- Feb 5, 2002
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From Bishop Joseph Strickland
It is right and just that nations protect their borders and their citizens, and it is right and just that illegal immigrants who fled their own country as convicted criminals, and those who have committed violent crimes while in our nation, and those who came to plot against our government be returned to their homeland. However, we must also be aware that there are many who have fled to this country because of desperate situations of various kinds, in some cases to escape unjust persecution, abuse and extreme poverty. Obeying the law is of great importance, of course, and it would certainly be best if they had entered legally – but we must admit that if faced with those kinds of circumstances, for example to feed our hungry children or to protect them from harm, most of us would do the same. What particularly complicates the illegal immigration problem that the U.S. now faces is that our government for many years has ignored the law and has virtually rolled out a red carpet for immigrants to enter illegally, providing free phones, food, clothing, housing, health care and education – more than our own homeless citizens and troubled veterans have received. Moreover, some of these who have entered illegally fill jobs that our own citizens needed to survive. This puts us in the uncomfortable situation of having to decide how to correct a situation that our own government caused without causing undue harm to those who were facilitated in entering illegally by our own government.
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