Catholics across the country will spend the next few days protesting the Trump administration’s treatment of families illegally entering the United States and learning more about the challenges these migrants face. A number of protests will take place this weekend and a group of bishops, including the head of the US Bishops’ Conference, will travel to the border early next week.
On Saturday, as part of a nationwide protest against a Trump administration policy that separated children from parents who entered the United States illegally, more than two dozen events are being held.organized by groups with links to Jesuit parishes and universities.
In Ann Arbor, Michigan, members of St. Mary’s Student Parish will join a protest at the University of Michigan. In Los Angeles, people from Loyola Marymount University will march to the city’s Federal Building carrying a banner that reads “Bienvenidos Inmigrantes y Refugiados.” And in the nation’s capital, parishioners of Holy Trinity Catholic Church will march to Lafayette Square near the White House to protest immigration policies.
A group of bishops, including the head of the American Episcopal Conference, will travel to the border early next week.
As part of President Trump’s policy, the government has begun to prosecute all migrants caught entering the country without permission. Mr Trump ended his policy of removing children from detained parents under public pressure, but around 2,000 of them remain in detention, with many families saying they do not know how to locate them.
While the administration has promised to no longer separate children from their parents, it is unclear how families will be reunited, as migrants are first stopped by customs and border protection. Then the children are transferred to the custody of the Department of Health and Human Services, while the adults are detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which falls under the Department of Homeland Security.
“If as a church and as people of faith we’re not willing to talk about something like this, I don’t know what we would be willing to talk about,” said Chris Kerr, executive director of Ignatian. Solidarity Network. Americaadding that the separation of families is “a direct attack on who we are as Catholics and Christians”.
In El Paso, the Hope Border Institute is co-sponsoring a march with other Catholic entities to protest immigration policies that separate families.
The protests are linked to a national day of action on Saturday, where rallies will be held in hundreds of cities across the country as part of the “Families Go Together” campaign.
Then on Monday, Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, archbishop of Galveston-Houston and president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, will travel to Brownsville, Texas, with a delegation of other bishops. The delegation “will offer reflections on engagements with the Catholic community, U.S. government officials, and Catholic charities in the Rio Grande Valley on the issue of family separation,” the USCCB said in a news release Friday. .
Catholic bishops have for several years held events at the US-Mexico border to highlight what they say are injustices in US immigration policy. Cardinal Seán O’Malley led a group of bishops to the border in 2014. Two years later, during his visit to Mexico, Pope Francis visited the border and, facing the United States and a group of migrants gathered in El Paso, offered a prayer for those whose lives have been turned upside down by the need to leave their country. Most recently, earlier this month, bishops from California and Mexico celebrated Mass together, separated by a section of border fence.
Cardinal Joseph Tobin told his fellow bishops at their spring meeting earlier this month that a trip to the border should be undertaken to visit detention centers where separated children are housed.
He said such a visit would serve “as a sign of our pastoral concern and protest against the hardening of the American heart.”
A number of women representing various Christian traditions gathered in Brownsville earlier this week in a protest designed to draw attention to the Trump administration’s policy of separating children from their parents.
As thousands gathered #Brownsvillemy fellow clergy and I have taken the campaign to the courthouse to bear witness to the injustice of policies that are tearing families apart. #FaithOnTheBorder#FamiliesBelongTogetherpic.twitter.com/wfiLpiCtOn
– Rev. Jen Butler (@RevJenButler) June 29, 2018
As part of their visit, the group visited Sister Norma Pimentel, an immigration advocate who leads Catholic charities in the Rio Grande Valley. On Wednesday, the group held a prayer service outside the central processing center at McAllen Station. More than 8,000 women, including hundreds of Catholic sisters, have signed an open letter to the Director of Homeland Security calling for an end to family separation.
“We want to pray for the children inside and for the families,” Reverend Jennifer Butler, CEO of Faith in Public Life, said in a press release. “We know you are a loving God. You told us that whatever we do the least of these things, we do to you.
At another event in El Paso, Sister Simone Campbell, head of the social justice organization Network, was among a group that unsuccessfully attempted to visit a detention center housing migrant children.
I wanted to share my trip to the border this week. Thoughts on my trip to the border https://t.co/MBlV4DR4bc
— Sr. Simone Campbell (@sr_simone) June 28, 2018
“We do not act righteously. As a nation, we do not love. Our leadership does not walk humbly. We must repent and change our course,” Sister Campbell wrote in a reflection on her visit.
Associated Press material was used in this report.
