Immigration laws untenable and need reform, bishop says

A call for compassion and a renewed recognition of human dignity highlighted Salt Lake Catholic Bishop John Wester's address Sunday evening on U.S. immigration reform.

Bishop Wester characterized the current body of legislation regulating the flow of migrants into the country as untenable and badly in need of a humanitarian retooling.

"As a nation, we grapple with the thorny issue of immigration," Bishop Wester said. "The U.S. has the right to enforce laws, but we do believe the laws being enforced are badly broken ... and inadequate to address the needs today in migration issues."

Bishop Wester outlined the six-point comprehensive reform plan proposed by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops that, according to Bishop Wester, seeks a common ground between a country's right to regulate migration and an individual's right to migrate. The plan calls for earned legalization, supports federal enforcement, calls for a foreign worker program, asks for a re-examination of the root causes of the immigration problem, creates new family-based protections, and requests a restoration of due process rights the conference says were taken away in the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act.

Bishop Wester reminded the group gathered at Salt Lake's Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church that we are a nation of immigrants, and by casting an entire group of people in the mold of "criminals" we deny our roots and abandon the basic tenets of humanity.

"Grace and law can indeed co-exist," Bishop Wester said. "Immigrants are not criminals ... when the law ceases to serve the common good, the good of human beings, we need to change it ... and re-commit ourselves to dignity and solidarity."

Bishop Wester said as rhetoric heats up on the immigration issue there is a tendency among those most strongly in support of an enforcement-only approach to de-humanize the issue. The bishop cited terms like "swarms," "hordes" and "waves" as those used to describe the influx of immigrants in a way that removes the individual from the conversation.

"These terms conjure images of insects, animals and tsunamis ... all dangerous and to be feared," Bishop Wester said. "Each person has dignity, worth and a story to tell ... we need to put a face on immigration."