The Right to Migrate: A Reflection on Immigration and Catholic Social Teaching

In recent years much of the discussion and debate about immigration in the United States, as well as around the world, has equated immigration to risk. One version of this association, drawing on notions of sovereignty, national security and citizenship, portrays immigrants as a risk to society -- troublesome strangers, at best, a dangerous and expendable commodity, at worst.  The narrative of immigrants as a risk has drawn an increasingly vocal if not militant following in recent years and fueled a rash of harsh immigration measures in countries around the world. In the United States it has rendered even moderate talk of immigration reform a political Achilles heel and allowed for voices calling for the expulsion of those already here and the fencing out of those who might come to gain traction in the media and popular culture. Another narrative, to be sure, has begun to surface. Turning the onus of the relation between risk and immigration on its head, it portrays immigrants as people at risk, casualties of the nation-state and the predatory nature of modern capitalism. It alerts us, on the one hand, to the suffering of those who leave their homes for life in another country.