Bill Press writes:

It’s one thing when an average citizen defies the law. It’s another when a Cardinal of the Catholic Church orders all priests of his archdiocese to defy the law. But that’s exactly what Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles did. And he’s right.
Mahony was reacting to a draconian bill passed by the House of Representatives that would require churches and other social organizations to ask immigrants for legal documentation before helping them with social services. If it becomes law, in other words, the bill would turn churches into an arm of the federal government.
Can you think of anything more anti-American? This is the ultimate test of the relationship between church and state. . . . Can you think of anything more anti-Christian?

Some conservatives have criticized Mahony by taking up the question of when churches may legitimately defy the law. But there’s another issue here: Are Press and Mahony reading the House bill correctly? I think they aren’t.

That bill contains a few provisions that read like this one: “Whoever assists, encourages, directs, or induces a person to reside in or remain in the United States, or to attempt to reside in or remain in the United States, knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that such person is an alien who lacks lawful authority to reside in or remain in the United States, shall be punished as provided [elsewhere in the bill].”

So does providing food to someone who may be an illegal immigrant amount to “assist[ing]” or “encourag[ing]” him to “remain in the United States”? Does it amount to doing so “in reckless disregard” of his illegal status? Does it amount–I’m quoting from another section of the bill now–to “harbor[ing], conceal[ing], or shield[ing] from detection” an illegal alien, again in reckless disregard of his status?

It seems like a stretch. Letting someone into your soup kitchen doesn’t amount to harboring him. Besides, existing law already contains broad provisions of the sort that Press and Mahony are objecting to.

Here’s a snippet from current law:

Any person who, knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that an alien has come to, entered, or remains in the United States in violation of law, conceals, harbors, or shields from detection, or attempts to conceal, harbor, or shield from detection, such alien in any place, including any building or any means of transportation, shall be punished as provided. . .

Such provisions have not, to my knowledge, been held to apply to the delivery of social services. They have been applied against smugglers and human traffickers.

The bill’s proponents don’t seem to want to do the things that the critics say they are doing. It might be a good idea to add an amendment, before the bill passes, to make it crystal clear that the bill would not lead to Mahony’s scenario.