Catholic Charities of Brooklyn and Queens has mobilized to help asylum seekers recently bussed to New York City from Texas. The staff hosted information sessions for about 200 people on Aug. 29 at St. Charles Borromeo Church in Brooklyn Heights. The migrants received food boxes, toiletries, a hot lunch, and fellowship.
After two busloads of migrants, sent directly from Texas by Gov. Greg Abbott, arrived in New York City last week, Mayor Eric Adams renewed calls for the federal government to help the city deal with the unexpected influx of newcomers.
In response to Washington D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser’s claim that migrants were “tricked” onto buses that shipped them from Texas to the nation’s capital, activist Abel Nuñez counters: “Whether they were tricked or not, they’re in your city, so what are you going to do about it?”
Father Pat Murphy remembers a family that for six months stayed and worked at La Casa Del Migrante in Tijuana, Mexico, and was on the verge of humanitarian parole before they fell susceptible to a smuggler and tried to enter the U.S. illegally.
The archbishop of San Antonio offered prayers for dozens of people found dead as well as more than a dozen survivors discovered June 27 in sweltering conditions in a semitruck.
The much-anticipated May 23 deadline on Title 42 came and went at the U.S.-Mexico border without any changes allowing migrants in, including asylum-seekers, after a federal judge blocked the government from lifting the health measure instituted during the pandemic.
A Mexican border diocese has issued an urgent appeal for assistance as hundreds of Haitian migrants arrive in the oft-violent city of Nuevo Laredo, hoping to apply for asylum in the United States.
The synodal process bridged an international border March 27 when the bishops of the Diocese of Brownsville, Texas, crossed the Rio Grande into Mexico to celebrate Sunday Mass with the bishop of Matamoros.
Sister Norma Pimentel, whose work with asylum-seekers has been recognized by Pope Francis, Time magazine and others, will receive the Pacem in Terris Peace and Freedom Award April 21 in Davenport.
Bishop Mark Seitz of El Paso considers the process temporary religious worker visa recipients endure to maintain lawful status a “race against time” with federal processing backlogs making it difficult to satisfy different permissions and expiration dates.
