The current and incoming leaders on migration for the U.S. bishops expressed cautious optimism about a recent court decision mandating that migrants can’t be expelled to “places where they’ll be persecuted or tortured,” but dismay over another striking down protections for unaccompanied minors from immediate expulsion.
In response to a lawsuit filed by the conservative political advocacy group CatholicVote to access communications between the Biden administration and Catholic humanitarian entities at the southern Texas-Mexico border, Sister Norma Pimentel encouraged the organization to come and see the work at the border for themselves.
For all the years Bishop Mark J. Seitz of El Paso, Texas, has spent ministering at the Mexican border with people on the move to the United States, it was a young girl, he said, who taught him about hope.
With nonessential travel set to resume at the U.S.-Mexico border in November, a Catholic priest in Tijuana, the Mexico border city to San Diego, fears an influx of misinformed migrants arriving at the border is imminent.
The Mexican bishops’ migrant ministry has called on the federal government to return to a policy of “open arms” as the country experiences heavy waves of migration — most visibly with Haitians, who recently traveled the length of Mexico to the U.S. border in large numbers.
Responding to the border crisis in Del Rio, Texas, and broader immigration issues, more than 150 Catholic organizations last week implored President Joe Biden to end a policy called Title 42 — federal permission for the immediate expulsion of migrants and limitation of their right to seek asylum.
The chairman of the U.S. bishops’ migration committee and the head of Catholic Charities USA issued a joint statement Sept. 22 urging humane treatment of Haitians and other migrants as their numbers grow in southern Texas at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Images of the U.S.-Mexico border in Del Rio show an unprecedented scene: More than 10,000 migrants huddled underneath the city’s international bridge seeking asylum, with many more constantly wading the waters of the Rio Grande River with the same desire.
Now that passing immigration reform measures in the budget reconciliation package may be off the table, immigration advocates fear a divided Congress won’t stray from party lines to pass immigration reform through traditional means.
When Catholic Charities San Antonio staged a trip to the Del Rio International Bridge Saturday, the purpose was twofold: They drove down with essential items for the thousands of migrants stationed there, and subsequently brought migrant families back inland to help them continue their U.S. journey.
