USA Today
By Erin Kelly
August 25, 2015
In
the first-ever papal address to Congress next month, Pope Francis is
expected to exhort lawmakers to open America's doors to struggling
immigrants rather than build
bigger fences to keep them out.
The
unprecedented speech to American lawmakers comes as Donald Trump sits
atop GOP presidential polls while arguing for a wall along the border to
keep “killers and rapists”
from entering the country and Republican members of Congress seek to
overturn President Obama's executive orders granting legal status to
millions of undocumented immigrants.
USA TODAY
Pope Francis to address Congress
Political
analysts say the pope has the potential to have a much greater impact
on the debate than a typical head of state. The pope's visit is expected
to be viewed by
millions of Americans, including thousands watching him live on
Jumbotrons placed on the West Front of the Capitol. His visit has set
off a scramble for tickets for coveted viewing spots on the Capitol lawn
to see the pontiff when he emerges on a balcony after
the speech.
USA TODAY
Pope's Congress address to be broadcast on the West Front of Capitol
"People
really like him, even if they're not Catholic," said Enrique Pumar, who
chairs the sociology department at the Catholic University of America.
"They like his charisma,
his humility. He's not coming here to ask for a favor like a trade pact
or U.S. investment in the Vatican. He's advocating for compassion, for
principles and values, and that tends to carry more weight."
Pope
Francis was viewed favorably by nearly 60% of Americans in a Gallup
poll in July and by 70% of Americans in a Pew Research Center poll taken
earlier in the spring.
Those are higher marks than President Obama receives and significantly
better than those of Congress, which had just a 14% approval rating in a
Gallup poll earlier this month.
The
pope will not bring a specific legislative proposal on immigration to
Congress, but will instead emphasize the need to treat immigrants with
dignity, said John Carr,
director of the Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life
at Georgetown University. Nearly a third of the lawmakers listening to
him — 26 senators and 138 House members — are Catholic, according to the
Congressional Research Service.
“This
is a very cynical town," Carr said. "Washington worries about people
with the most money and the most power. Immigrants don't have either. I
think the pope will
appeal to our hearts and souls and not to our polls or our politics."
Members
of Congress will receive that message respectfully but won't be swayed
when it comes to actual policy, predicted Mark Krikorian, executive
director of the Center
for Immigration Studies, which opposes most efforts to offer a pathway to citizenship to undocumented immigrants.
In
the last Congress, the Senate passed a sweeping, bipartisan immigration
bill that would have offered earned citizenship for many of the 11
million undocumented immigrants
living in the U.S., overhauled the visa system for legal immigrants,
and beefed-up border security. The bill died in the House.
This
Congress has taken a much harder line on immigration, threatening
earlier this year to cut off funding to the Department of Homeland
Security unless Obama's programs
to stop the deportation of some undocumented parents and their children
were overturned.
“They
(members of Congress) are going to politely let the pope's comments
disperse into the ether and then go ahead and do what they were going to
do anyway," Krikorian
said, adding there would be "a lot of huffing and puffing" from
pro-immigration groups.
However, Krikorian said, "I don't see it as having any lasting impact."
Even
if Congress isn't swayed, the pope's visit could help mobilize
immigrant rights groups that have been demoralized by inaction in
Washington, Pumar said.
"There
will be energized people left behind after he leaves that will be
advocating for the same things and continuing his work," Pumar said.
Sen.
Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., a Catholic who is the descendant of Irish and
Italian immigrants, said he would like to see the pope's visit spark
renewed interest in the immigration
bill that he helped guide through the Senate in 2013. Failing that, he
hopes that the pope's address will at least change what he called the
"mean-spirited" tone of the current immigration debate.
"The
xenophobic meanness that is coming through in some of the debate is
hurting our country," said Leahy, the senior Democrat on the Senate
Judiciary Committee, which
oversees immigration policy. "We're not a nation founded on the idea
that, 'We've got ours, now nobody else can have it.' I hope this will
either force people to stop that or make them realize that it's harmful
to everybody and is hurting our image across
the world."
Pumar
said the pope's visit "isn't going to solve the immigration problem"
but could lay the foundation for "people to talk and disagree with more
civility and respect."
"That would be a huge improvement over what we have today," he said.
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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