In this section:

• U.S. Immigration/U.S.-Mexico Border
• Economic Migrant Trafficking

"Our common faith in Jesus Christ moves us to search for ways that favor a spirit of solidarity. It is a faith that transcends borders and bids us to overcome all forms of discrimination and violence so that we may build relationships that are just and loving."

-Joint U.S.-Mexico Bishops Pastoral Letter on Migration:
"Strangers No Longer: Together on the Journey of Hope"

Our faith mandates us to welcome the stranger. By caring for the stranger, we open our hearts to Our Redeemer. Catholic Social Teaching affirms the right to migrate, but also the right to not have to migrate.

We must, on one hand, welcome migrants into our communities and places of worship. On the other hand, we must work to address the root causes of migration, including economic injustice, armed conflicts and religious and political persecution.

In the United States, it is evident that the current immigration system is broken and that there is a desperate need for a fair solution. Existing policies and practices push migrants into the shadows of society, keeping them, their families and their communities in a semi-permanent state of insecurity and vulnerability.

Meanwhile, hundreds of people die each year in the desert attempting to cross the U.S.-Mexico border for lack of access to a safe, legal and humane alternative.

The basic human dignity and rights of migrants must be respected regardless of what country they may come from or what documentation they may or may not possess.

U.S. Immigration/U.S.-Mexico Border
Migration is a growing global phenomenon as many people are finding it ever-more difficult to maintain a dignified life for themselves and their families in their home countries or communities.

Spreading military conflicts, environmental catastrophes and extreme poverty are pushing people to overcrowded urban areas and across national borders, as they are no longer able to sustain themselves at home.

In the United States, tens of thousands of migrants arrive each year, looking for safety, opportunity and the chance to improve their lives and the lives of their families. Yet current immigration policy fails to adequately or appropriately address these situations.

In addition, lack of coherence with economic, environmental and security policies further exacerbates the problem.

Increasing militarization of the U.S. Southwest border region and criminalization of migrants, and those who seek to provide them with humanitarian aid, will do nothing to resolve the problem.

We believe that any just immigration reform proposal must address the root causes of migration, including poverty and conflict, while at the same time recognizing the positive social, cultural and economic contributions of migrants to our society.

Reform should include, at a minimum, an opportunity for hard-working immigrants already in the country to regularize their status, an avenue to citizenship for those that desire it, provisions for family reunification and the creation of a safe and dignified manner for future migrants to enter and work in the country legally.

A lack of economic opportunity, often fueled by U.S. trade and investment policies, is escalating pressure for many people living on the margins of society to migrate. At the same time, the U.S. is increasingly dependent on migrant labor.

Nevertheless, existing policies and practices in the United States, including mass deportations, criminalization of migrants and militarization of the border in the Southwest, are pushing migrants deeper into the shadows of society, keeping them, their families and their communities in a semi-permanent state of insecurity and vulnerability.

Here are some of the results of these actions:

• More than 3,000 migrant deaths since 1995 with numbers dramatically increasing since 2001.
• Since the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994, undocumented migration from Mexico has more than doubled from 2 million in 1990 to 4.8 million in 2000.
• Approximately 22,000 people are held in immigration detention on any given day, including hundreds of children. Most are detained in local prisons and jails and privately run facilities and are often mixed in with the general prison population, including those convicted of violent crimes.
• According to the National Immigration Forum, the average immigrant contributes $1,800 more annually than he or she receives in benefits and services provided by the U.S. government. Globally, remittances by migrants were $72.3 billion in 2001, significantly more than official levels of global development assistance ($51 billion in 2001).

A just immigration policy must holistically address the root causes of migration and respect the basic human dignity and rights of migrants regardless of their country of origin or their legal status.

Economic Migrant Trafficking
In an increasingly globalized world, goods and ideas cross borders, but so do people as they search for jobs, safety, opportunity and survival. Many people are finding it ever-more difficult to maintain a dignified life for themselves and their families in their home countries or communities, and are thus forced to migrate.

As conflicts spread, environments are destroyed, agrarian economies collapse and land is turned over to huge corporations for natural resource exploitation, people are pushed into urban areas and across borders, unable to sustain themselves at home.

Migrant workers are some of the most exploited in the world, yet migrant labor provides the backbone of many economies. Institutions, such as the World Trade Organization, and trade agreements that seek to commodify migrant labor, recognizing only its economic potential, dehumanize migrant workers, robbing them of their fundamental human dignity.

Guest-worker programs too often feed in to this cycle of abuse and exploitation, leaving migrant workers at the mercy of traffickers and employers. Contract violations, physical and verbal abuse, including the sexual abuse of women, and xenophobia and discrimination, both at work and in society at large, are not atypical of the migrant experience.