It isn’t just the Catholic church hoping to repopulate its pews with immigrant children.
Hugh Hewitt went public with his very strong support for the churches of America (he specifically mentioned Rick Warren on his show) to aggressively provide refuge for the children and an expedited process for adoption and granting them American citizenship.
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/07/make-the-border-kids-americans-109045.html
This mirrors Michael Medved’s long standing support for unlimited immigration and Glenn Beck’s recent flip – Mormons could use some new young people, too
So what is the “Conservative” position?
The conservative position is unknown. The children are being used as pawns in a grand political scheme. If you say anything about sending them home without citizenship, you will be branded a “hate monger” and “racist” and probably a “homophobe” for good measure. I fear they have created a situation where one cannot really address the issue in any way without being castigated.
The angle that Hewitt seems to be pushing is that by stating that if your child comes across the border, we’re going to take away your parental rights and treat your child as a runaway and you will lose your child, rather than your child is a “get into the US free” pass for the parents.
I would take it one step further – I would send a message to the people in Central and South America that if we pick up your children at the border, they will spend the rest of their lives working in forced labor camps picking lettuce in California until they can earn the money to buy a plane ticket home. See how fast this stops.
The other half of Hewitt’s proposal is to allow children to join their parents who came into the country first, presumably to temporarily work – without investigating the immigration status instead of throwing both of them out of the country.
How about we set up a Red Cross refugee camp on the border and have the US customs turn away the children and dump them in the refugee camp until somebody comes to get them.