Foster good immigration policy

Jan. 17, 2008

Fellow citizens of the State of Iowa:

In this election year, will we stand for justice?

As a citizen of Iowa, I abhor the many threats and blatant violations of human dignity we tolerate. Universal, a priori human dignity is the basis of all human rights. "We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." When we deprive others - the unborn, the elderly and very ill, the immigrant - of their life or liberty, we deny these self-evident truths, and our American heritage and identity. By making "inalienable" rights in fact alienable, we undermine our own rights and promote injustice.

Consider the issue of immigration. Just as in the past, we need immigration today to help fuel our economy, and to bolster our population and our cultural growth. Immigration in itself is a good thing, as all of us who are descendants of immigrants can attest. Moreover, immigrants themselves, as human persons, are good, in exactly the same sense in which citizens as human persons are good. We insist on due process for all citizens, especially those who violate laws; we should insist on the same due process for all, regardless of their immigration status.

Due process implies several things, few of which are part of the way we currently ponder this issue: a presumption of innocence - we often talk as if all immigrants are illegal in status and criminal in intent; decisions made in a reasonable time - we often seem to leave people lingering for years in uncertain status; impartial application of the law - we rightly fear the many forms of "racial profiling" as a great injustice; appropriate recognition of pre-existing legal conditions (such as marriage) - we allow our immigration laws to deprive families of their natural right to be together; some statute of limitations - we wrongly fear that a reasonable path to citizenship or legal residency means "amnesty" for "criminals."

We all recognize that our current immigration policy is broken. We need to find one that fosters the good of immigration, respects the a priori dignity of immigrants as human beings, and prevents the worst abuses. Whatever the final details of such a policy, the basic standards of justice have always been clear, and are not different for this issue than for any other.

I call on all my fellow citizens, and on all candidates for political office to seek in fact the justice we claim to cherish: to treat everyone in this country as a human person first, and according to circumstances only in those terms. If we renew our shared commitment to justice, we have a chance to solve the challenging problems of today in lasting ways. If we deny our common ideal of justice, we corrupt our society and increase the risk that our bold democratic experiment will ultimately fail.

The Most Reverend R. Walker Nickless
Bishop of the Diocese of Sioux City