It's not credible to claim that our melting pot is so stuffed with ingredients that we must nail down the lid. Catholic Immigration Services reports that only 130,000 of 18 million refugees worldwide come to the United States each year. Less than 1 percent of the world's 100 million immigrants relocate to our "land of opportunity." Furthermore, our country is experiencing a prolonged economic boom.

I suspect the backlash against newcomers is due in large part to the challenge of illegal immigration. Undocumented immigrants — who comprise a mere 1 percent of our population — are held up as the cause for ills ranging from increased taxes to under-employment to inner-city violence to welfare fraud. This blame focused on them — fanned by political rhetoric and unflattering media depictions — reinforces prejudices against all immigrants, and even against life-long U.S. citizens who may "look" like immigrants.

Such a climate makes fertile ground for bad laws that disregard common decency. Some states have sought to keep children of undocumented workers from attending public school. The welfare reform law of 1996 left undocumented women without access to prenatal care, although a bill in our local legislature would restore that reasonable care in Colorado. On a national level, mandatory detention policies keep immigrants behind bars when U.S. citizens would be released to their families.

It's true that a government has a legitimate interest in creating laws which protect the common good. But our primary rights are not granted by the Congress or the U.S. Constitution. They are ours by virtue of our humanity, a free gift from the God who created each of us. A person is no less human if he or she is born outside the borders of the United States. A family is no less a family. So any just policy must provide for the basic protection of human dignity.

It follows that all immigration policies should take into account the social conditions in each person's native country. Every attempt should be made to welcome people fleeing from religious and political persecution. Those escaping poverty, unemployment, war and natural disasters deserve special consideration as well. And our policies should always encourage family reunification.

Undocumented workers within our borders provide a special moral challenge. Since they do not have the legal protections of U.S. citizens, their human rights are ripe for exploitation, even though they provide critical support to many industries. Undocumented construction workers lured by the promise of employment are sometimes not paid for their work and have little legal recourse. Mexican farm workers, so critical to our agricultural industry, often cannot find affordable housing and health care. Imprisoned undocumented workers face an unfamiliar judicial system without adequate legal representation. One's lack of citizenship in a country should not translate into a lack of humanity under God.

In the long-term, application denials and strict border enforcement will not lead to authentic justice. If we truly want to discourage immigration, we should do our part to work for justice in other parts of the world. Policies in the developed world that lead to poverty, instability or human rights violations in other countries inevitably lead to emigration.

One concrete way in which the United States can combat worldwide poverty is to forgive at least part of the debts of undeveloped countries. Such debts place a crushing burden on the citizens of those countries, which results in poverty, under-development and social unrest. We should also work toward policies that protect foreign workers from exploitation by employers within our borders.

Pope John Paul II, in his Feb. 20 World Migration Day Message, encouraged people to see one another as citizens of "the celestial homeland. This perspective helps [us] abandon every nationalist way of thinking and remove [ourselves] from narrow ideological confines." Achieving a reasonable social and economic balance between wealthy and poor countries would be far more effective — and just — than harsher anti-immigration legislation. It would also promote a global solidarity — not just an economy — that better reflects our kinship under God as we enter the third millennium.

This article first ran in the Denver Rocky Mountain News March 7.