Refuge in the Lord: Catholics, Presidents, & the Politics of Immigration, 1981–2013 by Lawrence J. McAndrews (review)

In this well-researched and interesting book, Lawrence McAndrews closely investigates the relationship between Catholic leaders’ immigration positions and presidential policies in contemporary times. The time period McAndrews has chosen is one of the most important for understanding significant changes in immigration policies, from debates preceding the 1986 Immigration and Reform through post-September 11, 2001, policies on immigration and refugees. Like Cheryl Shanks’ politico-historical analysis of the 1965 Hart-Celler Act and the 1986 IRCA, McAndrews examines key debates, leaders, divisions, and negotiations leading up to major policies but with an exclusive focus on Catholic leaders and the opinions of Catholic laypeople. Because the Catholic Church is a key institution in refugee resettlement and in providing aid and pastoral care to immigrants of all types of legal status, this investigation fills in a crucial gap in the immigration literature. For scholars of refugee matters, McAndrews’ examination of the beginning of the U.S. refugee program is particularly important as he provides a historically informed analysis of the beginnings of this program and debates surrounding its expansion from the 1980s onward. In particular, he explores the plight of Haitians, Cubans, and Central Americans—groups often designated as “economic” refugees and therefore ineligible for refugee status. However, key leaders in the Catholic Church contested this designation, attempting to change bureaucratic rules and legislation on the one hand and calling for churches to offer sanctuary on the other. The section on sanctuary in this book is in-depth and helps the reader to understand how refugee policies were forged in this era. This political history is also relevant today as churches continue to offer sanctuary while higher ranking Catholic leaders are uncomfortable with what they perceive is a subversion of the law. McAndrews’ investigation is arguably conservative in that he focuses on religious and political elites and uses language that some find problematic if not biased (“illegal,” “irregular,” “alien”), even as he problematizes these terms in the conclusion. He also engages in a cost-benefit analysis of immigration that many authors have decided is irresolvable. Nevertheless, even if these elements of the book are conservative, the book is rich with historical material; explanation of the debates is detailed and often nuanced, and the moral arguments are still clear—this is not a conservatism that whitewashes the past or ignores failures, hypocrisy, or messy situations. The focus on debates and key figures makes the policy story rich and interesting. In the conclusion, McAndrews states that “throughout over three decades of change and continuity, the Catholic power structure and many of its followers, by admirably endeavoring to put principle ahead of politics, at times exaggerated the former at the expense of the latter. The motives of these immigration advocates were noble…but the results were too often the opposite of what they intended…” (p. 227). While one could argue that this conclusion was a foregone conclusion, given his subject material, I would urge the reader to pick up this book—it is a valuable, rich, and significant book that examines a crucial element of political history and contemporary policy.