Dioceses Value Illegal Immigrants Over Child Safety

I was frankly rather stunned this morning to read that the Roman Catholic Dioceses of Los Angeles and Orange Counties are not requiring illegal immigrants who do volunteer work with children to submit to fingerprinting and criminal background checks.

The Justice Department cannot do fingerprint background checks without a valid government-issued photo ID. Illegal immigrants, of course, do not have any identification issued by our government, and the Justice Department correctly refuses to accept Mexico's "matricula consular" cards, which are frequently fraudulent, as identification.

The dioceses amazingly place the blame on our government, not the illegal immigrants. The Bishop of Orange County, Jaime Soto, complains "the [Justice Department] has made it impractical, if not impossible, for all our volunteers to comply."

Let me get this straight: it's not the fault of those who entered this country illegally that they don't have proper identification, it's the fault of the government for not being willing to check them without it!

Rather than turning the volunteers away, they are being allowed to work with the children anyway (supposedly under supervision, but it's not clear what that entails).

Bishop Soto said: "We are doing this because these people want to participate, they want to serve their church and we want to welcome them." Apparently at the expense of the safety of the youngest and most vulnerable members of the church.

Given the problematic history of these two dioceses with regard to child safety and molestation, it's all the more mind-boggling that illegal immigrants are being given a "free pass" to work directly with children without being screened first.