Posts Tagged ‘illegal immigrants’
Pass the Dream Act, give Luis Luna and 300,000 like him a chance at citizenship. Obama and Gingrich favor, Romney opposes
January 19, 2012
Let Romney lose because his opponent is better, not because of ugly religious bigotry
October 25, 2011
Reasons to vote against Mitt Romney: He’s a liberal trying to look like a conservative. He has no convictions other than a determination to appear what’s necessary to get elected. He’s willing to employ illegal immigrants as long as no one knows about it. He put his pet dog in a cage on the roof of his car and drove 500 miles.
But some people have another reason: He’s a Mormon! And Mormons aren’t Christians. Not really. Mormonism is a cult!
So said Robert Jeffress, a senior pastor at First Baptist Church in Dallas, explaining why Christians should prefer his candidate, Rick Perry, who he introduced at the Values Voter Summit two weeks ago in Washington.
Jeffress and the people who agree with him are repudiating the Constitution of the United States, which says in Article VI, “no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”
Pretty strong statement, using ‘no,’ ‘ever,’ and ‘any’ in one clause. But Jeffress believes that Christians must prefer a Christian to Romney. That’s a religious test. It’s wrong when practiced by Evangelicals opposing Romney for the Republican nomination, and it’ll be just as wrong when liberals use it if and when Romney gets the nomination.
The theological argument over Mormonism as Christianity (more…)
The Phoenix Suns become Los Suns for a day to support Arizona’s Latino community
May 9, 2010
If you’re in business you don’t want to offend your customers. Not even half of them. That’s why you avoid taking a public position on controversial issues. If asked you just say, “I don’t know about that,” or That’s politics, my game is basketball,” or whatever.
So what do you do when you think your state has acted against “our basic principles of equal rights and protection”? If you’re in business in Arizona you keep your mouth shut. Why alienate the 70 percent of Arizonans who favor the state’s new legislation to crack down on illegal immigrants and those who help them or hire them? Or else why alienate the majority of Latinos who despise the new law?
Why? Because you believe in something and you believe it’s your duty to speak up. Robert Sarver, owner of the National Basketball Association’s Phoenix Suns, had his team wear special jerseys emblazoned with Los Suns for the playoff game on May 5, Cinco De Mayo, the day that Mexican Americans celebrate their Mexican heritage.
Amid the rancor over the new law, Sarver said he was taking the controversial action “to honor our Latino community and the diversity of our league, the state of Arizona, and our nation.”
Hooray for Sarver and Los Suns.
Illegal immigrants: Treat them humanely or make their lives miserable?
April 15, 2010Ethics can be
confusing. Like the case of illegal immigration: how do we decide between compassion and legality? {Disclosure: My ideas may be affected by my family experience. My grandparents came here from Russia and Germany in the 1880s, when there was no such thing as illegal immigration. You just had to be free of TB and you were admitted. Had they not been admitted the whole family would likely have been subjected to fierce anti-Semitism, then murdered in the Holocaust.)
The Arizona House of Representatives this week passed America’s toughest state law against illegal immigration. It makes it a crime to lack proper immigration paperwork and requires police, if they suspect someone is in the country illegally, to determine their immigration status. It also bars people from soliciting work as day laborers. Its author, state Sen. Russell Pearce, explains, “When you make life difficult, most will leave on their own.”
I certainly believe in making life difficult for lawbreakers, but there’s serious collateral damage here. What about the “foreign-looking” people who will be challenged to prove their legal status? Like Graciela Beltran of Tucson, who, the Los Angeles Times reports, was asked for immigration papers while boarding a bus. And the other dark-skinned people who will be “profiled.”
And along with the lawbreakers there are innocents, like the U.S.-born children of illegals, who face having their parents deported. Or who face hunger because their fathers can no longer find day work from the Walmart parking lot.
Americans have contributed to the problem by allowing so many to overstay their visas or to enter illegally. Now it seems to me that we have an obligation to be humane in our treatment.
What’s an ethicist to conclude? Let me know your opinion.
