A first principle of civil governance is respect for the law, but is it Christian to support a law that only giggling cynics believe will do what it promises?

Why the Catholic Bishops Are Wrong

 on Immigration

By Brad Miner 

My purpose here is neither bishop-bashing nor politician-baiting, and I have no reluctance in supporting an immigration measure that respects the rule of law and actually accomplishes the goals set down by the U.S. Senate’s most recent “Gang of Eight” in itsBorder Security, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Modernization Act of 2013: progress towards citizenship and secure borders.

However, my guess is that this law – which can’t even be rendered as a proper acronym! – will be about as effective as that monument to futility, the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. Marco Rubio’s career – he’s one of the Eight – may get a boost from . . . BSEOIMA, but as long as the border’s a sieve and Latin American governments are either socialist or plutocratic, nothing will change the pace of illegal immigration except a depressed economy in el Norte.

Anyway, I suspect Sen. Rubio, who is Cuban-American and speaks Spanish, believes he is the answer to the Republican Party’s recent electoral woes, and the GOP is just desperate enough to believe him. We’ll see how that works out in 2016.

And I suspect Christian compassion plays a role in animating both the politicians’ and the Catholic bishops’ concerns about the plight of Central American immigrants.

That said, immigration reform as it now stands is a baldly political business, and that’s as true of the bishops as it is of the politicians: votes for the latter; devotees for the former.

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