Obama administration using Catholics to house immigrant surge?

The below is an excerpt of a transcript of a call to the Rush Limbaugh show, sent to me by reader MFG.  There are two salient aspects, to me……the hush hush nature of the effort, and the question it raises – is this effort sort of free lance by the USCCB or various dioceses, or is it being done at the behest of the federal government and under heavy pressure?

I don’t know if this is just an errant report, a rare exception, or just the first instance of what will be a major effort by some in the Church to insure these recent immigrants never leave.  At this point, as far as I know, this report is totally unconfirmed, but it is worth sharing, nonetheless:

Ann: Well, we have some interesting news.  My husband Eddie is on the phone with us.  We live in Southern California, and we’re Catholic, active Catholics in our community, and there was a town hall meeting last evening, emergency meeting called by our local parish priest, ordered by our bishop (unintelligible) and the Archdiocese of San Bernardino. They have made the decision that they’re going to absorb the immigrants that are coming through because the federal government called the bishop’s office on Monday and they’re gonna be busing these immigrants to our communities and asking us to open our homes and to house them for up to a month.  The church will reimburse us for any out-of-pocket expenses and we were told not to talk to anybody about it, especially the media.  I’m not especially happy about it.  My husband is a retired doctor, and he will share his concerns with you regarding this matter.  Eddie, do you want to go ahead and talk about your thoughts?

Eddie: ….I’m very concerned about the health care crisis that we’re facing and these illegal aliens that are coming into the United States. Doctors are being asked not to talk to the media, they’re on gag orders, both doctors and nurses, and we got a big problem because there are a lot of diseases that can come through this border bringing all kinds of stuff –.

RUSH:  Eddie, I just read that in some cases the lice are so bad you can see them crawling down the faces of some of the kids.

ANN:  Yeah, the lice won’t kill you, but Ebola will, and so will gonorrhea and there’s syphilis and AIDS and hepatitis and diphtheria and polio, meningitis, and this new coronavirus coming in from the Middle East, so –…….

……RUSH:  Okay, Eddie, I’ll come back to you in just a second, but, Ann, I want to clarify.  Did you say that it is the Catholic Church that the government called and asked for assistance?

ANN:  Yes.

RUSH:  Okay.  And then the Catholic Church accepted and said, “Okay, we will,” at least the Catholic Church in your town.  You haven’t identified where you’re from.

ANN:  Yes.

As far as diseases associated with this mass wave of immigration – for which there is no real justifiable cause, other than the promise of amnesty – there have been reported cases of scabies, tuberculosis, swine flu, chicken pox, MRSA staph, and other diseases.  A Border Patrol union is claiming the federal government has issued a gag order on Border Patrol agents from revealing information on the health problems of incoming immigrants.

There can be reasonable debate regarding immigration policy.  It is not the Catholic Church’s belief that a country must accept every single immigrant demanding entry, no matter how poor, sick, young, violent, whatever.  Countries have a right to control their borders.  Countries have a right to determine,within just limits, the rate of immigration.  But many in the Church (and the hierarchy) in this country pretend that allowing absolutely unconstrained Hispanic (only Hispanic – they’re not so concerned about muslim or animist Africans!) immigration is an absolute moral imperative, and that disagreeing with that pretension is tantamount to sin (which is, in fact, a wicked calumny).

Whether or not the report is accurate, a few questions for you readers: once the illegal immigrants penetrate the border, how should they be dealt with?  Deportation en masse, deportation on an individual, case-by-case basis, placed in camps for processing and entry, simply allowed to roam free…….?  And how should the Church respond to those already here?  Should the position of the hierarchy of welcoming all and allowing all to stay be the default position?  Or is there grounds for a more selective, or even opposing, approach?

For an overview of the very harmful effects of unconstrained illegal immigration, you could read The Immorality of Illegal Immigration by Fr. Patrick Bascio.  One factor Fr. Bascio notes is how often immigration breaks apart families, leaving spouses and children abandoned in the native country.  The immigrants often get involved with other parties once here.  I know of one such case here locally.  A mom left her husband and children in Honduras and has since remarried, at least common-law, since coming here.  But she is not divorced as far as I know.