Wenski: Pivot to immigration reform, not ‘Alcatraz’ camps, now the border is secure

Archbishop Thomas G. Wenski of the Archdiocese of Miami spoke with OSV News concerning a new report from Human Rights Watch alleging dehumanizing conditions at three Florida detention sites holding immigrants that lack legal authorization to live and work in the U.S. for eventual deportation. These alleged conditions included denial of medical care potentially resulting in deaths; freezing and overcrowded cells with no bedding or hygiene access; and degrading treatment including beatings, shackling, isolation, and detainees being forced to eat with hands cuffed behind their backs.

In this interview conducted July 23, Archbishop Wenski argued that the border is now secure, and for the sake of the common good, Congress and President Donald Trump should pursue immigration reform and turn aside from a course of mass detention and deportation that violates human dignity.

The interview has been edited for length.

OSV News: Your Excellency, what is your reaction to the report?

Archbishop Wenski: This is not the first time that these concerns have been aired.

I was at Krome on Easter Sunday, and they had constructed some temporary tent shelters with air conditioning; tent shelters to handle the overcrowding. But at Krome about a month ago, an older Cuban man died in custody, and that has happened before. At “Alligator Alcatraz” … the people are basically in cages.

And because the Everglades is a very humid place — it’s a swamp — it’s very hot, and the facility itself is built on top of a tarmac … these are harsh conditions.

The facility is also over 30 miles away from Miami, so it’s very far from medical facilities. If somebody had an emergency there — a heart attack or something like that — it would seem very difficult for them to be evacuated to a medical center in a timely fashion. That distance discourages, or makes difficult, visits for attorneys.

OSV News: You’ve said that current immigration policies don’t uphold due process, and it’s time for Congress to do something. What could that look like — if Congress did do something?

Archbishop Wenski: There are a couple things that Congress could do. Right now, the administration is focused on enforcement only. Immigration has been an ongoing crisis the last 20, 25 years. And both sides of the aisle have kicked the can down the road, because they use it as a wedge issue to appeal to their bases, whether on the left or the right. And so Congress has been pretty much missing in action over the past years.

Sometimes a congressman — mostly Republican, but even some Democrats — would say they would support a broader immigration reform; first, they needed to get control of the border.

That was their usual excuse for the past 20 years: Get control of the border first, then we could talk about immigration reform. Well, President Trump has effectively controlled the border. So now it’s time to talk about immigration reform.

There is a proposal in the House by Congresswoman María Elvira Salazar, who is a Republican from Miami. And I will say that’s a good first step at a proposal that would provide a path for legalization for a number of people.

We have a lot of people that are basically in limbo. … If the president wants — as he says he does — to have the most robust economy ever, then you can’t have a robust economy without taking into account the contributions of immigrants to our workforce.

OSV News: You’ve said it’s a matter of human dignity.

Archbishop Wenski: Yes — this is what was so maddening, if you will, about Alligator Alcatraz.

First of all, the name. Second, the jokes that were made by the public officials that visited the place: talking about pythons and alligators as being the security guards of this facility. That kind of joking about another person’s misery is really unbecoming. It forgets that these people that are detained are brothers or sons or fathers of people that are very much in anguish because of what’s happened to their loved ones. At least respect it.

It almost seems like the name of the place — the isolation of the place, the rhetoric around it, the type of cages being used and everything — seems to be wanting to dehumanize the detainees. And certainly that’s not worthy of our country.

And this is another reason why celebrating Mass there is important to us as Catholics, because the Mass is one way of humanizing the detainees. It is also a way of elevating their dignity as children of God. And at the same time, it reminds them that they’re not alone; that God is with them.

OSV News: On the topic of pastoral care for migrants and refugees, there’s the possibility of these detention camps multiplying. Do you think the church needs stronger structures to be able to respond to that at this point?

Archbishop Wenski: It depends on where they put them. Detention camps are sometimes very isolated. It’s hard for lawyers to get to them. It’s also hard for priests to get to them — especially in some parts of the country where you have priests that are taking care of two or three rural parishes already. So, it’s going to be a challenge for us to be present. But we have to try to rise to that challenge as much as we can. ?

OSV News: How would you like to see Catholics mobilized on this?

Archbishop Wenski: The American Catholic should be reminded that the immense majority of people that are here in an unauthorized status are not criminals. They’re not rapists; they’re not murderers; they’re not thieves; they’re not drug dealers, etc. Those bad actors, nobody has a complaint that they’re being removed from the streets. Nobody wants dangerous people on our streets. But the immense majority of immigrants in this country are honest, hard-working people.

You can ask the farmers; you can ask the hotel managers; you can ask those that run nursing homes and health care institutions around the country — and they’ll tell you that their best workers, in many cases, are immigrants. Those are the people that we should advocate for — that there should be a path for them to stay in this country — because they’ve already contributed some sweat equity. They’re contributing to the country. Our country needs their labor, so they should be allowed to stay — and that’s what we should advocate for. I think there’s a lot of people that are open to that argument.

Congress should do something — and Catholics should encourage their congresspeople to intervene, and to provide something more than just an enforcement-only approach to the challenges of immigration.

OSV News: Do you feel that the volume on this issue is where it should be from the church?

Archbishop Wenski: The bishops of the United States have been unanimous, really, in their support of immigrants and immigration reform. We agree on this more than we agree on liturgical issues — and that’s reflected in the votes that have been taken in the bishops’ conference over the years. The bishops understand this issue, and they’re open to it — and sometimes, in some parts of the country, they take a lot of heat for their pro-immigrant stance. The bishops have been doing that, and I expect that they will continue to do it.

I think it’s important that we stay together, and stay united. I think we should not panic, and we should not contribute to a contagion of panic. I don’t think the government at this point is going to invade our churches … churches are private property. For an agent to come on our property to look for somebody — to arrest somebody — they would have to have a warrant, just like they would have to have a warrant to enter your home.

I think that a migrant should continue to come to church, because that’s going to be a source of his spiritual nourishment and strength. There’s probably more risk for him to go to the supermarket than there is to go to church.

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