Humane Immigration Reform

Parishioners from San Felipe de Jesús wrote more than 600 letters to Senators John Cornyn and Kay Bailey Huchison in support of a humane immigration reform. The letters were part of the 1,300 that were delivered to the local offices of the Senators last week.

Recent raids in Indiana and Massachusetts have resulted in massive arrests of working people. Mothers were separated from their infants (one baby was admitted to the local ICU for dehydration after the nursing mother was shipped to Texas).

Good people wonder how things have come to this in our country. The very idea of massive roundups of people--honest, hardworking, church-going people--taking place in the land of the free is hard to grasp. Those caught up in this sinfullness this time were busy making plastic pipe and leather purses--for our consumption and for our businesses.

On the local scene, the immigration detention centers refuse to allow priests to celebrate the Eucharist with detainees. Up the road, near Taylor, Texas, a privately owned jail has detained children and are not forthcoming about the conditions under which they are jailed. This is not worthy of Americans and we know that it will soon come to a change.

For a touching reflection on the visit of President Bush to Guatemala: http://www.drawger.com/stevebrodner/?section=comments&article_id=2935#comments