In the midst of a heated debate on immigration and a crackdown on undocumented immigrants, Bishop Jaime Soto lays out the church's agenda.

Although born in Los Angeles, Bishop Jaime Soto has been stopped several times at airport security. During one such occasion the officer did not want to believe that he was a bishop until he opened his briefcase. He was carrying a Bible and a bottle of whiskey.

The grandson of Mexican immigrants, the newly appointed coadjutor bishop of Sacramento, California is one of the church's most prominent spokespersons on immigration. Last year, while still serving in the Diocese of Orange, Soto asked all Catholics there to support immigration reform through fasting and prayer.

Countering the continuing heated election-year rhetoric that targets the "illegal alien invasion problem," Soto has been a voice of reason trying to rally the Catholic community to actively support our immigrant brothers and sisters in need as well as to advocate for comprehensive immigration reform.

Now appointed to the capital of California, Soto will have plenty of opportunities to lobby for immigration reform and other Catholic social concerns. He knows, though, that it is important for a pastor or bishop to "speak with integrity and clarity. It is not enough to be prophetic. One must also be persuasive. That's not an easy task. It has never been."

The Catholic Church has taken a prominent role in the debate about immigration reform, and ... (Laughing) I would say we've taken a beating.

True. So why did the church get so publicly involved in this particular debate?
Historically, caring for immigrants has been a hallmark of American Catholicism, and so for us to enter into the immigration debate was not just theoretical or theological. It came out of our own experience about what works best and what we have learned. Through many periods of our history different groups of immigrants have been despised, rejected, marginalized, and we've always been the institution that has stood by them.

Have all bishops been comfortable with the church's lead role in the public immigration debate?
Obviously some of us have taken more of a lead, but I would say that there is a general consensus among the bishops on the importance of advocacy for immigrants. Thus when we California bishops have been vocal on this issue, I often hear from a bishop, for example, in the deep South, who says, "I really liked what you said on TV the other night. Could you send me your materials so we can do the same thing here?"

Many of us who otherwise might be a little camera-shy have been willing to put our foot down on this issue to state publicly and strongly that it's not right how immigrants in this country are being treated, especially how they're being portrayed as criminals.

What for you is the faith dimension of this social issue?
One of the key tenets of both the Jewish and Christian scriptures is the call to hospitality. That is intimately woven into our historical and religious memory. The Jewish scriptures repeatedly tell us, "You must take care of the alien in your land.... You must take care of the stranger."

There's a beautiful passage in the Letter to the Hebrews that calls us to extend hospitality, for in doing so, we may be "entertaining angels" (13:2). So there is a direct connection between being open to God's grace, to God coming into our midst, and welcoming the stranger.

Of course, in Matthew 25, it is made very clear that whoever welcomes a stranger, one of the least of our brothers and sisters, receives Christ. So there are plenty of clear biblical mandates for us, and to some extent those passages have to haunt us, knowing that we will be judged for how we treat the alien, the stranger.

Is a pro-immigrant stance a "nonnegotiable" for Catholics?
The part that is nonnegotiable is the respect and the openness to the immigrant that is so sorely lacking in much of the current national discourse.

What is obviously open to negotiation is how best to do that. That should be part of a healthy national debate. As Catholic bishops we've taken a strong position against what we see as very harsh and punitive measures against immigrants. These measures, such as the recent raids and deportations, we believe, are actually counterproductive in terms of making America safer and stronger.

So how should we deal with illegal immigration?
First of all, the bishops would agree with the general sentiment that the U.S. immigration system is broken. Often people think that somehow we are encouraging undocumented immigration, but nothing could be further from the truth.

We're very aware of the negative consequences of people entering this country illegally. Most of all it's bad for the undocumented immigrant, who really bears the brunt of this status. But it's also not good for any society to have such a significant population living on the margins.

So the real question is: What is the most reasonable way to resolve this situation? That's why we have been trying to advocate for an earned legalization program that will provide undocumented immigrants with a path to permanent residency and eventually citizenship.

We also support the creation of a temporary worker program that would allow immigrants to come into the country when there is a labor demand. That's perfectly legitimate and can be a step toward providing a long-term solution to the problem of a large undocumented population.

Another thing that drives the large numbers of people entering the country illegally is the lengthy period of time it takes for family members of legal immigrants to join them in this country. That backlog has been created by the insufficient U.S. quotas for family members of immigrants from certain countries, which in turn have led to unreasonably long waiting periods.

You often hear people complain that undocumented immigrants "should get in line and wait like everybody else." But immigrants from European countries, for example, do not have to face the long waiting periods for family reunification that those from Mexico, Central America, India, China, or the Philippines do.

Mexican and Asian families sometimes have to wait for 10 years or longer. These are the countries from which most of the undocumented populations come. If we can find a way to reasonably reduce the waiting period for family quotas, we will also then provide a remedy to people entering the country without permission.

One of the most common arguments against providing undocumented immigrants with a path to legalization is that we shouldn't reward people who have broken the law.
Of course we agree that it's important to have a good legal system. But we also believe that laws should work. They should further the common good and the welfare of people.

In other areas we've seen the government change laws from, for example, the heavy regulation of certain industries to deregulation when it's believed to cause an undue burden on the market. So the government frequently decides to create certain laws and then later to change them when they don't work.

Similarly in immigration we have a system that doesn't work. We have laws that don't really serve the needs of the country, so we're simply advocating for laws that work.