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U.S. cardinal: Common sense needed to resolve immigration crisis 
U.S. cardinal: Common sense needed to resolve immigration crisis
By Erik Noreiga
Catholic News Service
HOUSTON (CNS) – Common sense and the inherent right of all humans to work should be key to finding a workable solution to the current immigration crisis the United States is facing, according to Cardinal Daniel N. DiNardo of Galveston-Houston.
Cardinal DiNardo was a guest speaker June 5 at a luncheon for the Greater Houston Partnership's "Dialogue on Immigration: The Economic and Social Impact." He addressed the social aspects of immigration.
According to Cardinal DiNardo, the basis for "welcoming the stranger" can be found in the Bible.
"The Old Testament or the Jewish Scriptures frankly present what the obstacles are of welcoming the stranger. They also frankly present why we must do so. We in the United States are a land blessed and have a strong heritage steeped in the immigrant experience," he said.
The cardinal explained that his own father, an immigrant to the United States, stressed the importance of respecting the immigrant.
"That was honed into us. I considered it somewhat ho-hum until the day I was named the bishop of Sioux City, Iowa, having been a priest in Pittsburgh for 20 years," Cardinal DiNardo recalled.
At the second confirmation he did in Sioux City, he was approached by a weeping family. The father of the clan had been deported the night before by immigration officials.
"It was at that point that I realized this is something very, very personal and something very social within the fabric of our communities. And that includes our religious communities," Cardinal DiNardo said.
The recent wave of anti-immigrant sentiment that focuses on immigration as a threat is troubling, according to Cardinal DiNardo.
"The condemnation of the lawlessness of illegal immigration is matched by sealing off any path to allow immigrants to live here lawfully," he said.
"The system of our immigration laws is broken, inefficient and the oversight is episodic or nonexistent. Recent raids on homes and workplaces seem arbitrary, while legal paths for immigrants are frequently blocked or nonexistent," Cardinal DiNardo said.
Cardinal DiNardo cited three rights he said are key to any eventual solution.
The first, he said, is that people have a right to find opportunity in their own homeland.
"While we are dealing with our own country we should look at possibilities, public policy issues that address certain global inequalities," Cardinal DiNardo said.
Second, people have the right to migrate to support themselves and their families, he said.
"The vast majority of those who have come here to this country, including immigrants – both legal and illegal – are here because they want to support their families. There is an essential economic need and in that they do have rights," Cardinal DiNardo said.
Third, sovereign nations have a right to control their borders, he said.
"My own Christian faith tradition recognizes the rights of the sovereign (nation) to protect and control its borders in service of the common good of its citizens," Cardinal DiNardo said, adding that nations ultimately also have an obligation to serve the universal good.
"Powerful economic nations such as ourselves and dynamic cities like Houston have an important obligation to serve this universal common good," Cardinal DiNardo added. "Sisters and brothers, most of us here can trace back where our families as immigrants came to this country.
"For that very reason all of us in this room should be equally concerned about a common-sense approach to what is at times seemingly an intractable issue," he said.
Cardinal DiNardo called for the United States to establish an immigration system that provides legal avenues for people who enter the country in a safe, orderly and dignified manner.
"The U.S. economy depends upon the labor provided by migrants," Cardinal DiNardo said. "We need a more humane system by which laborers from other countries can enter this country legally to fill positions in the labor force, including on a temporary basis."
He also called for more broad-based legalization.
"From the social point of view immigrants are here and have been contributing to the common good of this city, to the common good of our various religious communities, and therefore to the common good of the growth of this area of the country," Cardinal DiNardo said.
He said every time he speaks about immigration, he gets letters afterward, and "not all of them are complimentary."
Work needs to be done to persuade people "to overcome hesitancy, occasionally fear" about immigrants, he said, "so that this great country and this great city of Houston will continue to grow and welcome in our midst ... immigrants."
He said that in his four years in Houston he has found the city to be the "most welcoming" he has been to in Texas. "I would hate to see this city become less welcoming to our immigrant brothers and sisters," he said.
