General Discussion

It's logically plausible that it could dovetail with GOP manufactured-mega-churches which may or may not actually even have a congregation but still have functional collection plates.

In my experience the involvement of church groups in the lives of immigrants hasn't always been a problem solver. I had employees who suddenly found themselves deported while holding "unpassable papers" they'd received from a group who had taken over from the church that initially supported their emigration. High and dry, even after years of interaction, still without legitimate documentation. These Church folks have been allowed to fill in the blanks where our immigration statutes fail but they've never successfully pushed legislation to fill in the missing parts. Any legislation has always been opposed by the GOP contingent of congress. It's possible that's because there's too much money to be grifted from the status quo. The people I knew who were in this situation had already paid thousands of dollars for documentation to an outfit in Kansas City. Then, after coughing up the cash, they find themselves on a blue bus back to the Mexican Border. They were very concerned about getting back to Oaxaca from the border without being robbed and murdered.

Obama had at that time, just made the news regarding enforcement of the existing laws regarding false documentation. He certainly received no thanks for that promise kept. Yet instead of changing the law, the GOP just made it worse by condemning Democrats for "cruel inaction". Inaction caused by the "conservative's" intentional intransigence.

After giving more thought to this I come to realize just how cornered these guys were, it explains their haunted look. It makes me ashamed that I couldn't do anything to help them. All of us who survive without living in fear of the knock on the door are complicit. If these guys made it home, from their testimony to me, it was not to praise American politicians. From their POV they saw little difference between the parties. They saw the Republicans as crooked and ruthlessly stupid, forcing them into illegal schemes just to work and the Democrats as inadvertently cruel in their naive honesty about following the rules and changing greedy people's minds.

You have definitely hit upon something, Malaise.