The chair of the U.S. Bishops’ Committee on Migration, Archbishop José Gómez of Los Angeles, has released a statement in support of efforts by Alabama’s Catholic bishops and other religious leaders to turn back the state’s new immigration law. They charge it threatens the ministry of the church. “The Catholic Church provides pastoral and social services to all persons, regardless of their immigration status,” Archbishop Gómez said in a statement on Sept. 8, alluding to the First Amendment. “Government should not infringe upon that duty, as America’s founding fathers made clear in the U.S. Constitution.” Archbishop Gómez called upon the Obama administration and Congress to enact comprehensive immigration reform “that balances the rule of law with humanitarian principles.”