The Columbans are advocates for U.S. immigration policies that recognize the human worth of the migrant.
By Amy Woolam Echeverria

The United States has a long history of grappling with immigration issues. The self-proclaimed notion of the United States as the “melting pot” of the world conjures up images of grandmothers from the "Old Country" cooking up scrumptious traditional dishes in the kitchen while their young, spirited children work side-by-side in factories and farms to make the “American Dream” come alive. This romanticized image of immigrant life in the United States has been embraced for more than a century by many people longing to resettle on these shores.

Historically, the reality many immigrants faced upon arrival in the United States has been far less welcoming. Discrimination, fierce competition, harassment and segregation were common obstacles immigrants faced as they tried to integrate themselves into their host country.

Between 1880 and 1914, 20 million southern and eastern Europeans came, and several hundred thousand Chinese, Japanese and other Asian laborers migrated to the western United States. In the 1880s, there was a public outcry to stop Chinese migration through Mexico. Anti-immigrant sentiment grew to include Asians of other nationalities.

Those forming nativist groups claimed that newer migrants were so culturally different from those who arrived in previous migratory flows that they would simply never be able to assimilate. This declaration was first made regarding Asians, and then with respect to the Irish, Italians and eastern Europeans.

Eventually, anti-immigrant advocacy focused on immigrants of all but English and German descent. In the 1920s, the United States began to sharply limit immigration, and by the late 1920s, restrictive immigration quotas reduced the migratory flow to a mere trickle.

Pro-immigration rallies, like this one in Washington D.C., were held in cities across the country on April 14.

In the United States, there are an estimated 33.5 million migrants according to the Migration Policy Institute, at least a third of whom are Hispanic.

Hispanics are the fastest-growing minority group in the United States, but they often live at the margins of society because such a large number of them are undocumented migrants.

Those Columbans working in Hispanic ministry in the United States work to address the vulnerability these migrants face because of their legal status. In particular, the Columban Justice, Peace, and Integrity of Creation (JPIC) Office in Washington, D.C., has named migration as one of its priority policy issues.

For the last six years, the JPIC Office has been an active member of the Border Working Group, a coalition of faith-centered and human rights groups based in Washington. We work with partners along the U.S.-Mexico border to express our concern and solidarity for migrants in the United States and those who live near both sides of the border.

The JPIC Office is an advocate for comprehensive immigration reform that provides a pathway to citizenship, emphasizes faster family reunifications, ensures labor protections such as a migrant’s ability to change employers, provides for future migration, and demilitarizes the U.S.-Mexico border. We believe any immigration policy should have the dignity of the human person as its guiding principal.

In recent months, the debate over immigration has turned national with numerous immigration rallies in April around the country highlighting the issue on a local level. No doubt the country is divided over how to address the current broken immigration system.

While some call for the mass deportation of millions of migrants, others advocate for completely open borders. Such simplistic solutions are no solution at all. There must be a balance in establishing orderly and legal flows that recognize the important role migrants play in sustaining our economy as well as their invaluable contributions to the cultural, social and political life of the country.

As people of faith, our response to the immigration issue must go beyond a political or social debate. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops makes the call for us to “welcome the stranger” as Jesus reminds us in Matthew 25: 35-40: