Immigration, National Security and a United World

Following some of the coverage of the recent immigration debates, I have been struck by how the emphasis on the importance of punishing “lawbreakers” often does not consider the harsh circumstances which bring people to immigrate; and by how the conversations often focus exclusively on what is good for the US economy.  Conversations rarely open out into broader responsibility for the economic and political pressures that push families to leave their own countries.  I have posted at the side a brief essay I wrote last year for Living City Magazine after Fordham's February 2005 conference, “Strangers No Longer: Immigration Law & Policy in the Light of Religious Values.”  It works with the invitation to conversion, solidarity, and communion as articulated in his John Paul II’s 1999 Letter to the Church in America and other documents.  The papers from the conference will be published in a forthcoming “Law & Religion” volume of the Detroit-Mercy Law Review, and will include Michael Scaperlanda's keynote.  Amy