Catholic Church Stands Up for Illegal Immigrants

Just as it seems all California is jumping on the anti-illegal-immigrant bandwagon, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles is busily organizing its 4.5 million Catholics to march in the opposite direction.

It’s being done through the archdiocese’s Legislative Network, a 2-year-old grass-roots organizing effort. Legislative network members are being asked to write letters and make phone calls to lawmakers. “Action alerts” from archdiocese headquarters will give them background on issues. Telephone trees will send them into action. Occasionally, legislative network delegations will visit lawmakers.

Although many non-Catholics think the church’s main political issue is abortion, the Catholic Church has long had a strong social justice agenda of human rights and solidarity with the poor.

Two years ago, the agenda was reflected by the church’s opposition to Proposition 165, Gov. Pete Wilson’s ballot measure to limit welfare. Now it is being expressed in a pamphlet being distributed by Legislative Network. In the pamphlet, the organization explains its goal is to assist Catholics “to respond effectively to issues affecting the poor and vulnerable and threatening the dignity of us all.”

Only the meanest-spirited person would disagree with that policy. But I expect battle lines will harden when it comes down to specifics on the immigrant question.

Last Wednesday, for example, lawmakers, health officials and business leaders gathered at the archdiocese’s first public policy forum at St. Vincent’s Medical Center. It was part of Legislative Network’s organizing campaign.

In his keynote speech, Cardinal Roger M. Mahony said illegal immigrants should be covered by national health care reform.

“In the Hebrew Scripture, the ‘quality’ of worship was not judged by the type of offering brought to the altar,” Mahony said. “If this had been the case, it would have been the wealthy and affluent who would have had the advantage in developing a relationship with God. . . . A relationship to God was directly linked to the treatment of the poor, the widow, the alien and the orphan.”

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It will be a difficult task for the Legislative Network to sell health care for illegal immigrants.

The Times Poll found last month that 69% of those surveyed in California felt hostile to illegal immigrants, considering them a major problem. Among Catholics, the figure was 65%. It was 44% among Latinos, a heavily Catholic group with immigrant roots.

Divisions were apparent in the discussion period that followed Mahony’s speech at the policy forum.

Los Angeles City Councilman Richard Alarcon was sympathetic to the needs of the illegal immigrants. He said that Californians “depend on services provided by immigrants.”

But African-American representatives were not so sure.

State Sen. Diane Watson (D-Los Angeles) said, “I would hope immigration would not be the issue to divide us over health care reform.”

Los Angeles City Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas objected to talking about immigrants as if their plight “were synonymous with indigent care.” In other words, he doesn’t want to spend scarce dollars on illegal immigrants when poor African-Americans and other native-born need help.

In fact, he said, don’t waste so much time talking about the problem. “The domination of the subject of immigration (at the forum) does not do justice to people in need,” he said.

But illegal immigrants will be hard to ignore when discussing health care here. Gayle Ensign, president of the California Assn. of Catholic Hospitals, reminded the audience that California receives more immigrants than any other state and that more than half the state’s illegal immigrants live in Los Angeles County.

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Large numbers of these immigrants are treated at county hospitals and in public health clinics. Generally, they are without health insurance coverage, and taxpayers pick up the bill. Others receive treatment at private hospitals in the inner city, including those run by the Catholic Church. The hospitals end up stuck with the bills of non-covered patients.

The sheer number of these residents--and the huge impact they have on the hospitals--will make them an important part of the discussion over providing health care here.

So far, it has been a one-sided debate. Gov. Pete Wilson and California’s two Democratic senators, Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, have called for restrictions of varying degrees on illegal immigrants and the amount of benefits they receive.

Other politicians have joined them, and the polls show the public is on their side.

Since illegal immigrants are not voters, they have had little power in the political system. But many thousands of them from Mexico and Central America worship in Catholic churches in the inner city and in the San Fernando and San Gabriel valleys. It has been left to the church to speak for them.

Cardinal Mahony did this in his speech. The archdiocese’s Legislative Network and its grass-roots campaign will now try to translate the speech into political action.