Catholic bishops: Don't let Boston attacks derail immigration reform

Leading U.S. Catholic bishops have denounced efforts to use the Boston Marathon bombings to derail the push for immigration reform, saying it is wrong to brand all immigrants as dangerous and that a revamped system would in fact make Americans safer.

“Opponents of immigration . . . will seize on anything, and when you’ve got something as vivid and as recent as the tragedy in Boston it puts another arrow in their quiver,” Cardinal Timothy Dolan, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, told reporters on April 22.

“To label a whole group of people—namely, the vast population of hard-working, reliable, virtuous immigrants—to label them, to demean them because of the vicious, tragic actions of two people is just ridiculous,” he said. “Illogical. Unfair. Unjust.”