Thousands of people and hundreds of religious leaders have loudly voiced their displeasure about a House-passed immigration bill with large rallies in various parts of the country during March.

The bill would stiffen penalties for undocumented immigrants and their employers, and Cardinal Roger M. Mahony of Los Angeles has said church and charitable organizations would be subject to prosecution if they aid immigrants.

Some 20,000 people, many of them Spanish-speaking immigrants, participated in a large rally March 7 outside the Capitol in Washington, D.C.

Father Jose Hoyos, head of the Spanish apostolate for the Diocese of Arlington, Va., drew sustained cheers from the crowd when, at an interfaith prayer service that was part of the rally, he said, “I want to pray for all the representatives and the senators and the president of the United States, because they have become atheists — because if they were Christians they would not pass this kind of law.”

The bill, the Border Protection, Anti-Terrorism and Illegal Immigration Control Act, sponsored by Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., passed the House Dec. 16 by a vote of 239-182. The bill would make people in the United States without documents felons and make those who help them — doctors, lawyers, food pantry workers or priests — criminals for “aiding and abetting” them.

The day of the Capitol rally the Senate Judiciary Committee began consideration of an immigration bill drafted by Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., committee chairman.

It includes provisions to criminalize violations of immigration law, including the act of providing aid to illegal immigrants; would make it harder for legal immigrants to become citizens; and would penalize state and local governments that do not pointedly enforce immigration laws, currently only a responsibility of federal agencies. It would eliminate a visa lottery program that allows up to 50,000 people a year from certain countries to enter the United States legally and would build 700 miles of new fence along the 2,000-mile border with Mexico.

The bill also would expand the employment authorization verification program, but not replace what many say is a flawed database currently used by employers for checking documents.

The National Capital Immigration Coalition sponsored the rally. “Neither Sensenbrenner’s bill nor Specter’s markup is a solution to our immigration problem,” said coalition chairman Jaime Contreras in a bilingual address at the rally. “In fact, their proposal will only create more problems instead of fixing them.”

“What we need is real, comprehensive immigration reform,” he said, touting the Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act, co-sponsored by Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., as the preferred alternative.

The McCain-Kennedy bill includes provisions for border security, temporary worker visas and family reunification. It would require efforts by foreign countries to help control the flow of emigrants, cover the costs borne by hospitals that provide emergency care for undocumented immigrants, promote citizenship, and take various steps to prevent fraud.

In Chicago March 13, a crowd estimated at 100,000 people joined in an immigration rights march and rally, joining Chicago-area priests who have committed themselves to work for just immigration reform this spring.

“Humane” reform, as defined by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, would unify rather than divide families, create a workable system for people to cross the border for jobs and forge a path to legal permanent residency, said Elena Segura of the Chicago archdiocesan Office for Justice and Peace.

Segura is spearheading the archdiocese’s campaign for immigration reform in conjunction with the Justice for Immigrants: A Journey of Hope campaign, launched last May by the U.S. bishops and other Catholic organizations. The campaign aims to increase awareness about immigration issues and challenge President George W. Bush and Congress to adopt compassionate immigration reform laws.

The rallies come on the heels of a Lenten week call to his flock by Cardinal Mahony, to pray for tolerant and humane immigration reform. In a Lenten message and in pre-Lenten newspaper interviews, he lashed out at anti-immigrant feelings in the United States and asked Catholics to dedicate their Lenten prayers and practices to helping immigrants.

He also said that archdiocesan priests and pastoral workers are going to continue offering services to people in the country illegally even if such efforts are outlawed.

In interviews with the Los Angeles Times and The Tidings, the archdiocesan newspaper, the cardinal harshly criticized the House legislation that emphasizes enforcement measures against people who are in the country illegally. He called Sensenbrenner’s measure, which would penalize people who aid illegal immigrants, a “blameful, vicious” bill.

“Anyone who does anything for someone here who doesn’t have documents would be a felon under this bill,” the cardinal told The Tidings.

“And it targets everybody, churches included. So on its face value, it means that anyone coming for Communion or baptism or to be married, I should stop and ask to see their legal papers,” he said in an interview that appeared in the Feb. 17 issue of The Tidings.

“That’s absurd, and we’re not going to do it — even if Congress says we have to. We’re not going to be immigration officers. Our role is spiritual and pastoral, and that’s going to prevail. But the foolishness of this whole out-of-control thought process is just astounding,” he said.

In a Feb. 28 interview with the Los Angeles Times, Cardinal Mahony said there is a “hysterical” anti-immigrant attitude sweeping the country spurred by security fears in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the U.S.

The cardinal criticized the Minuteman Project, a private group that tries to police portions of the U.S.-Mexican border, as undertaking a misguided approach to security concerns.

“The war on terror isn’t going to be won through immigration restrictions,” he told the Times, because terrorists are not going to walk through long stretches of desert to sneak into the U.S.

Cardinal Mahony told The Tidings that security concerns have caused people to look for a scapegoat in illegal immigrants because they often cannot fight back.

California’s limping economy is also fueling anti-immigrant sentiment locally, he added.

Anti-immigrant feelings would not have risen to such a fever pitch on radio talk shows and in legislative halls if families were not struggling to make ends meet, he said.

Hostility also greeted other waves of immigrants to the U.S., such as the influx of Italians and Irish at the turn of the 20th century, said the cardinal.

“Sometimes we romanticize early immigration in this country as if it were all very peaceful, and everybody was very happy to see the Italians and Irish come,” he said. “But it was the same reaction as now.”

The cardinal noted that members of immigrant families are often among those critical of new immigrants.

“Strangely, there’s a phenomenon that for some reason many immigrants, when they come here and get settled, slam the door behind them,” he noted. “And everybody else who wants to come after them now is an outsider.”

The Catholic message regarding the welcoming of strangers often appears countercultural, he said.

God wants Catholics “to see in others the face of Christ — not to see a threat or an alien,” he said.

“That’s why it’s a hard pill to swallow for some people, including Catholics. It’s because we’re focused on what we perceive to be a threat,” he said.

Others oppose the church’s approach because they believe it helps immigrants get benefits that they did not earn, he said.

“But there are a lot of things in the Gospels and Jesus’ teaching that people don’t agree with,” he observed. “And so, we have to just constantly bring it up.”

Dozens of Bay Area religious leaders gathered on the steps of the Mission Church at Santa Clara University March 14 to denounce the provisions of proposed immigration legislation in Congress.

“There is a hew and cry from the religious community on this,” said the Rev. Carol Been, a Lutheran minister and director of the Interfaith Council on Religion, Race, Economic and Social Justice. “It’s a moral issue,” she said.

Jesuit Father Paul Locatelli, president of Santa Clara University, said the House bill is “a revival of nativist sentiment born of fear like the 19th century when ‘No Irish need apply’ for employment.”

“When the bill criminalizes — by prosecution, fines and possible imprisonment — organizations and individuals who assist undocumented persons, it strikes at the heart of the mandate to feed the hungry and comfort the victims of injustice,” he said.

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