Top Vatican diplomat says decline of the West not irreversible
- Apr 14, 2021
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.
An interfaith collection of religious activists is asking the Biden administration to step up the pace of family reunification to remedy the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy that separated an estimated 5,500 immigrant children from their families by invoking criminal proceedings against their parents.
While Democrats and Republicans are trading accusations for who is to blame for the present crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border, one U.S. bishop says enough is enough.
Because of the quick rise in the number of unaccompanied minors crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, more people are responding to the call to help made on social media by the U.S. bishops’ Migration and Refugee Services.
As the number of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border continues to soar, more than a dozen Catholic bishops from both countries issued a reminder yesterday that “there is a shared responsibility of all nations to preserve human life and provide for safe, orderly, and humane immigration, including the right to asylum.”
Overwhelmed and underprepared, U.S. authorities are releasing migrant families on the Mexican border without notices to appear in immigration court or sometimes without any paperwork at all — a time-saving move that has left migrants confused.
The Mexican bishops’ migrant ministry says people are arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border with illusions of easily entering the United States, but they risk being returned to Mexico under rules for expelling people rapidly during the pandemic.
President Joe Biden has kept Title 42 in place as he designs what he promises will be “a humane asylum system.” Citizens of Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador are usually back in Mexico within two hours, while other nationalities are held in the U.S. to be flown home without a chance at asylum.