Cardinal Dolan: "It makes our beloved immigrants political hockey pucks and they shouldn’t be." // DACA .@SIRIUSXM ‏

“Today is the Feast of Saint Teresa of Calcutta, our beloved Mother Teresa, which kind of makes this even more compelling.  This icon of love and compassion…This was President Obama, a good number of years ago, passed this Dream Act that said these immigrants that came here as children would be protected by the law.  Now, a point can made that some people – thoughtfully – they weren’t anti-immigrant but they said, ‘You know what?  That’s Congress’ business.  Mr. President, that’s sure a great decision but, it’s the wrong way to do it.’  That’s one of the openings it gave his successor, President Trump, who you can say, ‘Bravo for trying to correct it and now make sure that it’s done properly but, wrong way.’  …it was the wrong way to do it. Because what he said is, this has stopped.  We are no longer going to accept immigrants who come here as kids.  And as Cardinal Tobin said you’re talking about kids who are fleeing, most of the time, economic hardships, or even religious persecution, or what happened in Central and South America even some retribution in the drug wars.  They came here with their folks, they’re Americans.  They are now in our colleges, they’re now in our parishes, they’re now in our armed forces and they got through – they’re called Dreamers - they got through through what was called DACA and I think Attorney General Sessions announced today that that’s going to be over. Now, it’s not immediately abrupt we have six months from today but, what it does in my mind, Father Dave, it makes our beloved immigrants political hockey puck and they shouldn’t be.  We should all be on their side. The statistics show that way less than 1% of the immigrants are criminals, are drug carriers, are terrorists…way less than 1%.  And to protect the borders from them?  Bravo.  Is that ever essential for a sound and fair government but, to penalize all these wonderful people? It’s certainly not Christian and I would content it’s not American…We are an immigrant church, they come to us first.  The highest percentage of immigrants are, guest what? Catholic and we have special solicitude for them.”