Immigration is often framed in terms of crisis management, rather than by addressing underlying economic,...

I met Pedro and Juanita soon after I arrived at my new assignment as pastor of their parish. Like many (if not most) of the Mexican people who made up the growing majority of the parish, these two people were undocumented. They were unable to get driver’s licenses, or government help, or an income tax return, even though they were both working at factories and money was being taken out of their check each week. They also had a daughter who was a United States citizen. We were talking about the need for a change in our government’s immigration laws so that good, law-abiding people like Juanita and Pedro would not have to live in the shadows or keep looking over their shoulder every time they left home. And I’ll never forget what they told me at the end of our conversation, trying to calm my fears for them: “Don’t worry, Father, if nothing happens, we can just wait until our daughter turns twenty-one and then she can fix our papers.” Their daughter was three!