Heartless

I wish Rick Perry were a better debater. I will likely vote for the Republican nominee in next year’s presidential election but one thing I don’t like about the current crop of candidates is all this immigrant bashing. One of Perry’s more defensible acts as Governor was his signing of a bill to offer in-state tuition at state universities for Texas residents regardless of immigration status. When challenged about it he accused his rivals of being heartless. It was a mistake. The several million Americans who disagree with the policy were needlessly offended.

Governor Perry apologized for the remark but the damage was done. It was probably already impossible to pass serious immigration reform under the current administration, or in this congress. Perry’s ham handed charge may well have helped make it impossible in the next. And we need the reforms. I know it. The governor knows it. His opponents know it. We all know it. But cutting through the technical complexity and all the emotionally charged issues associated with illegal immigration will require a level of leadership, bipartisanship, and pragmatism that we haven’t seen in many years. Some of us thought we saw it in Barack Obama three years ago. We have been disabused of that notion, but frankly I don’t see it in any of his likely successors either.

We pretty much know what reform should look like. It probably includes some sort of temporary work program and a path toward permanent residency, even citizenship. It certainly includes equal protection of the laws. Even our prison inmates have that. As we have done in the past with immigrants we should include measures to encourage family reunification, and to see to it children are in school. We should review and expand policies on refugee status, especially for those subject to persecution for supporting us in Iraq and Afghanistan, shame on us for not doing that already.

And of course we should get control of our borders. No one seriously disputes our right to determine who enters the United States and who does not. But we have to find more effective and humane ways of doing it. That we have allowed often cruel human smuggling operations to flourish on our southern border is unconscionable.

The US Conference of Catholic Bishops insists we should address root causes. Those would be principally economic. People who have access to decent jobs in their own countries have far less incentive to emigrate. We can influence that through our trade policies at net benefit to ourselves.

Comprehensive reform isn’t going to happen in the current political climate but maybe we could do some small things. Toning down the rhetoric would be a good place to start, on both sides of the debate. Our pastors could help, not with noisy protests but with calm voices of reflection. The pulpit can be a wonderful platform for getting people to think seriously about what they already know to be right. After all, most of us are Christians and there is no clearer message in the Gospel than the mandate to welcome the stranger. Maybe we could even revisit the DREAM Act, the US senate bill that would have provided a way to citizenship to certain students who arrived here as minors. That had bipartisan support for a time before positions hardened. It made sense to a lot of people. Nobody really wants to send those kids back to homes that are no longer theirs. The bill is still alive in the Senate but not going anywhere at the moment.

One thing immigration reform does not include is mass deportation. That would be a humanitarian catastrophe. Americans don’t have the heart for it.