migration

With a surge in the first few months of 2021 of minors entering the United States without a parent or guardian, figures from fiscal year 2020 already have surpassed the total of unaccompanied minors who made border entries during the previous year.

We say: The issue of immigration into the U.S. is both simple as a moral issue and complex in terms of policy and politics. We fear the Biden administration is allowing that complexity to overwhelm the simplicity.

Pope Francis said the COVID-19 crisis has made it clear that human beings are valuable yet fragile, and it's important to keep that in mind when dealing with those fleeing from various crises in Central America.

Participants logged more than 370,000 miles in symbolic solidarity walks with migrants over the past four years, but the leaders of Caritas Internationalis know there are many miles to go in changing attitudes toward immigration.

A Vatican official asked a group of bishops gathered at Mundelein Seminary June 2 to think of migrants, whether they arrive for the short or long term, as "parishioners" and organize pastoral plans to tend to them.  

Shelters like La 72, run by the Franciscans near the Guatemala border, offer a respite on a dangerous route for migrants to the U.S. border. Migrants unable to afford the services of smugglers often stay in shelters, but they get exploited by drivers, government officials and others outside.

Alejandro Cortez Amaya and his wife Juliza left El Salvador because of the threat of gang violence there. But when they arrived at the U.S. border almost two years ago, they were separated; Juliza was then eight months pregnant.

Commentary: Former Democratic Whip David Bonier found in Pope Francis the core of a story that would draw on two important dimensions of his own story: work on behalf of Central America while in Congress and distress at the church's failure to include women as full partners in leadership.