Experts Say New Immigration Controls Not Much HelpFormer F.B.I. and C.I.A. counterterrorism experts said on April 3 that most of the immigration restrictions imposed since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks have done little to improve national security and wouldn’t have kept any of the men implica

The current debates about the sexual abuse scandals in the church revolve around a litany of diagnoses and proposals for reform, touching such topics as clericalism, a culture of dissent, homosexuals in the priesthood, the need for accountability and shared episcopal authority, seminary reform, a re

From being a country that once welcomed immigrants, the United States has become a nation that has raised higher and higher barriers against them. These higher walls of exclusion are having a destructive effect on would-be immigrants from around the world, but especially on the people of one of our

In Stanzas From the Grande Chartreuse 1855 Matthew Arnold famously agonized over being caught between two conflicting worlds a beloved but dead faith and whatever unknown but no doubt chilling forces that would replace it Compared with the complex predicaments facing Yezad Chenoy and other ch

Casting a dark look over the past year, and an even darker look at what lies ahead, the U.S. mayors’ annual Status Report on Hunger and Homelessness predicts a rise in both throughout the country—an increase that, sadly, is already well under way. Released in December, the report, which

Alice McDermott rsquo s fiction like William Kennedy rsquo s is to be praised if for no other reason than that it transcends the tradition of Irish-American fiction established by James T Farrell back in the 1930 rsquo s Since Studs Lonigan first swaggered onto the literary stage Irish-America

Driving on the A1 expressway to Charles de Gaulle Airport, one sees, gradually emerging, the town of St. Denis with its rows of low-income housing. Until recently St. Denis stood out for its urban sprawl, massive soccer stadium and royal burial plot. Then, in early August, hundreds of immigrants sto

East Harlem stands out as one of the poorest sections of Manhattan, where a faith-based organization—the Little Sisters of the Assumption Family Health Service (www.littlesistersfamily.org)—has been helping families cope with poverty-related problems for four decades. “Our mission

Yolanda González and Hermilo Hernández Velasco grew up in families of subsistence-level farmers in the Mexican state of Oaxaca. After they married, Hermilo traveled to the United States and found work as a dishwasher in a restaurant in Portland, Ore. In May of 2000, Yolanda, 19 years old, hired a

The eight million Haitians who share the Caribbean Island of Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic have the unwelcome distinction of populating the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. It is also a country that has endured for two centuries a series of governments inept and oppressive in vary