With the March 9 bill-filing deadline just a week away, state Sen. Joyce Elliott, D-Little Rock, says she is still considering filing a bill to offer in-state tuition to undocumented immigrants.

“I’m still trying to be very thoughtful about it and do a lot of research,” she said today. “I am pretty much complete with getting that done. I’ll make a decision about what to do about it sometime in the next few days — because I have to.”

A 2005 bill by Elliott, then a state representative, that would have extended in-state tuition to undocumented immigrants, was defeated in the Senate after passing in the House. Gov. Mike Beebe has said he will oppose any such measure.

The bishop of the Diocese of Little Rock says Catholics are called to welcome newcomers, including those who entered the country illegally.

In his first pastoral letter since becoming the diocese’s bishop in June, Bishop Anthony B. Taylor wrote, “One of the most distinguishing features of the Catholic Church is that we are called to be ‘universal’ in fact as well as in name. This means that there must be no dividing lines within our parishes, no second-class parishioners — all are welcome, without exception.”

Taylor wrote that the right to migrate is not an absolute right, but “there is a right to migrate for those who are exercising their God-given rights and to meet their God-given obligations, for instance when necessary to protect and provide for one’s family or to escape persecution.”

No government has the right to deprive anyone of God-given rights, Taylor said in the letter dated Wednesday.

The solution to illegal immigration is to welcome immigrants, facilitate their adaptation to life in the United States, provide an easy path to citizenship and work to remedy the inequalities of wealth and economic development that drive immigration, Taylor wrote.

At a news conference Wednesday, Taylor said he wanted to address the issue in advance of Arkansas’ 2009 legislative session.

“As you know, I came from Oklahoma, where last year some very harsh legislation was enacted, mainly due to fear and certainly without any consideration of what Jesus Christ and our Christian faith has to say about this matter,” said Taylor, who was a priest in Oklahoma for 28 years.

“It is my hope that the Arkansas Legislature, which convenes in January, will have the courage and wisdom to do what is right, to do what Jesus would do, to do the loving thing,” he said.

The letter appears in this Saturday’s edition of “Arkansas Catholic,” the diocese’s weekly newspaper. English and Spanish versions are available on the diocese’s Web site.