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Peter King: Immigration Bill Wouldn't Hurt Church
Rep. Peter King, R-NY, said Sunday that the immigration reform bill that he's co-sponsoring with Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wisc., would have no impact whatsoever on Catholic Church programs that minister to illegal immigrants. "There's absolutely nothing in this bill that is going to put at risk any nun or priest or social worker or social agency," King told WABC Radio's "Religion on the Line." "There's been language in our law for over 50 years saying it's wrong to aid and abet or encourage illegal immigrants to come into the country or stay in the country," King said. "And that's aimed solely at alien smuggling gangs. No one has ever, ever gone after any church or religious organization for that. And we've told that to the Catholic Conference." The New York Republican said he was particularly disappointed that his bill has been distorted by Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahoney.
Story Continues Below Citing what he called "increasing hostility toward immigrants," Cardinal Mahoney instructed the priests of his archdiocese last month to disobey the proposed law if it passes, saying it violated their obligation to the law of God. Last week Sen. Hillary Clinton picked up the cardinal's theme, saying the Sensenbrenner-King bill would "literally criminalize the Good Samaritan and probably even Jesus himself." King fired back on Sunday, telling WABC: "I'd actually be curious to know what Jesus's position - how close that would be to Hillary's on abortion. But that's another story." King blamed Democrats for another explosive aspect of the bill - a measure that would ratchet up the crime of illegal immigration from misdemeanor to felony status. "There is a provision in the bill that makes it a felony to overstay your visa. But the reason for that is, 191 [House] Democrats voted to keep it that way. "Jim Sensenbrenner and I introduced an amendment on the House floor to make it a misdemeanor," King explained. "And the Democrats - I assume for political reasons, so they could claim later on that we wanted call these people to be felons - they voted to keep it a felony." King said that only 60 House Republicans voted with the nearly 200 Democrats to keep the felony provision. Just 20 Democrats voted with 165 Republicans to reduce the crime to misdemeanor status. King said it's important to have some criminal status attached to illegal immigration to give law enforcement the power to detain suspected terrorists who may be in the country illegally. "Keep in mind how many of the 19 [9/11] hijackers had overstayed their visa," he reminded. King said that the House bill deals primarily with border enforcement - and that details about how to handle illegal immigrants already in the country would be worked out with the Senate when the bill goes to conference. "Obviously we're not going to try to deport eleven-and-a-half million people," he said. "On the other hand, after Sept. 11 things changed in that we found out that al Qaida and others were using illegal immigration as a way to get people into the country and keep them here. And the immigration authorities have told us that they can't monitor the al Qaida types when you have so many other illegals coming in." Editor's note:
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