From the Houston Chronicle:

In arguments rich in biblical allusion, church and social activists Monday took aim at the nation's immigration policies — laws they contended split families, criminalize undocumented workers and undercut America's reverential self-image as a land of opportunity.

"There are 200 million migrants," Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of the Catholic Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston told those gathered for The Metropolitan Organization's Clergy Summit: Welcoming the Stranger and Immigration Reform. "War, famine, economic collapse drive them, and it's unstoppable. In our own country, 12 million undocumented people work and live in the shadows."

Borrowing language from a 2002 Catholic Conference of Bishops policy statement, DiNardo called for legalization of undocumented workers already in the country.

I’ve written many times about this issue. I disagree with most of my conservative brethen that deportation is the answer to our illegal immigration problems. We looked the other way for decades in this country and were happy to have the cheap labor that came with illegal immigration. Now that problems arise with this many illegals in our country, we want them to leave. It’s not right.

Republicans lost the gains this election that President Bush made with Hispanics and one of those reasons was the Republican’s stance on this issue. The irony is that John McCain was on the side of immigration reform with a pathway to citizenship, one of the reasons that many Republicans were so angry with him. But the image of Republicans being against any kind of immigration reform stuck in the Hispanic community.

Many Republicans refuse to listen to the other side. This is more complicated and divisive than we imagine. We must listen to those who say that deporting those who have lived here their whole adult lives will tear families apart. These were people looking for a better life and we allowed them to work here for decades. They have families now. Their children are citizens and we imagine that we can just deport their parents? This is at the heart of what Cardinal Daniel Di Nardo was saying.

It’s time for Republicans to compromise. We must move forward and to do that we need to provide a way for those living here not to "live in the shadows." If they have to go to the back of the line, so to speak, so be it. I think they will be happy to. Guest worker programs are not wrong. In 2004 President Bush offered a guest worker program. I have never understood the backlash against it. It was fair and would have begun to solve this tense issue.

He proposed first securing the borders, something most of us agree on. He promised no unfair advantage or rewards to illegal immigrants in the citizenship process. He wanted to provide incentives for temporary workers to return permanently to their home country. Thos who participate must have a job or job offer. The program would have been for three years and renewable, but would have had an end. If immigrants did not remain employed or follow the rules they would have been required to return home. Employers would have bee required to keep track of their guest workers. President Bush would have required tough penalites for employers hiring undocumented workers. The immigrant would be allowed to travel back and forth to their home country to here. There were many other elements including financial incentives and savings accounts to encourage immigrants to return to their own country when their temporary status expired. If they wish to become citizens they would not be given unfair advantage but follow the legal procedures from the start.

Maybe it wasn’t perfect, but Republicans were having none of it. We paid the price at the voting booth this year and we will continue to pay the price with the Hispanic community if we don’t understand this issue better and come up with a more compassionate solution than deporting 12 million illegal immigrants.