Immigration issue is focus of forum with Bishop Wester

Intermountain Catholic

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Bishop John C. Wester shares a laugh with Paul T. Mero (left), president of the Sutherland Institute, and Brett Tolman (right), a former U.S. attorney for the District of Utah, during the June 24 forum on immigration at the institute.

SALT LAKE CITY -Many of those who cross illegally into the United States do so purely to survive, and "people in the state that have strong feelings against immigration, they don't want to hear that; they don't want to see the human side," said Brett Tolman, who served as the United States attorney for the District of Utah from July 2006 to December 2009.

At the same time, those who oppose illegal immigrants like their hair dresser or their gardener, who may be in the country illegally, he added. "There's a double standard."

This human aspect of the illegal immigration debate is precisely why religions such as the Roman Catholic Church are involved with the debate, said the Most Rev. John C. Wester, bishop of the Diocese of Salt Lake City. "We see this as a moral question ... not simply as a political question," he said. "It doesn't exclude the place of the law but the focus should be on the whole person."

Although the attorney was known for aggressively prosecuting illegal immigrants who commit crimes, and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops is calling for consideration of the human side of the immigration debate, Bishop Wester and Tolman concurred on many issues during the "Our Undocumented Neighbors: What the Conversation Should Be About" forum hosted June 24 by the Sutherland Institute's Center for Family and Society.

The Sutherland Institute is a conservative nonprofit think tank based in Salt Lake City.

The vast majority of illegal immigrants Tolman has met are hard working and family oriented, he said. "Many of them are trying to become legal. And they're not criminals. I think there's a human side that is often left out of the equation."

Tolman's 7-year-old son recently told him that he'd heard at school that all Hispanics were illegal, and asked if we should be turning them in, he said. "There's an absence of real meaningful thought on this issue. The state is not being overrun or attacked by brown-skinned people," although Utah legislators will need to address how resources such as jail capacity are handled, he said.

In the next session, the Utah legislature likely will consider an immigration law similar to Arizona's SB1070, which among other provisions requires law enforcement officials to fully comply with and assist in the enforcement of federal immigration law.

Both the bishop and Tolman decry the Arizona legislation.

"In a nutshell, I'm not too keen on SB1070," Bishop Wester said. "It pushes people into the shadows, and that's not the kind of legislation that I think is good law."

Such legislation poses constitutional issues, Tolman said. "Are we willing to really sacrifice some of our fundamental legal foundation in order to address this very difficult issue? ... When you pass a law like that you are sending a message that individuals who have that skin color, or that may be illegal, are ... inferior," he said. "I think that's a very dangerous precedent to be set."

The federal government - not each individual state - must address the issue of immigration, they agreed.

"As long as it is not accomplished, then you will continue to see states taking the matter up themselves and you will see disparity in how it's treated," Tolman said.

While the Church acknowledges the nation's right and duty to enforce immigration laws, "for us, on a deeper level, it's not so much people breaking the law but the law breaking people," Bishop Wester said. "We need to look at our legal system and improve it in such a way that our country will benefit and those coming to our shores will benefit."

The forum is available on You Tube, browse for Sutherland Institute.