Cardinal Fights for Illegal Immigration Rights

It should be no surprise when a man who has been part of the labor movement since the early 1960's would be calling the House Bill that would build a wall at our border with Mexico "blameful, vicious". Nor would it surprise anyone to know he is credited with organizing the great protests by illegal immigrants we have witnessed recently. What should be surprising is the position he holds. Cardinal Roger Mahony leads the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

The Archdiocese of Los Angeles is the largest in the US. It also has the largest concentration of Mexicans outside of Mexico City. Three quarters of his parishioners are Hispanic. It would seem natural for a church leader to get behind the concerns of his flock, except he, like most liberals is seeking a solution to the wrong problem.

He and the illegal immigration lobby want the United States to allow people to come into the country at any time they choose. If they stay long enough they should be granted citizenship, but until then they should be afforded all the benefits thereof. He sees the problem as Americans just being mean to the poor Mexican just looking for work. His sense of social justice says we should not deny anyone the prosperity our nation enjoys even if they violate the law to do so. Yet in all his zeal not one word about why Mexicans don't want to live in Mexico.

There are three essential components to Freedom and prosperity. They are:

• A Free market, regulated against fraud and deception.
• Personal property rights.
• An impartial Justice system.

Without these all other rights stand on a shaky foundation. Mexico's history is one that has been consistently hostile to these concepts. More importantly its recent history has been one of great economic blundering. The oil crisis of the late 1970's provided Mexico with a huge windfall of revenue. Believing that it would continue for ever the government incurred huge international debt. Instead of using the funds for economic development such as roads, communication, clean water and electricity they spent the funds buying votes with social welfare programs. When the price of oil when back down and stayed there for years the country had to default on the loans. The remedies to the economic disaster left Mexico an economic backwater for decades. Once the economy turned around the government demonstrated it had learned nothing. With the price of oil back up they have yet to devote much effort to economic reform. No real progress has been made on the three essentials. Instead they are encouraging their people to leave and live in the US.

If Cardinal Roger Mahony really cared about social justice for his Hispanic friends he might look to encouraging reforms in their native countries so they would not feal the need to leave their homeland. He would want the freedom and prosperity of America to spread to both the American Continents preventing the need of people to come North. He would admonish the leaders of these countries to stop wrecking their economies through kleptocracy and populist redistribution of wealth. The reason he doesn't might be that such tasks require real effort. It's much easier to sit back and encourage the mob here to intimidate their host than to fight against the tyrants and kleptocrats of the third world.

Without property rights there is nothing to defend and no reason to stay. Until Mexico and her southern neighbors grant their people this basic right our border will be insecure. They will send their people here because they know money will be sent back to the family at home. This money is essential to propping up their wrecked economies so they can continue to buy off the mob and stuff their Swiss bank accounts. People such as the Archbishop will help them to do it.