"It is unacceptable that immigrants, including children, are shackled and detained in deplorable conditions. And it is unacceptable that already this year immigrants have died by the dozens in the California desert or in other parts of the Southwest"
About this Quote
Roger Mahony speaks as a moral witness, not a technocrat, and he chooses language that strips away euphemism. Shackled, deplorable, died by the dozens: the repetition of unacceptable insists that these are not policy glitches but violations of human dignity. By foregrounding children, he forces readers to reckon with the human stakes of detention and enforcement, pressing beyond legal status to the ethical claim every person carries simply by being human.
The geography he names matters. The California desert and the wider Southwest became deadlier corridors after deterrence policies funneled crossings into remote terrain. Strategies like Operation Gatekeeper in the 1990s did not stop migration so much as reroute it into harsher, more lethal paths. Mahony points to the moral cost of that calculus: a society cannot outsource death to the desert and call itself just. His emphasis on conditions inside detention and deaths outside the fence frames a system whose harms are comprehensive, from the chain on the wrist to the skull in the sand.
As the longtime archbishop of Los Angeles, a city shaped by migration, Mahony drew from Catholic social teaching on the inviolable dignity of the person and the duty of solidarity. His voice rose during the mid-2000s battles over criminalization proposals like HR 4437, when he even pledged civil disobedience rather than comply with laws that would punish ministries for aiding the undocumented. The moral throughline is clear: enforcement that dehumanizes is illegitimate, no matter its statutory veneer.
Implicit is a call for alternatives grounded in hospitality and realism: orderly legal pathways, humane processing, community-based supervision instead of incarceration, and cross-border cooperation to address root causes. But his primary move is simpler and sharper. Before arguing reforms, he draws a red line. A decent society does not shackle children, and it does not accept a border regime that turns the desert into a graveyard.
The geography he names matters. The California desert and the wider Southwest became deadlier corridors after deterrence policies funneled crossings into remote terrain. Strategies like Operation Gatekeeper in the 1990s did not stop migration so much as reroute it into harsher, more lethal paths. Mahony points to the moral cost of that calculus: a society cannot outsource death to the desert and call itself just. His emphasis on conditions inside detention and deaths outside the fence frames a system whose harms are comprehensive, from the chain on the wrist to the skull in the sand.
As the longtime archbishop of Los Angeles, a city shaped by migration, Mahony drew from Catholic social teaching on the inviolable dignity of the person and the duty of solidarity. His voice rose during the mid-2000s battles over criminalization proposals like HR 4437, when he even pledged civil disobedience rather than comply with laws that would punish ministries for aiding the undocumented. The moral throughline is clear: enforcement that dehumanizes is illegitimate, no matter its statutory veneer.
Implicit is a call for alternatives grounded in hospitality and realism: orderly legal pathways, humane processing, community-based supervision instead of incarceration, and cross-border cooperation to address root causes. But his primary move is simpler and sharper. Before arguing reforms, he draws a red line. A decent society does not shackle children, and it does not accept a border regime that turns the desert into a graveyard.
Quote Details
| Topic | Human Rights |
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