Religion & Law

My sense is that most of us here at MOJ are (at least) uneasy about Arizona's new immigration law.  During a conversation with a friend (a Catholic who is a bit to the left of me politically), we spent some time thinking about this challenging question:  For those of us who think that this is not the way to proceed, but who also think (as I do) that it is entirely reasonable for (a) a political community to care about securing its borders and regularizing immigration and (b) border states like Arizona to be upset that they are being asked to bear a disproportionate share of the costs and burdens (the many benefits that come with immigration are spread more diffusely, I think) associated with illegal immigration . . . what should be done?  How can the costs and burdens be reduced and spread?  How can the benefits still be obtained (and justice done) while also respecting (a), above?

Christopher Tollefsen has this interesting piece, "Immigration and Self-Governance", up over at Pubilc Discourse.  He contends that "three issues?the right to secure borders, the moral costs of illegal immigration, and the virtues of generous neighborliness and forgiveness?must be clarified in order to address the problems of immigration reform."  With respect to the "virtue of generous forgiveness," he concludes:

We are . . . a prosperous and peaceful country; we make few demands of our citizens for personal sacrifice, and few of us know true want or desperation. Our form of self-governance?the way in which we determine what kind of a people we are to be?can take the shape of a willingness to forgive, as a society, the actions of our neighbors which were taken under duress and for generally noble motives, such as the desire to care for a family. This virtue prompts support for a general amnesty policy and perhaps a fast track to citizenship for some?not as an isolated act, to be repeated serially every ten or twenty years, but in conjunction with the meeting of our obligations as regards illegal immigration. . . .

Thoughts?