U.S. District Court Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk in a ruling late Aug. 13 blocked Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas of the Department of Homeland Security from implementing a June 1 memo in which he formally ended the Trump administration’s Migration Protection Protocols, known as MPP or the “Remain in Mexico” policy.
At his general audience Aug. 11, Pope Francis told French-speaking visitors that it was “with great sorrow” that he learned of the Aug. 6 murder.
Two rescue boats carrying 800 migrants saved from sinking or overcrowded vessels have been forced to roam the international waters of the Mediterranean for more than four days, waiting for permission to dock at a safe port.
A federal judge Aug. 3 temporarily blocked an order issued by the governor of Texas to halt transportation of migrants by anyone other than local or federal authorities following an incident involving a Catholic nonprofit.
For the first time since the start of the pandemic, Father Franciscus Asisi Eka Yuantoro was welcomed earlier this month into a government facility for unaccompanied minors in Donna, Texas, to celebrate Mass, which he called a “blessing.”
A June 7 U.S. Supreme Court decision ruled that hundreds of thousands of immigrants with a temporary immigration status cannot apply for a more permanent way to remain in the country if they first entered without authority to do so.
A recent analysis by The New York Times found evidence for what many Catholic organizations and other entities warned about at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States — the faster spread of the coronavirus among those detained in facilities for immigration violations.
One Italian bishop has said Pope Francis’ push for greater brotherhood and solidarity is needed more than ever following the death last week of 130 migrants who for two days issued distress calls to no avail when their boat met trouble in the Mediterranean.
Near the end of S. 15th Street in Hidalgo, Texas, the road turns from smooth pavement to pothole-ridden dirt. Both sides of the street are no longer lined with local neighborhoods, but instead battered fences at the edge of desolate fields.
When the priest of the lone Catholic parish in the U.S.-Mexico border city of Donna, Texas, considers the present situation at the border, his first concern is for the unaccompanied minors trying to gain entry to the United States. Father Yuantoro presides over St. Joseph Catholic Church, which serves about 3,000 Catholic families — part of a total population of around 16,500 — in the south Texas city.
