Pope expected to challenge Congress on immigration

Erin Kelly | USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — In the first-ever papal address to Congress next month, Pope Francis is expected to exhort lawmakers to open America's doors to struggling immigrants rather than build bigger fences to keep them out.

The unprecedented speech to American lawmakers comes as Donald Trump sits atop GOP presidential polls while arguing for a wall along the border to keep “killers and rapists” from entering the country and Republican members of Congress seek to overturn President Obama's executive orders granting legal status to millions of undocumented immigrants.

Political analysts say the pope has the potential to have a much greater impact on the debate than a typical head of state. The pope's visit is expected to be viewed by millions of Americans, including thousands watching him live on Jumbotrons placed on the West Front of the Capitol. His visit has set off a scramble for tickets for coveted viewing spots on the Capitol lawn to see the pontiff when he emerges on a balcony after the speech.

"People really like him, even if they're not Catholic," said Enrique Pumar, who chairs the sociology department at the Catholic University of America. "They like his charisma, his humility. He's not coming here to ask for a favor like a trade pact or U.S. investment in the Vatican. He's advocating for compassion, for principles and values, and that tends to carry more weight."

Pope Francis was viewed favorably by nearly 60% of Americans in a Gallup poll in July and by 70% of Americans in a Pew Research Center poll taken earlier in the spring. Those are higher marks than President Obama receives and significantly better than those of Congress, which had just a 14% approval rating in a Gallup poll earlier this month.

The pope will not bring a specific legislative proposal on immigration to Congress, but will instead emphasize the need to treat immigrants with dignity, said John Carr, director of the Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life at Georgetown University. Nearly a third of the lawmakers listening to him — 26 senators and 138 House members — are Catholic, according to the Congressional Research Service.

“This is a very cynical town," Carr said. "Washington worries about people with the most money and the most power. Immigrants don't have either. I think the pope will appeal to our hearts and souls and not to our polls or our politics."

Members of Congress will receive that message respectfully but won't be swayed when it comes to actual policy, predicted Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which opposes most efforts to offer a pathway to citizenship to undocumented immigrants.

In the last Congress, the Senate passed a sweeping, bipartisan immigration bill that would have offered earned citizenship for many of the 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the U.S., overhauled the visa system for legal immigrants, and beefed-up border security. The bill died in the House.

This Congress has taken a much harder line on immigration, threatening earlier this year to cut off funding to the Department of Homeland Security unless Obama's programs to stop the deportation of some undocumented parents and their children were overturned.

“They (members of Congress) are going to politely let the pope's comments disperse into the ether and then go ahead and do what they were going to do anyway," Krikorian said, adding there would be "a lot of huffing and puffing" from pro-immigration groups.

However, Krikorian said, "I don't see it as having any lasting impact."

Even if Congress isn't swayed, the pope's visit could help mobilize immigrant rights groups that have been demoralized by inaction in Washington, Pumar said.

"There will be energized people left behind after he leaves that will be advocating for the same things and continuing his work," Pumar said.

Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., a Catholic who is the descendant of Irish and Italian immigrants, said he would like to see the pope's visit spark renewed interest in the immigration bill that he helped guide through the Senate in 2013. Failing that, he hopes that the pope's address will at least change what he called the "mean-spirited" tone of the current immigration debate.

"The xenophobic meanness that is coming through in some of the debate is hurting our country," said Leahy, the senior Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, which oversees immigration policy. "We're not a nation founded on the idea that, 'We've got ours, now nobody else can have it.' I hope this will either force people to stop that or make them realize that it's harmful to everybody and is hurting our image across the world."

Pumar said the pope's visit "isn't going to solve the immigration problem" but could lay the foundation for "people to talk and disagree with more civility and respect."

"That would be a huge improvement over what we have today," he said.

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