One of the biggest hot button issues throughout the course of the twenty twenty four election, and it's become the biggest issue, perhaps the biggest issue. One of the biggest issues in the first days of the new Trump administration is that of immigration, immigration enforcement, and there have been questions and concerns about some of the ethical issues involved
surrounding the enforcement of immigration law. Joining me to discuss those issues for the first half of the show is the Bishop of the Roman Catholicics of Fresno, Bishop Joseph Brennan. Bishop Brennan, Welcome to the John Girardi Show.
John, good to see you again. Thank you.
Yeah, well, it's always good to have you on.
You made a few headlines just about three weeks or so ago when you had an opbed that was published by the Fresno b and a couple of other local news outlets, and it was with regards to some immigration enforcement efforts that were taking place in the San Joaquin Valley, and you had some concerns about wanting to, you know, safeguard the legitimate rights of immigrants who are here in the valley. Since then, a lot of immigration law and
immigration enforcement water has flown flowed under the bridge. I
mean that was that was pre Trump inauguration. So basically I wanted I thought it would be an interesting thing for the show to have you on to discuss sort of your view as a pastor who has you know, members of your congregation who are directly caught up in immigration issues, and sort of to talk about the are specifically Catholic, but I guess the broader Christian traditions surrounding thoughts on migration and immigration and the limits of these
this right that people have to migrate, and and sort of talking about the American context.
So I thought, maybe first.
Just to kind of give you the floor of kind of general Catholic teaching about immigration.
Sure, just just the just to give us the.
Ground level of what we think, because I think on the right especially, there's some caricature that you know, the bishops are just completely in favor of open borders, and I want you to kind of I'll give you space, I'll stop youy ammering and give you space to kind of lay out sort of the basic principles that of Catholic teaching with regard to immigration.
Wonderful, Thank you, John. Actually, there may indeed be some bishops who are in favor of open borders.
But that's not the that's.
Not the stance of the Roman Catholic Church that I belong.
To, right well, and that might be something we'll discuss later on, but anyway, go ahead.
Well, yes, you mentioned the rights of immigrants or the rights of people to migrate for various reasons, and the Church has promoted that and sustained that. But the language is specific and I think and instructive for our time, in our day and age right now. The language is to people have the right to sustain their life. So it's not like the right to a better life or
the right to the American dream. We've heard about that, sure, people seeking that, so, John, the language is interesting in specific. It talks about the right to sustain one's life or the life of one's family. So it's about basic human rights for literally in a sense, preserving your life and protecting the lives of yourself and your children. And if to do that a person deems it necessary to migrate from one place to another, that's kind of the right
that's being talked about in the Catholic social teaching. But we've had an open border for a really long time pretty open border like a sieve, and that has created some incredible difficulties and problems for our people. And the recent developments in our country and here in the state of California, I have just simply brought that to the forefront in ways that you know, we might have been anticipated, but have kind of in a sense overwhelmed a lot of our people.
But yes, you know, like and because this is kind of an interesting way to think about this in the context of I mean, one of the big changes that happened under the Biden administration was I think the abuse of the asylum system within American law. So the asylum system which is kind of designed for you know, I'm fleeing Cuba on a raft. I don't have time for a legal migrant immigration process. I wash ashore and they
assessed my asylum claim. It seems clear that basically a lot of immigrants coming through Latin America, many of them not some of them not Latin American, from China or from all over the world, realize well, this is a way kind of to cut the line that I can just show up at the border make a claim of asylum when really what I'm seeking is an economic I'm wanting to come to America for the economics, yes, but I'm going to make this asylum claim to almost get
me to the front of the line. And then with the Biden administration basically changing from the remain in Mexico policy of the Trump first Trump administration. Two, Okay, well you can come into the United States. We'll give you sort of we'll let you in and then just show up for your court date in five years. That's been I think that that's been a huge motivator of this
huge influx. And as you're saying, it's sort of the right to migrate isn't just a right to necessarily American economic opportunity.
It's just a right to help sustain yourself exactly.
And yeah, you mentioned asylum seekers and in a sense refugees as well, and those that need to be honored, respected, but identified and vetted too. And that's been a huge problem in this whole mess. And it is a mess. And the Church does recognize, you know, the rights for states to preserve borders, to secure borders, to maintain them, supervise them in a sense, the right to form immigration
policies that are fair and just. And you mentioned people who are in line, and we need to honor them too. And the question of justice pertains to the folks who are, in a sense trying to do it the right way, and the Church is certainly not opposed to that. But you know, back in December, in fact, on the very special feast day in our Catholic Church, the Feast of our Lady of Guadalupe, the Catholic Bishops issued a statement kind of anticipating some of the things we're going through
now in regards to immigration. I wanted to just read one very short paragraph from that that kind of captures the certainly the spirit and the intent of my fellow bishops here in the state of California, but I think any group of bishops in the country dealing with this, because this is the rationale behind our care and support of everyone involved in this, but especially those immigrants who
might be at risk or suffering. So rooted in the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the sacred dignity of every person, we commit to accompanying and walking in solidarity with you are migrant brothers, sisters, and families through this uncertain time. And here's a key sentence. I love this. We will shepherd, you spiritually gather information and resources and continue to advocate for your dignity and family unity.
So all right, well, and that all makes perfect sense that I understand like being concerned. What were some of
the specific things? I guess there are some there's some pushback that probably you yourself have gotten and probably the California Bishops have gotten for some of the comments and statements made well made since over the course of December into January with immigration enforcement stuff to say, well, you know, why is why are we this concerned if people did actually you know, who is being made to be fearful right now by it, you know, stepped up immigration enforcement efforts,
you know, if people did in fact come into the country illegally or have over stayed visas. And you know, I understand the bishops wanting to be close to people who are fearful, but at the same time, like if you're fearful because you entered the country illegally or you've overstayed your visa, those seem to me to be relatively fair, you know, ground rules for immigration efforts. So are there things you've seen as far as enforcement measures that are specifically unjust?
Now?
And I think certain aspects certain changes that the Trump administration has announced I'm not crazy about, like changing the rules about enforcement on the grounds of churches or things like that that I understand. But are are there certain things that you've seen that you think are sort of unfair or that have caused illegitimate or undue fears within the immigrant community.
So John, I wouldn't say that there are illegitimate or unjust would It would be akin to someone drive being on a suspended license or without any license at all, and being nervous and on edge at old times because they're worried about a police officer, you know, pulling them over for you know, a broken headlight or something right exactly, and then it starts a whole cascade of real problems
for them. So our people are living under that kind of fear who are undocumented and have had pastors and religious education directors and others report directly to me about families not showing up, families not sending their children to even our Catholic schools, and or to religious education problems.
Programs, sorry, programs.
We sometimes I have major religious education problems, yes, and even not coming to Sunday liturgy Sunday matter. So those problems are real, unjust no, unfair, No, we all acknowledge that. Yes, the technicality, if you can even call it, that is, when you cross the border without documents, you have broken
the law. Yeah, However, the numbers are staggering, and I don't know how we handle that, you know, fairly and justly and and without instilling real, you know, anxiety and fear in our community.
Well, yeah, and I guess that's the that's sort of the double edged sort of this. I mean, on the one hand, like, yes, I think family separation in any context is awful and horrible.
At the same time, I guess I'm finding it hard to.
Well, I guess the one way in which I'm I think there's a real legitimate thing to say on behalf of immigrants who are in these situations is if you've the whiplash back and forth of American policy over the last ten years, let's say, going from Trump forty five like don't come in the borders more or less secure remain in Mexico policies in place heavy discouragement, which I think had a deterrent effect on even just the number of encounters like that the border patrol was getting like
people realized that the word got out, don't try it. Yes, then the whiplash the other way of green light come on in, And now you've got some Now you've got like an immigrant family who got in under either over state of visa or came in unlawfully or whatever the situation is, who are now like, Okay, well what the heck? Like I had this green light basically to come in
for four years. Now, all of a sudden, you're telling me we're doing a mass deportation, ultimate crackdown, Like there's that is I guess to me, that's like understandable to me, Like this is ridiculous. Yes, And I guess you know, I don't know. I don't know if there's much good in assigning the blame there to whatever extent I would. I guess I would put it at the feet of the Biden administration. But is that a thing that you're sort of seeing? Oh?
Absolutely, And it's that yo yo of going back and forth. That's just maddening for all of us, and maddening and frustrating for the the undocumented people who have crossed those boards, who were allowed to cross those borders in gigantic numbers. But even before that, you know, President Barack Obama deported more people than any president in the history of the state. Yeah, well, and nobody complained about that.
Yeah, it's true.
He gets a weird sort of pr pass for some reason, even though he was the deporter in chief.
Yes, so, And I've heard the numbers anywhere from eight million to twenty million, right, that are here illegally, And I like you were kind of getting that. I think they're here and in a sense they were allowed to be here. The border was allowed to be in total disarray and personally, and I believe my fellow bishops would agree with this as well. You know, we acknowledge the chaos and disarray the border and that that needs to
be addressed and needs to be fixed. As I said earlier, countries have the right, in fact the obligation under Catholic teaching to maintain and secure their borders and to establish the fair and just immigration policies. So yeah, we're not against that, and we need to restore this sense of security and peace for our citizens in our nation, and we acknowledge that, justly or unjustly, for the past several years,
people have been freely let into our country. Many of them, yes, seeking a better life in the American dream, but some also legitimate asylum seekers. They haven't been vetted in a good or proper or even organized way.
We're talking with the Bishop of the Roman Catholic Dices of Fresno, Bishop Joseph Brennan, and we will be back with more on the John Girardi Show. We're talking with the Bishop of the Roman Catholic Dices of Fresno, Bishop Joseph Brennan, and Bishop Brennan. We're talking about all these different immigration issues. I think one thing I wanted to sort of clarify for local Catholics in Fresno. There's been a lot of discussion about the role that Catholic institutions
have played in the context of immigration. Catholic Charities on a national level has participated in federal government programs for refugee resettlement, and there's been some accusations on the right, some fair, some less fair, some some pretty fair. But it involves individual, specific local Catholic charities organizations, which you know,
they don't all answer to one single umbrella. Fresno Catholic Charities is a completely different thing from Milwaukee Catholic Charities or San Antonio Catholic Charities or whatever about these refugee resettlement programs and whether they're actually facilitating people arriving unlawfully or not, just as a clarification about what our local Fresno Catholic Charities and our local dioceses is or isn't doing with regards to those kinds of programs.
So we're we're not.
There's no participation in the Diocese of Fresno specifically with these refugee resettlement.
No, not, and not on my watch anyway, Okay, if I have anything to say about door to do with it, No, but continuing the function that Catholic Charities does on a daily basis anyway, attending to whoever walks through the door, And obviously we don't. We don't ask for about their legal status, you know, any more than we ask about the legal status of anyone, believe it or not, attending our Catholic schools or or religious ad or walking through
the door of the church on Sunday. No, we're not, and certainly in my time would never be involved in that. And there are I think some real legal and even maybe ethical issues involved well, you know, one of the things we've been in a betting is not what I would be into.
Yeah, well, well even like one of the things I've seen was this got shared around a lot online that there was a specific local Catholic Charities entity. I won't say where, but basically it was providing this like how to video, like if the immigration enforcement comes to your place of work, you know.
Don't say this, and do say this.
If they are asked to identify what country you're from, don't say what country you're from. And I was like, Okay, well, if you're an immigration attorney, I think that's a legitimate thing to do and be.
I think it's legitimate to be, you.
Know, defense counsel for in the context of immigration law. But I guess I don't understand the posture of the Catholic Church effectively doing that as defense counsel more or less like as opposed to providing defense attorney resources for
other kinds of violations of the law. But it seems like is there some sort of I don't not wanting you, you know, if you don't want to get into this, I understand, but it seems like there's some attitudes among Catholic involved some persons involved, whether it's bishops or individuals or individual local Catholic charity entities, that are a bit more in favor of a sort of almost open borders approach, that any kind of immigration enforcement is bad or wrongful
almost you know, yes, prima facie, yes.
Well, it's certainly not my approach, and it's not in a sense of the official approach of the Catholic Church or California bishops either. Maybe individual exceptions to that, although I haven't heard them, at least not yet, not up to this state.
Sure, yeah, well, all right, I want to move on then to sort of some macro questions. You know, you had mentioned, you know, you're I've because you've mentioned this thing about you know, we're not vetting people who come into church. Catholic charity is not vetting people who are
just asking for help. I've sort of experienced this myself with our sort of the micro problems and the macro problems with our clinic that we started out a right to life we've when we first started, we had this problem of you know, some women who were here unlawfully with their immigration status wasn't regularized. We're afraid of applying for medical and basically there was limitations on medical eligibility.
Well that got.
Changed in the last few years. Now everyone's eligible for medical regardless of immigration status. And on the one hand of the perspective of well, I'm just here to help I want to help people, like that's good on the macro level, though, I'm sort of like, well, is.
This necessarily a good policy?
Like do we should we actually be incentivizing people to come here with generous social wealth, knowing that if you come here, even if you come here legally, you're gonna have all these generous social welfare programs.
And I feel like.
That's a big tension dynamic that maybe the church is recognizing or could be recognizing that here's this individual in front of us in need. We want to help them, we want and maybe we want the government to help them. But at the same time, is that having a bad macro effect? Are there dynamics like that that you've sort of seen or thought about?
Well, I think on the macro level, the societal level and international level, the incentive is there all the time, and who wouldn't want to come to this great country of ours to improve their life? But then there's the other macro issue, and we've talked a little bit about it already.
Well, basically my thought is it's almost unfair to be placing at the feet of say the Catholic Church or of charitable organizations like you just want more illegal immigrants here.
You are just doing all this stuff for immigrants, whether.
That's the perception of Catholic charities helping out immigrate, whatever, that's all you care about.
It shouldn't. It's not our fault in a sense that our work of helping people who are poor is downstream of public policy decisions over which we don't have ultimate responsibilities, you know. And so we're presented with these problems of people who are poor who need help, and we're going to help them. And you know, would we prefer a better legal set up, better world, of course, But.
I think the Catholic Church is taking a bit more crap over this than it deserves.
Well, yes, and it's what do you do with the Obria clinic? As you just stated a minute ago, there are these macro concerns that bother us, that tweak our own sense of justice and what's right and fair. And then there's the pregnant woman in front of us. That needs some care, the hungry person that walks through the doors of Catholic charities and maybe needs some clothing too.
So yeah, yeah, we're attentive to the person in front of us as the brother and sister in Christ and the one in need, and we we are and we must, all of us, you know, pursue really good immigration policies.
Yeah, yeah, right, all right, Well, Bishop Brennan, and I really appreciate having you on the show, and you know, I appreciate your advocacy always for those in need, whether it's you know, whether it's immigrant communities or the.
Defensive life issue and all those things. So anyway, God blessed, Thank you so much for being on the show.
Thank you, John.
All Right, we'll be back with more on the John Girardi Show.
I want to talk about California's sanctuary state law and more comments by Mayor dire regarding immigration enforcement, immigration raids, et cetera. So I had kind of put Jerry Dyer
a little on blast on the show. Dier was talking about basically how now City of Fresno will absolutely not cooperate with federal immigration authorities, absolutely not, and that we need to maintain you know, we need to maintain good relations with the immigrant community, and our law enforcement will have no relation, no relation to a person's immigration status. And I was trying to figure out why he was
being so forceful this way. On the one hand, I mean, there are some limitations under California state law for what local police can do as far as cooperation with federal immigration authorities. I recognize that the Fresno PD is not just a free floating actor. It is subject to California state laws. State laws that are, you know, I think unwise. I don't see why we should have any limitation on
local police cooperating with federal immigration authorities. You know, if they've they're arresting someone for crimes and the person's not in the country lawfully, I think it makes complete sense for local law enforcement to let ice know, hey, we got one and because you're specifically talking about people that the police are arresting. So I don't understand why Dyer would take the approach that that is bad, but he
genuinely seems to be. He's like, we are not going to do that because, according to Dyer, we want the immigrant community to feel comfortable reporting crimes, which I guess I'm not sure why that is so much motivating him on the micro level. Maybe this is at the level of okay, well, it kind of makes police his job easier if you know, people are more willing to report crimes because they're not afraid of being picked up by
immigration authorities. At the same time, maybe you're policing overall will be better if you could just get the criminals out of the country.
After you arrest them.
So it leads me to want to look into like what is California sanctuary state law? Actually, what is actually what are the parameters of what law enforcement is supposed to do?
And you know, Dyer.
Made more comments on this point yesterday January twenty ninth. So Dyer spoke yesterday at the Fresno Area Hispanic Federation. They had a breakfast event excuse me, Fresnoe Area Hispanic Foundation. He spoke for their event they had at Fort Washington, and during the address he talked about a couple of different things. He talked about the search for a new police chief. Apparently we only have three applicants. We know that Mindy Casto is one of the applicants, who's the
current interim police chief. She was picked to kind of be the placeholder after Paco Balderama left in disgrace, and he was sort of saying, how you know that this is not a very you know, fewer and fewer people want to apply for police chief jobs anymore, blah blah blah. But then he talked about immigration rates and some immigration enforcement issues. Here's the write up on this from GV wire. Dyer answered a question from the audience about why Fresno
police will not conduct or help with federal immigration rates. Now, I guess from my perspective, I guess I wouldn't necessarily anticipate Presno police conducting immigration raids. I would guess it would be more at the level of cooperating, you know, letting ice know about problem certainly about problematic criminals.
I don't know that any of.
Us on the right are like expecting, yes, the Fresno Police will be the immigration enforcement and well, no, I don't know that that's necessarily their cup of tea. I think what we would like is if Fresno PD is picking up someone who's not in the country legally, let ice know, let the Border Patrol know. I think that would be our preference, all of us on the right.
I recognize that there are limitations on that from California law, that those are the policies we dislike, and I guess I find it bizarre that DIYer is basically taking this posture of yes, California law is great on this topic, Dyer said. Here's Dyer's answer to this, as reported by GV where he does not want anyone to live in fear or live in the shadows. Why wouldn't we want
someone to live in fear. I mean, let me just remind folks entering the country unlawfully, So unlawful entry where you either cross the border illegally or you make false representations in order to get yourself over the border is the first time you do, it's a misdemeanor punishable by six months. The second time you do it is a felony.
Overstaying a visa doesn't carry criminal punishments with it, as far as I can tell, I've tried to review the law on this, it does have those civil remedies and penalties, like with your rear end not being able to come back into the country for a really really long time, not being able to reapply for a visa for another three years or ten years, you know, and you know, being subject to other GUIDs of penalties like deportation. You know, I don't want anyone to live in fear of the shadows.
Why what I mean, if someone has done a bad thing, maybe it's okay for them to live in fear a little bit like if you've done a bad thing, if you've broken American immigration law. I you know, I don't want people to live fearful, sad, highly distressed lives. But at the same time, if you've broken American immigration law, that's kind of on Youdyre reiterated his policy that the city police or other staff will not inquire about anyone's
immigration status. He admits his stance has led to criticism and anger from some supporters. I'm not pulling police officers from our neighborhoods keeping people safe to go out and deport farm workers. I'm just not going to do that, Dyer said, to a round of applause from one hundred plus people at the event. Okay, this is a red hair. This is such a BS argument.
This is the straw man. That's what I was looking for. This is a straw man.
Nobody on the right in Fresno is asking Jerry Dyer to send Fresno police to go round up farm workers.
That's not what we're saying.
What we would expect is dire to first of all, push up against the limits of the California sanctuary state law, which I am looking at right here.
Got some details about it.
So, California sanctuary state law is known as the California Values Act. And basically what the California Values Act says what the are states so called sanctuary state law says, and this was passed in twenty seventeen.
I believe it basically says that.
Police cannot tell immigration authorities about an inmate's upcoming release.
Basically, the.
Local officials cannot inform ice about an inmate's upcoming release on the grounds of his immigration status. Okay, However, there are exceptions for persons who have been convicted of a serious crime or felony such as murder, rape, kidnapping, robbery, arson. So I guess you know Fresno PDE and the Presdo Sheriffs. Now, No, Dyer is not overseeing the Presno sheriffs. And I'd like to talk with the Sheriff's apartment about this, about their
view of this. Because the Fresno sheriffs actually do run Fresno County jails, which do at times house people who've been convicted of felonies, what we would expect is Fresno police to push up against the limits of this law. So basically California sanctuary state law. It's not a total sanctuary state. It's not that law enforcement can't tell ice about anything. It says basically, if someone has committed a serious felony, then you can tip ice off to their impending release.
And what is a serious felony?
Okay, So within California law, there's this weird designation known as serious felonies, and you have a misdemeanor. The traditional American and British legal distinction between a misdemeanor and a felony is a felony is a crime punished by a year or more in jail. A misdemeanor is a crime punishable by less than a year in jail.
So California has this other.
Designation that it's used in various areas of law for serious felony. This was something that State Senator Shannon Grove was combating. I think this was about two years ago. Senator Grove was able to get legislation passed in the California state legislature to designate sex trafficking of a minor as a serious felony, which steps up enforcement issues for purposes of things like three strikes law and stuff like that.
Kind of was crazy that sex trafficking of a miner was not already considered a serious felony, but there we were. So it's not all felonies, but for serious felonies at the very least, police sheriffs, et cetera can tip off immigration with the and I guess that's the you know,
that's the rub. There's nothing from Mayor Dyer to say that, look, we think it would be a good thing for violent criminals for us with Fresno PD to say, hey, like you should let them know, Like Presno PD should let people know if we've got serious felons about to be released, that's something we should tip off immigration authorities. These are the parameters of what California sanctuary state law requires of us.
We will go up to the limits of that. Or he could say, hey, this is what California's sanctuary state law requires. We aren't even able to do X Y and Z. But instead Dier has framed this says, no, it's a positive good that we just not concern ourselves with anyone's immigration status whatsoever. And he sets up this straw man of we're not gonna use Fresno police to round up farm workers. No one's asking Fresno police to round it farm workers. No nobody on the phar nobody on the right is demanding.
I don't know.
Maybe there's some super right wing guys who are like, yes, Fresno police should be arresting any farm worker who's here illegally. The expectation, I think from all of us on the right would be, hey, if Presne police is picking up guys, gang members, whatever, guys who are clearly doing bad things, up to no good and can see that they are here in the country illegally, it would be really nice if they would just tell ICE about it and let
Ice deal with them, let Border patrol deal with them. Now, I recognize Fresno police might not be able to do that within the parameters of California law, and local police are creatures of state law. They don't have autonomy from state government the way that like state governments have autonomy from the autonomy from the FEDS. Local governments don't have that autonomy from the state. They're creatures of state government.
They have to follow state law. So I recognize if Dyree wants to say, look, this is what we're this is what we are.
Into doing under state law.
But to say that that is a positive good, it's nuts when we return which way, for Jerry Dyer, what is he at this point? Next on the John Grardy Show, what is Jerry Dyer? At this point? He ran as a Republican? He seems to have the broader Fresno Christian community still somewhat bamboozled as well. I mean, he's a Christian and I'm not gonna I'm probably being too harsh. I'm not going to deny anything about the sincerity of his Christian convictions and how the working of Christ in
his life has been, you know, life changing. I'm not going to dispute that. But the fact remains he completely flip flopped on gay marriage and the whole Pride Flag thing, all of that, and he continues to have this kind of local government. I need to get funding mindset that sort of keeps expressing itself in betrayals of one conservative ideal after another. I guess I don't know how he is meaningfully a Republican or a conservative anymore. And I think a lot more people are waking up to that.
That'll do it. John Girardi Show, See you next time on Power Talk.