wfn.org | [ENS] Immigration reform,

["Matthew Davies" <mdavies@episcopalchurch.org>]

Daybook, from Episcopal News Service

June 3, 2005, Friday Forum - Issues in the News

Immigration reform, workers' rights: Arizona diocese sets August summit

by Pat McCaughan

[Episcopal News Service] The Episcopal Diocese of Arizona is hosting an
Aug.
19-20 summit to help empower local congregations as advocates for
immigration reform and the rights of undocumented workers, Diocesan
Bishop
Kirk S. Smith has announced.
The conference is a faith-based response to existing anti-immigration
sentiment, which is often fueled by misinformation, fear and racism,
said
Smith, the Bishop of Arizona.

"Economic survival is a basic human right. It comes right out of the
Biblical imperative about how we treat the stranger in our midst," Smith
said.

An earlier Bishop's Initiative on Border Issues conference held in
Tucson in
February drew an estimated 200 people and included discussions about
outreach, advocacy, and empowerment ministry on both sides of the
Arizona-Mexico Border, said the Rev. Carmen B. Guerrero, who is the
diocesan
Canon for Peace and Justice and Hispanic Ministry.

Guerrero credits the conference's success to its organizer, the Rev. Tom
Buechele and a conference organizer. Bisbee is vicar of St. John's
Church,
Bisbee, located about eight miles from the Arizona-Mexico border. He
also
serves the diocese as border missioner.

The August session, set for the St. Francis Retreat Center in
Scottsdale,
will focus on developing base communities to recruit and educate parish
advocates, bridge-building between political and social sectors, and
human
rights and border issues as part of Christian formation, she said.

Guest speakers will include: the Rt. Rev. Martin Barahona, Bishop of El
Salvador and Primate of the Anglican Province of Central America, a
member
of the Central American Human Rights Commission, who will discuss the
human
rights perspective. U.S. Attorney Paul Charlton will address the
politico-legal perspective, and interfaith  representatives will focus
on
empowerment and organizing, she said.

"The bottom line is, the workers have human rights that we as Americans
need
to learn about and to be advocates for them," Guerrero said.

The anti-immigration sentiment has resulted in a tightening of the
border
and subsequent breakdown in family relationships on both sides of it,
said
border missioner Buechele. "It puts the squeeze on families who've lived
here hundreds of years with family on both sides. Just being able to
cross
the border to visit relatives, to shop is more difficult."

Buechele said that the collapse of the Central American coffee market
has
sparked a northern migration of workers from Central America and as far
as
Brazil to find work in the U.S.

"You can't understand the immigration issue until you go to the other
side
of the border, stand in the hot sand in Mexico, and look north. In that
process, one gets a whole other kind of perspective," said Buechele who
as
diocesan border missioner organizes trips to Altar in Sonora, Mexico, a
gathering spot for those preparing to cross the border.

"You soon discover that the people attempting to come here are not
terrorists," he said. "They're not coming to take anybody's job away.
They're coming to get jobs that here in the U.S. nobody else wants to do
or
we don't pay people to do."

Noting a U.S. Bureau of Labor projected 3 million worker shortage by
2012,
Buechele added: "This country has always depended on immigration,
whether
it's been legal, illegal, temporary or permanent. We can't outsource
dishwashers, landscapers or chicken coop cleaners and those are all the
kinds of jobs the immigrants do."

 Conference-planners also intend to garner support for the
McCain-Kennedy
Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act of 2005 introduced May 12 in
the
U.S. Senate, he said.

The McCain-Kennedy bill and the Kolbe-Flake-Gutierrez companion
legislation
in the U.S. House of Representatives would overhaul immigration,
allowing a
multi-step path to citizenship for undocumented workers and a new
program
that could yearly increase legal immigration by 400,000 people.

"The proposed legislation brings to an end the disconnect between law
and
reality," Buechele said. "It offers an effective system to manage
immigration realities of today. And it would go a long way to stop the
disgraceful loss of life in the desert. Already this year, 70 people
have
died in the desert simply trying to cross the border to come to work in
the
U.S. that needs them here working and while will need them even more in
the
future," he said.

 Buechele said the migrants are "economic refugees who cross the border
seeking a better life. And the faith-based principle is always that
people
have a right to migrate to exist."

 Bishop Smith agreed, adding that the McCain-Kennedy bill is a welcome
relief to Proposition 200, passed in Arizona in the last year's general
election, which mandates that no public services be provided to anyone
without proof of citizenship.

 Anti-immigration sentiment sparked passage of the bill, along with
myths
that undocumented workers take jobs away from citizens and strain local
economies by sapping social services and not paying taxes, he said.

 "The reality is, undocumented workers bring in more money to the
economy
than they take out. They have a higher employment rate than any other
group," Smith said. "They pay taxes, sales tax and withholding tax.

 "Our economy needs them. Our service industry and lower-end industry is
staffed by them in substandard conditions, for less pay with no
benefits,"
Smith said. "[Many] are blackmailed to take the jobs or be sent back
across
the border, blackmailed to work in conditions that no American worker
would
tolerate.

 The McCain program would allow them to be guest workers, to work
legally
and offer protection, he said.

"Once we make them legal, they'd have to be paid minimum wage, receive
health benefits, and operate in safe working conditions. Employers don't
want to do that, because it will cost them more money. They have a
vested
interest in keeping them as illegal immigrants. Why not find a way to
treat
them humanely, where they can come and earn an honest day's wage through
an
honest living. But it won't happen as long as we're ruled by our own
economic self-interest."

Further information about the conference may be obtained from the Rev.
Canon
Carmen B. Guerrero, at: 800.334.7626, ext. 6052 or via email at:
cguerrero@episcopalchurch.org  Guerrero is also the Episcopal Church's
staff
officer for Jubilee Ministries.

-- Based in Los Angeles, the Rev. Patricia McCaughan is senior
correspondent
for the Episcopal News Service.

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