Prudential Judgment and Immigration Reform

The Murphy-St. Thomas conference on prudential judgments had about 20 papers in concurrent sessions, one of them from Andrew Yuengert (Economics, Pepperdine) on Catholic social teaching and immigration.  It did an excellent job of laying out and analyzing the issues.  Its basic claim was that the bishops have extended too far into prudential terrain in wedding themselves to particular policy proposals on illegal immigration (see here their endorsement of the earned-legalization Senate bill and their vigorous opposition to the enforcement/detention House bill).  However, even if one is generally leery about the bishops taking positions on particular policies or legislation, isn't illegal immigration different for a couple of reasons:  (1) Because Catholic institutions are deeply involved in serving illegal immigrants, the Church has experience and expertise on the matter (especially on the real consequences of laws) that it can offer to the broader society.  (2) When as here, some aspects of a proposed law (the House bill) threatened to criminalize basic works of mercy like providing food and shelter, bishops (like Cardinal Mahony) had a right to criticize these aspects; and once bishops criticize a proposal, they have a responsibility to suggest or support some better alternative for addressing the problem that the bill was aimed at, rather than just ignoring it.

Tom