Roger Mahony Quotes
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.
Mahony, Roger. You Welcomed Me: A Pastoral Letter on Immigration. Archdiocese of Los Angeles, 2000.
The United States policies at the time encouraged tens of thousands of foreigners to study in America—especially mathematics, science and engineering. Then after they graduate we expel them despite the fact that we have a great labor shortage of these technical skill areas. The result is that the American economy lags in one of its most important areas, high technology for lack of qualified people to fill the jobs. Larger American companies then set up operations overseas and hire many of the people who we kicked out, so they do not pay any taxes to America. The best and most ambitious of these American trained foreigners, then start their own businesses abroad, create many jobs that never benefit Americans and then sell to America competing with American firms. New York City alone had tens of thousands of open jobs at very high salaries for which there were no Americans to fill while the New York schools had trained enough foreigners to fill the jobs, but our national policies forced the best and the brightest to leave and compete with us.
She was very conflicted about the interment of Americans of Japanese origin. She understood the arguments for the internment and some had some merit for her. But she was opposed to the internment from the beginning. However, she frequently discussed this issue privately with FDR. She consulted with the judges who dissented in the law suits and presented their arguments to her husband. She visited some of the internment camps and maintained a correspondent with some of the interned Japanese American leaders. Earlier, once FDR signed the internment executive order, she maintained a public silence on the issue until 1944 when she publicly broke with her husband on this issue. (While that may be shocking to us today—for a first lady to publicly disagree with the President—for Mrs. Roosevelt, it was not unusual and was not the scandal that it might be today. Throughout her over 3 terms as First Lady, she wrote a daily newspaper column and did a weekly radio show for much of the period.
Roger Michael Cardinal Mahony KGCHS is an American cardinal and retired prelate of the Roman Catholic Church who served as Archbishop of Los Angeles from 1985 to 2011. Before his appointment as Los Angeles archbishop, he served as Auxiliary Bishop of Fresno from 1975 to 1980 and as Bishop of Stockton from 1980 to 1985. Mahony played an instrumental part in covering up the sexual abuse of many young people within the Church.
