Mary Sanchez: Bush wasted an opportunity on immigration

By Mary Sanchez, Kansas City Star Editorial Board

Both men proclaim a reverence to God. Both avow that faith is their guiding principle and stress the duty to follow the tenets of religion.

Pope Benedict XVI in his actions seems to bear that out. As for George W. Bush, I’m beginning to have my doubts.

They met recently in the Oval Office, the pope and the president, during Benedict’s historic visit to the United States.

As a matter of protocol, they released a joint statement. It read, in part: “The Holy Father and the president also considered the situation in Latin America with reference, among other matters, to immigrants, and the need for a coordinated policy regarding immigration, especially their humane treatment and the well being of their families.”

The same day, immigration agents raided Pilgrim’s Pride poultry plants in five states and the homes of immigrant workers. They rounded up about 400 people for working in this country illegally. The arrests in some cases left children without their parents.

So much for humane treatment and the well being of families.

Pilgrim’s Pride is the nation’s largest chicken supplier, with operations in 18 states. It uses the federal government system to check the validity of its workers’ documents. It’s a verification system that the government admits is flawed, especially in its inability to track stolen IDs.

Yet companies that use it can escape federal fines, often by offering up workers for capture. The only ones who tend to suffer from immigration enforcement, in other words, are the immigrants themselves, not the companies that benefit from their low-wage labor.

What is frustrating is that Bush grasps the issue of immigration as no other president has in recent history. His family background and his years as the governor of Texas prepared him to be the right president at the right time to address illegal immigration.

He regularly speaks eloquently on the topic, conveying the sense that he understands how illegal immigration affects the country’s economic and security needs, but also that America has a humanitarian role to play.

Yet Bush’s actions speak louder than his words. Good works please God — not simply prayers or Oval office decrees.

If Bush needs some examples of humanity in action, he might seek the input of judges who must peer into the eyes of these workers. In Little Rock, Ark., U.S. attorney Jane Duke declined to pursue jail time in addition to deportation for the immigrants caught at a Pilgrim’s Pride plant, noting that they were “otherwise law-abiding citizens.”

Arkansas Magistrate Judge Beth Deere was especially mindful of the children. She pressed the detained parents to admit if they had children left at home. Often they will not.

That’s an indication of how desperate some parents are: They will at least temporarily give up their right to be with their own children, in the hope that somehow the little ones will be able to stay in the United States.

It’s a horrible situation, and immigrants surely bear responsibility for not honoring U.S. law. Yet equally culpable is our government and industry. Our visa system is not geared to meeting our labor needs. We need low-wage immigrant labor, and immigrants need the work. We don’t offer them enough visas, yet, as a nation, we still continue to find plenty of ways to benefit economically from their labor.

That is not exactly moral. Nor is it good for the nation’s security. We can’t check the identities of people we do not know are here. And, with increasing frequency, immigrants turn to identity theft of U.S. citizens to secure work documentation. Nor can we monitor and control the extent to which immigrants are displacing U.S. workers or affecting their wages negatively.

President Bush has wasted an opportunity to resolve a pressing national problem with courage and humanity. Instead, he warmly greeted one of the world’s moral leaders and even sermonized about treating immigrants with dignity and respect, while taxpayer money was being spent on a roundup program that did exactly the opposite.

What a cruel way to run a nation. No, it is worse. It’s sinful.

To reach Mary Sanchez, call 816-234-4752 or send e-mail to msanchez@kcstar.com.