Immigration Chief, Scholars Point to Church Response
Episcopal News Service. November 9, 1978 [78315]
GREENWICH,. Conn. -- "The immigration flow into the United States is no longer European. As many people have suggested, the Statue of Liberty should be facing in another direction. In fact, immigrants now come from almost every place but Europe. They are primarily Asian and Latin."
These opening remarks by the Hon. Leonel F. Castillo, Commissioner of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, set the tone of challenge for participants in an Episcopal Church Consultation on Immigration and Refugee Concerns, held here Oct. 26-27.
The consultation, sponsored by the Presiding Bishop's Fund for World Relief in response to a resolution from the Executive Council of the Episcopal Church, represents the first phase in the Fund's development of a long-range strategy for the Church to deal with mounting immigration and refugee problems in the U. S.
Some 30 Church leaders and ecumenical participants from around the country, together with several members of the Presiding Bishop's Fund Board and the Episcopal Church Center staff, heard addresses by Commissioner Castillo and by Dr. Joan Moore, Professor of Sociology at the University of Wisconsin, and the Very Rev. Joseph M. Kitagawa, Dean of the University of Chicago Divinity School.
Mr. Castillo said that his office processes 177,000 immigration applications a month. This represents the greatest growth in immigrant population, undocumented and otherwise, in U.S. History. The largest groups, he said, come from Mexico, the Philippines and Korea. However, he noted, "we still have a government system that is set up to receive Europeans, who aren't coming anymore." He said that the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service still has three offices in Italy but none in Africa or Latin America. He cited political and diplomatic resistance as major obstacles to change in such policies.
In the U. S., he continued, major ports of entry for immigrants are still clustered in the Northeast, even though the majority of immigrants enter across the southern border or on the Pacific coast. Mr. Castillo cited the example of San Ysidro, a small southern California border town, which has more immigrant traffic than the combined total of the major U.S. international airports. Last year, he said, 40 million people entered through San Ysidro, 8. 5 million through the airports.
Mr. Castillo said that his office is grappling with the problem of monitoring and controlling daily border traffic to and from Mexico. McAllen, Tex., he said, has a "daytime" population of 200,000 and an official -- or "nighttime" -- population of only 40,000. The city's population is inflated with unregistered aliens who cross the border to work -- illegally -- and then return home at night. Such workers, he said, not only have a profound and complex effect on the American economy; they are also exploited by border-industry employers and usually earn far less than the legal minimum wage.
Mr. Castillo outlined a strategy to effect change in the American immigration system, including the continued development of a nationwide network of immigrant service centers and personnel, with help from churches and other voluntary agencies; lobbying for legislative change; organizing bilateral meetings with officials of sending countries; and channeling development funds into the areas of sending countries which produce the greatest numbers of immigrants. A better living standard, he said, might provide an incentive for potential immigrants to remain at home.
Dr. Moore, in her address on "Root Causes of Migration and an Overview of American Response," traced the history of U. S. immigration and refugee policy from America's early years to the present day.
"Our response as a nation, " she said, "has been consistently bounded by the ideological dialectic between opportunity-asylum on the one hand, and protection of a threatened society and culture on the other. " Protectionism, she added, led to the establishment of America's immigrant quota system.
Dr. Moore noted that the 1956 Hungarian revolution saw the first major shift away from protectionist principles toward a policy of asylum-help. Public sympathy was so great, she noted, that the U.S. Attorney General "paroled in" 32,000 Hungarians in 1957-58, even though the Refugee Relief Act permitted a maximum of 500.
She noted that this "paroling in" policy has been repeated with Cuban and Indochinese refugees and has paved the way for more recent government legislation which provides federal assistance for refugee resettlement.
Addressing the particular problems and ramifications of traffic at the southern border, Dr. Moore concluded: "The worst experience for a foreign newcomer in the United States today is that of the undocumented alien. Although (churches and other) voluntary agencies are working with them in some cities to help legalize those who are eligible for legalization, their role has been relatively minor and has received almost no publicity. This is also the policy arena which is generally very controversial and is now being avoided in Washington."
In his address on the theological ramifications of immigration and refugee issues, Dean Kitagawa reminded the consultation that "human history is a history of people on the move." He voiced the hope that the group would pay special attention to two objectives: long-range policy issues and refugees as a religious problem.
Regarding policy issues, Dr. Kitagawa compared the refugee problem to "the visible portion of an iceberg floating above water, under which are the stubborn realities of social, political, economic, cultural, and racial factors that keep the problem alive."
He said that the hardest issue facing the Church was not that of ministering to immigrants and refugees, but rather -- looking back to the experiences of the Jews and early Christians -- to "learn once again, by sharing the agonizing experiences of the contemporary immigrants and refugees, the profound religious meaning of human existence in the midst of the chaotic state of human society."
Dr. Kitagawa said that he is "firmly convinced" that the Church's attitude to immigrants and refugees "must avoid the connotation of sentimental charity or covert proselytizing. What we do for them... must be motivated by the sense of justice which is the basis of Christian love that acknowledges the dignity of every person as a person, and from which follow every person's rights and obligations in the many dimensions of inter-human relations."
In the second half of the consultation, participants examined several religious and secular refugee resettlement models currently in use and worked in small groups to discuss reactions to the addresses and to formulate possible steps in the Episcopal Church's approach to the problem. The Rev. Samir J. Habiby, Executive Director of the Presiding Bishop's Fund, said that reports of the consultation will be made to the Presiding Bishop's Fund Board at its Nov. 10-11 meeting and to the Executive Council at its December meeting.