graduating from Marquette University in 1999, I returned to my hometown in the warm South and took a job in customer service, utilizing the Spanish speaking skills I had spent four years of college perfecting. I felt some sense of accomplishment, but grew restless and yearned for more. Not more money or responsibilities, but greater personal satisfaction.

So I became a Jesuit Volunteer in San Antonio, Texas and worked as an immigration consultant. The year of service passed quickly. But the stories detailing the struggles of the Latino immigrants will remain with me forever. People like Catalino who, after years of unemployment, left his parents, wife, and three children behind, risking his life to come to the U.S. illegally in hope of securing work and a better life for his family. People like Lupe who, frustrated by eight years of patiently waiting in Mexico to legally join her husband in the U.S., lost hope and crossed the border illegally.

Hearing from them and others like them of their struggles just to arrive on U.S. soil challenged me to evaluate my core values and beliefs. I questioned why I was blessed to live such a comfortable, privileged life while my immigrant brothers and sisters had to struggle simply to survive. I again felt unfulfilled and compelled to act.

Over the next two years, I worked at Catholic Charities assisting undocumented, predominantly Mexican, immigrants in Atlanta. No longer shocked to hear of the extreme poverty they were trying to escape, I instead was saddened by the extreme poverty, discrimination and lack of opportunities they faced in the U.S.

Some days 20 or 30 men arrived at Catholic Charities looking for job referrals, English classes, or clothing – even just a little food. Other days, immigrant women would come and explain how they had worked for several months cleaning houses but were never paid. Fearing the cleaning company would turn them over to authorities, the women quit their jobs and walked away without any money and without any dignity.

Perhaps I’ll never feel truly fulfilled as long as we continue to deprive immigrants of their basic human dignity. However, I am grateful to the immigrant community for giving me a true Jesuit education. Their stories and lives have shaped both my heart and my mind and inspired me to act on their behalf.

Now a graduate student at Marquette, I hope to become a leader in the community. I hope to engage others to walk in solidarity with our immigrant brothers and sisters so that together we can become agents for change and repair our broken immigration system.

Bishop Blase J. Cupich

I went to Mexico earlier this year where I was involved in an intensive course to learn Spanish. Since my return, I’ve had opportunities to speak with many Church officials and the laity about the plight of undocumented immigrants crossing our border from Mexico. These experiences have reinforced my convictions about pending legislative proposals to address this very important issue.

Legislation that criminalizes undocumented immigrants and eliminates due process protection for them and their children, and makes it legal to refuse them medical care and attention, simply lacks basic humanity and should not be tolerated by Americans. On the other hand, proposals that would allow workers to enter into our country for a period of time, and then return, deserve our support and attention.

We should not forget that we are a nation of immigrants whose ancestors came to this land looking for opportunity and who contributed much. That is the same situation faced by those who come to our country either to live or make a living today. All of us know too well from our history that immigrants have always faced prejudice, bigotry, and intolerance. It is time for our generation to put an end to that, and to do so guided by the wisdom of the past and a national heritage that reminds us that God has made us all equal in His eyes.

Fr. David Shields, SJ

I grew up in the vanilla, mono-lingual, white world of the suburbs. My closest brush with diversity was with a few Lutheran friends. “Our” way was the right way; that’s what I picked up. I heard that our city had “Negroes,” but we had no truck with them. It was dangerous to go where they lived, and besides, “they always stick together.”

One of my grandmothers was foreign-born; all my great-grandparents came from somewhere else. Where, oh, where did my silver spoon come from? How quickly we forget how we came to be here, and that even when the pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock in 1609, the only “legal” residents of North America were the various Indian tribes.

I think about that because I cut my teeth on the issue of marginalization in South Dakota, living among the Oglala Lakota (Sioux), whom our government allowed to become citizens in 1924.

Now I live on Milwaukee’s South Side where there is a large Hispanic population and a Hmong community a little farther to the west. I hear things like the “wetbacks” and “those illegal aliens” are a problem. But can any human being truly be illegal? Can anyone be an illegal child of God? Hmmm... And then for “national security reasons” we need to build a big wall on the Texas border. I agree somewhat with that idea – Texans can cause a lot of trouble and might well use some containment. In life, can we not deal with flesh and blood people? In a world and in a time that needs to weave the cloth of social unity, how can we so fixate on things that only serve to divide and isolate us?

My ancestors came to these shores fleeing a potato famine in Ireland. Others fled conscription in the Austrian Emperor’s army. All sought a better life for themselves and their children. Most undocumented people today seek only the same things. What a wonderful starting point to begin building God’s kingdom in our midst.

And you know, there is no evidence in my family archives on anyone ever receiving “valid papers” from Ellis Island.

Joseph Gietl

Is it Luis Fernando or Fernando Luis? I still don’t know and he isn’t telling, maybe because it makes him laugh, or maybe it calms him about living two lives in Milwaukee – one openly in community and one in fear.

He and other undocumented people face many other daily challenges. Along with fear there’s discrimination and the personal sacrifices of working two (sometimes three) jobs to provide for their families, and oftentimes the separation of those families – some members remaining in other countries while some build new lives here.

I met Luis Fernando-Fernando Luis – two names, two lives – doing intercambios (exchanges) along with a couple of friends from Spanish classes at Marquette University. One day a week, as we have for several years, we go to a community café/bookstore where slowly but surely our intercambios have taken root. Anybody wanting to learn English gathers around a table or two, depending on the crowd. Fernando (or is it Luis?) is among the regulars who juggle conflicts and reserve time in their typical workdays of 12 or more hours. They come back as often as they can, determined to learn English – even when they are sick or exhausted from work.

I speak English and am refining my Spanish. Luis (or Fernando) speaks Spanish and is improving his English. We share our linguistic and other traditions, all in the Ignatian tradition of being men and women for and with others. It is this “being with” aspect that makes all the difference – no tests, no proof of citizenship, just solidarity through the exchange.

I’m a white American from the suburbs. He’s from a rural town outside of Oaxaca, Mexico. He learns that shamrocks on display mean St. Patrick’s Day is coming soon. I learn about the Christmastime tradition of Las Posadas.

There is no teacher-student hierarchy. We, and the others attending the intercambios, trust each other to be mutually respectful and patient – more in friendship than as pupils or tutors. We make mistakes with our English and Spanish, but the environment is relaxed and accepting.

Over the years I’ve called him by only one name: Luis Fernando-Fernando Luis. Separated but united in a duality consistent with his identity. And even though he has gone through several residences and several jobs as a busboy, dishwasher, and cook, it seems the one constant, the one place where he feels accepted and affirmed is at our weekly intercambios.

To me, a similar spirit of acceptance must also be reflected in our national immigration policies. As a nation, we need to treat all immigrants, documented or undocumented, with dignity and openness. How else can we learn from each other in the time-tested tradition of Ignatian accompaniment?

Maria Teresa Gaston

It was during the early days of our marriage when my husband John Witchger and I arrived in Immokalee, Florida in 1984 with only an inkling of what we were getting into by agreeing to a three-year mission at Guadalupe Social Services. John’s title was social issues advocate; I was a bookkeeper with the Guadalupe Parish-based social services program.

But it was in the soup kitchen and the emergency services trailer where we began to link names and stories to the faceless immigrants laboring in area vegetable fields and citrus groves. Every day workers lined up for some kind of help – with rent or a medical bill, a simple bag of food, or a hot meal. I saw my first immigration raid there – a shocking experience that helped me begin to understand why the parish wanted to show workers how to organize and help themselves.

The raid came as the soup kitchen line was forming near noon. Surplus workers gathered, told stories, and waited for the doors to open. Someone suddenly screamed, “¡La Migra!” A handful of uniformed officers burst from a van. Every worker – male and female, legal and undocumented – scrambled in fear of being apprehended and deported. Officers gave chase and caught the ones who couldn’t run fast enough.

When Congress passed the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act, many of the people we worked with had an opportunity to gain documented status. Staff and volunteers trained to help countless workers understand and complete the required paperwork. I can still see the rough, soil-stained hands of workers clutching the crumpled check stubs and rent receipts in the hope of becoming documented. And I remember most the despair on the faces of those who did not qualify.

That same year we began hosting college students on spring break. I was never turned down by a single undocumented family I asked to house a student or two. They may have hesitated because of lack of beds or food to share but trusted me, accepted the students, and introduced them to life in the fields.

Our years in Immokalee impel me to welcome immigrants with similar struggles in Omaha today and provide Creighton University students with opportunities to meet undocumented workers and their families living in our midst.

In addition to staying in their homes and visiting meat packing plants to witness the work many are drawn here to do, we try to promote a fuller understanding of current immigration policy while providing resources for advocacy. Creighton has a vital role to play in welcoming and educating immigrants today, just as it did in the 19th century. We are a nation of laws and justice. In the 20 years since lawmakers last addressed immigration reform, the chilling call “¡La Migra!” continues to terrorize too many people.