IMAGE: CNS photo/Zach Gibson, pool via EPA
By Rhina Guidos
WASHINGTON (CNS) — Calling a proposed piece of legislation
“discriminatory,” the head of the U.S. Conference of Catholic
Bishops’ Committee on Migration called on the president and Congress to reject
a bill that seeks to drastically cut legal immigration levels in half over a decade and which also would greatly limit the ability of citizens and legal residents
to bring family into the U.S.
Other Catholic groups also called for an end to the legislation.
“Had this discriminatory legislation been in place
generations ago, many of the very people who built and defended this nation
would have been excluded,” said Bishop Joe S. Vasquez of Austin, Texas,
chair of the bishops’ migration committee.
In a news release late Aug. 2, he criticized the RAISE Act
introduced earlier in the day by Republican Sens. Tom Cotton, of Arkansas,
and David Perdue, of Georgia.
In addition to cutting legal immigration, the Reforming
American Immigration for a Strong Economy Act, or RAISE Act, would create a system
of legal immigration different from the current one that favors family ties. Instead,
it would move toward a system under which points would be awarded for a person’s
ability to speak English, level of education, age, as well as “high-paying
job offers, past achievements, and entrepreneurial initiative,” according to a
White House statement praising the proposal.
Other limitations proposed by the RAISE Act would
permanently cap the number of refugees allowed safe passage, “thereby
denying our country the necessary flexibility to respond to humanitarian
crisis,” said Bishop Vasquez.
“As a church, we believe the stronger the bonds of
family, the greater a person’s chance of succeeding in life. The RAISE Act
imposes a definition of family that would weaken those bonds,” he said.
Kevin Appleby, senior director of international migration
policy at the Center for Migration Studies of New York, said the bill “is a
nonstarter from a Catholic perspective, as it weakens the family unit and favors
the rich over the poor. It also is part of a larger strategy by the administration
to reduce the ethnic diversity of the immigrant population in this
nation.”
The proposed bill was largely criticized and caused an
uproar shortly after the president’s televised support early Aug. 2, saying
it would reduce poverty, increase wages and save taxpayer money, adding that
many current legal immigrants are “low-skilled” and many receive welfare
benefits.
Later in the day, senior White House adviser Stephen Miller further added
to the controversy over the bill after he seemed dismissive during a news
briefing of the Statue of Liberty’s “The New Colossus” poem and the line “Give
me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” and
in defending the bill’s ability-to-speak-English requirement.
Even some of the president’s fellow Republicans, including South
Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, who said he has supported “merit-based”
immigration, said he would not support the bill.
Bishop Vasquez said the bill would be detrimental to
families and negates contributions of past immigrants to the U.S., and he
called on Congress and the administration instead “to work together in a
bipartisan fashion to enact into law comprehensive immigration reform.”
“I believe that such reform must recognize the many
contributions that immigrants of all backgrounds have made to our nation, and
must protect the lives and dignity of all, including the most vulnerable,”
said Bishop Vasquez.
Christopher G. Kerr, executive director of the Ohio-based Ignatian
Solidarity Network, a national social justice education and advocacy
organization, said from a faith perspective, it’s hard to back the RAISE Act if
you reflect on the words of the pope, who called on Americans during his 2015
apostolic visit “to not turn their backs on their neighbors.”
But the RAISE Act does just that by creating “obstacles to
family unity for immigrant families and block access to safety for tens of
thousands of refugees,” he said.
“We continue to call for immigration policies that support
family unity, provide pathways to citizenship, and promote humane and just
treatment of immigrants — the RAISE Act does not respond to this call,” said
Kerr.
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Follow Guidos on Twitter: @CNS_Rhina.
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