Bishops call for ‘humane, proportionate, and just’ immigration plan

Washington D.C., Jan 31, 2018 / 03:00 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Echoing an earlier USCCB comment about President Donald Trump’s proposed framework on immigration reform released last week, Bishop Joe S. Vasquez, chairman of the USCCB Committee on Migration, has offered a mixed review of the potential changes.

While Bishop Vasquez said the bishops are pleased that a path to citizenship for the “Dreamers” is part of the plan, he is critical of proposed restrictions on family unification and the elimination of the protections for unaccompanied minors.

“Family immigration is pat of the bedrock of our country and of our Church,” said Vasquez in a statement released by the USCCB.

“Upholding and protecting the family unit, regardless of its national origins, is vital to our faith.”

Further, Vasquez said that he did not think it was right to effectively try to bargain one aspect of immigration reform, a path to citizenship for “Dreamers” brought illegally to the United States as children, with protections for unaccompanied minors.

“We know them all to be children of God who need our compassion and mercy,” Vasquez said.

Vasquez urged for Republicans and Democrats to work together to come up with a solution, and fast, as “time is of the essence” for Dreamers and unaccompanied minors. He called on elected officials to “show leadership” to pass legislation that would both protect national security interests as well as “humane, proportionate, and just” to undocumented people.


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2 Comments

  1. They are not all children of God…some of the unaccompanied are MS13 moral morons….and only children of God by a very loose use of the term. Christ said in John 8:44 to pharisees, ” The father from whom you are is the devil and the desire of your father, it is your will to do.”
    Same could be said to MS13 members crossing the border. Will Bishop Vasquez speak exactly like Christ….the sweet and the sour….about immigrants or will he always run this con of sweet only when it comes to law breakers who can’t fill out an application and wait their turn….like Indians from India do….like Koreans from Korea do. Mexican drug people are in forty US cities according to a netflix film…..Bishops….cricket chirping.

  2. I hope Bishop Vasquez is consistent and recommends that if I choose to steal the Christmas and Easter collections from Saint Mary Cathedral in Austin to provide my family a better life, that no prosecution take place.

    “Political authorities, for the sake of the common good for which they are responsible, may make the exercise of the right to immigrate subject to various juridical conditions, especially with regard to the immigrants’ duties toward their country of adoption. Immigrants are obliged to respect with gratitude the material and spiritual heritage of the country that receives them, to obey its laws and to assist in carrying civic burdens.” Paragraph 2, Section 2241, Catechism of the Catholic CHurch

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