01/09/04
ILLEGAL
IMMIGRANTS, COME ON IN
President
Bush announced his new immigration policy, as described below (see http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2004/01/08/international1804EST6867.DTL
):
01-08)
15:04 PST TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AP) --
Honduran
President Ricardo Maduro praised U.S. President George W. Bush's migration
reform proposal and expressed hope it would allow some of his undocumented
countrymen to remain in the United States.
Officials
in neighboring El Salvador also applauded the plan, which has received a
somewhat less enthusiastic reception in Mexico, home to the largest single
block of migrant workers.
"Bush's
initiative could help the more than 180,000 Hondurans residing in the United
States without visas, and help the Honduran economy," Maduro told
reporters.
Money
sent home by migrant workers is one of the chief sources of foreign income for
many Central American countries. Honduras receives about US$1 billion annually,
and El Salvador receives twice that amount.
Maduro
said he would meet with Bush at the upcoming Summit of the Americas in
Monterrey, Mexico next week to try and get details on the broad policy outline
Bush painted in a Wednesday speech.
In El
Salvador, Foreign Minister Maria Eugenia Brizuela said "we, as
Salvadorans, applaud this initiative by President Bush."
"What
better way than to establish a filter that allows in people who want to work
constructively and contribute, and keep out those who pose a real threat to
U.S. security."
On
Thursday, Mexican President Vicente Fox suggested the new U.S. proposal did not
meet all of Mexico's expectations. "We're going for more. We're going for
more," he told reporters.
Bush's
plan would create a temporary worker program for illegal migrants now in the
United States and those in other countries who have been offered employment in
America.
This
new policy is like an unlimited H-1B program.
The H-1B visa program allows American companies and universities to
import foreign scientists, engineers and programmers. Unfortunately, it has no
serious safeguards to protect American workers from being replaced and is
abused to provide cheap foreign labor. The
more I think about Bush's proposed policy towards illegal immigrants, the more
I think it is an **unlimited** H-1B visa program. And if the Bush
administration also gets what they want in the Jose Padilla case, discarding habeas
corpus rights, then US citizenship would start becoming worthless.
The Roman Catholic Church is a major lobbyist for this flow of immigrants south of the border into the United States. As we read at http://www.vdare.com/fulford/catholic_bishops.htm :
“Richard Neuhaus deconstructs the legislative program of the National
Conference of Catholic Bishops, which he has heard called the “religious
lobby of the Democratic Party." Of course liberals are calling it the
“religious lobby of the Republican Party." (It's officially bipartisan.) The parts about crime and the
poor are so socialistic that Nat Hentoff likes them.
Here is simply one example of the lobbying effort (see http://www.vdare.com/fulford/mary_queen_anglos.htm ):
“The
LA hierarchy is certainly committed to continued immigration. The Cardinal,
Roger Mahony, Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio, and AFL-CIO President John Sweeney signed a joint letter on
immigration, which proclaims that “Immigrant workers, regardless of their status,
are vital participants in our economy,” and calls for “the legalization of
immigrant workers and their families, especially those who come to the United
States fleeing oppression and destitution."
[JPM- It should be noted that AFL-CIO
President John Sweeney
is Roman Catholic.]
Indeed, the Roman Catholic Church officially sanctions such immigration, and to a great extent denies the right of national borders:
“Pius XII…became
the first Pontiff to affirm an explicit, though conditional, ''right'' to
migrate. Public authorities unjustly
deny the rights of human persons if they block or impede emigration or
immigration except where grave requirements of the common good, considered
objectively, demand it (Speeches, 1959).
His
successor, Pope John XXIII, also voiced the emerging doctrine of ''just
reasons'' for immigration: Every human being has the right to freedom of
movement and of residence within the confines of his own country; and, when
there are just reasons for it, the right to emigrate to other countries and
take up residence there (Pacem in Terris).
The right
to emigrate was enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which
does not, however, contain any right of immigration:
Article
13. (1) Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the
borders of each state. (2) Everyone has the right to leave any country,
including his own, and to return to his country.
Article
14. (1) Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum
from persecution. (2) This right may not be invoked in the case of prosecutions
genuinely arising from non-political crimes or from acts contrary to the
purposes and principles of the United Nations.
The right
to immigrate had been explicitly rejected by most nations, including the United
States. Pacem in Terris proclaims the promotion of the personal rights of all
as the primary end of governments. This encyclical deplored the inadequacy of
nation-states and the international system to realize the common good and the
rights of individuals (Christiansen, 1988). Pope John implied a preference for
world government, but prescribed neither structures nor roadmaps.
Pacem in
Terris evokes the underlying historical tension between the Catholic church and
the nation-state, with its concepts of geographically defined jurisdiction and
obligations, exclusive sovereignty, and the supremacy of national interests. In
the three decades since John XXIII, the church has become even more
antagonistic toward national assertions of sovereignty, not only in the
movement of peoples across borders, but in the international flow of trade,
knowledge, culture and capital.”
The Roman Catholic Church can effectively use emigration/immigration (legal and illegal) for its own political advantage. For example, it can make the most powerful nation in the world (the USA) Roman Catholic. Also, since Roman Catholicism tends to impoverish nations when it is the dominant religion, it allows these weak Roman Catholic nations to relieve their own problems by pushing them off onto other (non-Roman Catholic) nations. And with its extensive world-wide network of priests, as well as its orders (Jesuit, Dominican, etc.), it can readily effect and manipulate population flows to its own political advantage.
We must remember that the Roman Catholic Papacy still officially claims for itself temporal sovereignty over all nations. Here are some sample statements from its canon law:
"Constitutions (civil, we presume) cannot contravene good manners and the decrees of the Roman prelates."[6]
"The Emperor ought to obey, not command, the Pope."[14]
"The constitutions of princes are not superior to ecclesiastical constitutions, but subordinate to them."[4]
But very few Protestants have a clue as to what is happening and why.