US Bishops Praise Obama's Act of 'Justice' for Immigrants

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops is praising President Barack Obama's decision to take executive action on immigration, which came a week after its top aide on immigration described such a measure as the president's "last chance" to fulfill his promises of reform.

"We've been on record asking the Administration to do everything within its legitimate authority to bring relief and justice to our immigrant brothers and sisters," said Bishop Eusebio Elizondo, the auxiliary bishop of Seattle and chairman of the national bishop's Committee on Migration, said in a press release, CNBC reported Friday.

"As pastors, we welcome any efforts within these limits that protect individuals and protect and reunite families and vulnerable children," Elizondo said. "We have a long history of welcoming and aiding the poor, the outcast, the immigrant, and the disadvantaged."

Last week, Kevin Appleby, the director of the USCCB's Office of Migration Policy, told The New York Times that Obama's decision, which will defer deportations for millions of undocumented immigrants nationwide, was the president's "last chance to make good on his promise to fix the system."

And, Appleby told The Times, if Obama were to delay his executive order again, as he did earlier this year when he opted to postpone it until after the midterm elections, "the immigration activists would — just politically speaking — jump the White House fence.”

The church has always defended the rights of immigrants, Appleby said in an op-ed written last year Religion News Service.

"Some have questioned the bishops' involvement in the national debate over immigration, perhaps wanting the church to stay neutral," he wrote. "But if they did so, they’d be untrue to their roots."

With each wave of immigrants, be they Irish, Italian, or from other locations around the world, "the bishops defended the rights of newly arrived immigrants, arguing against nativist organizations that immigrants by and large added to the strength of our country by bringing unique skills, perspectives and traditions to our shores ... clearly they were right."

In modern days, the United States has helped draw in immigrants, said Appleby, "with a magnet of jobs and the opportunity to earn 10 times more in a day than in their native lands."

Appleby doesn't set the bishops' position on immigration, but mediates between the bishops and "a political culture that's grown less receptive to Catholic moral guidance," a source told the religion-based website Aleteia. 

But some more conservative Catholics aren't endorsing the bishops' position on immigration, including incoming New Hampshire Republican Rep. Frank Guinta, who says the president's order violates the will of voters who cast ballots on Nov. 4.

“Look, I’m Catholic. My wife’s Catholic," he told Aleteia. "We’re raising our kids Catholics. My faith says we should treat others with consideration and respect, and we have to find a way to unify families,” Guinta said in an interview Tuesday.

However, he declined to support legislation that would address the situation of millions immigrants who have overstayed their visas or come into the United States illegally, saying he wouldn't be "going into hypotheticals."

Meanwhile, although Elizondo applauded Obama's decision on immigration Friday, he still called for more permanent action on the issue.

"I strongly urge Congress and the President to work together to enact permanent reforms to the nation's immigration system for the best interests of the nation and the migrants who seek refuge here," he said.

"We will continue to work with both parties to enact legislation that welcomes and protects immigrants and promotes a just and fair immigration policy."
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