April 05, 2006

Sensenbrenner to Catholic Bishops: please stop lying

He didn't say that exactly, but Reps. Jim Sensenbrenner, Henry Hyde, and Pete King have sent a letter to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops:

Since the House bill's passage [HR 4437], many have misconstrued the House's good-faith effort to bring human traffickers to justice as a way to criminalize humanitarian assistance efforts. The House bill does no such thing, nor did it intend to.

We can assure you, just as under current law, religious organizations would not have to "card" people at soup kitchens and homeless shelters under the House bill's anti-smuggling provisions. Prosecutors would no sooner prosecute good Samaritans for "assisting" illegal immigrants to remain in the U.S. under the House bill than they would prosecute such persons for "encouraging" illegal immigrants to remain in the U.S. under current law, which has existed for nearly 20 years.

Nonetheless, we stand willing to work with you and other persons of good will to ensure humanitarian assistance efforts are not mistakenly ensnared in this moral effort to end suffering at the hands of human traffickers. We remain optimistic this goal can be achieved.

Lastly, we know many of you are concerned about the House bill's provision making illegal presence a felony. We share that concern. As you should know, during the House debate, Chairman Sensenbrenner offered an amendment to reduce the bill's penalty for illegal presence from a felony to a misdemeanor. Unfortunately, this amendment was unsuccessful, primarily because all but eight of our Democratic colleagues decided to play political games by voting to make all illegal immigrants felons. A felony penalty is neither appropriate nor workable. We remain committed to reducing this penalty and working with you to this end.

Whatever happens in the near-term, hopefully in the long term the credibility of all those who lied about this bill will be severly damaged.

Related:
The Catholic Church's anti-HR4437 smokescreen (no soup kitchens here)
Are Rev. Michael DeGerolami and Robert Seltzer lying?
Cardinal Roger Mahony's false "charity"
Rich Lowry on Cardinal Roger Mahoney
"Cardinal Errors" (National Review on Roger Mahoney)
The religious argument against Cardinal Roger Mahoney
AVWatch: Villaraigosa supports illegal immigration, Cardinal Mahoney
"Cardinal Mahoney initiates immigrant rights campaign"

Posted to Immigration at April 5, 2006 09:22 PM

Comments

What ever happened to the days when the churchs stuck to their business of religion and stayed out of politics? They should not be involved in this illegal immigration debate, they have their own issues to deal with.

Posted by: DG at April 5, 2006 10:29 PM

"business of religion"

Church attendance (and hence collection revenue) has been falling for some time. Most immigrants are Hispanic (illegals even more so) and Catholic (at least nominally). So the Catholic Church in particular has more than a vested spiritual interest in this matter.

Posted by: eh at April 6, 2006 04:43 AM

http://oemperor.blogspot.com/2006/04/civil-disobedience-civil-initiative-or.html contains a discussion of one case in Arizona (the "No More Deaths" Shanti Sellz and Daniel Strauss case) in which humanitarian aid was provided...and the illegal immigrants were placed in a truck. The latter has resulted in prosecution under the law (the case has not yet been decided).

In my view, Sellz and Strauss were obligated to provide the aid under God's law, and should have returned a guilty plea for violating the civil law.

I don't know if you've made the point here, but John and Ken have certainly made it - how can Cardinal Roger Mahony make ANY type of statement about morality when he's been accused of sheltering pedophiles?

Posted by: Ontario Emperor at April 6, 2006 04:07 PM