Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahoney says laws that enforce legal immigration like the one just passed in Arizona are similar to techniques used by Nazis and Communists.
What a disgrace.
The LA Times reported:
Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony lambasted legislation passed Monday by Arizona lawmakers that would crack down on illegal immigrants, likening it to “German Nazi and Russian Communist techniques” that compelled people to turn each other in.
“The Arizona legislature just passed the country’s most retrogressive, mean-spirited, and useless anti-immigrant law,” he wrote on his blog. “The tragedy of the law is its totally flawed reasoning: that immigrants come to our country to rob, plunder, and consume public resources. That is not only false, the premise is nonsense.”
Mahony is the head of the nation’s largest Roman Catholic archdiocese and a powerful, influential voice among Catholics and others nationwide. His comments are the highest-level statement from the Catholic hierarchy on the Arizona legislation. The Los Angeles archdiocese is nearly 70% Latino.
The Arizona legislation, which has yet to be signed by Gov. Jan Brewer, would make it a crime to be in the state illegally and require law enforcement officers to check the legal status of those they suspect are undocumented. The legislation would also bar people from soliciting work or hiring workers under certain circumstances, a provision aimed at the day-labor trade.