Baltimore, Md., Jun 11, 2019 / 14:30 pm
The Church needs to be present to migrants and refugees in the U.S. who are facing detention or deportation, and cannot be "invisible," U.S. bishops said on the first day of their annual spring meeting in Baltimore, Md. on Tuesday.
"We can also redouble our efforts to offer spiritual support, and access to legal and social services to affected families," Bishop Joe Vasquez of Austin stated on Tuesday afternoon of an estimated 700,000 DACA recipients and 400,000 TPS holders whose legal status is uncertain but who have received a temporary reprieve from deportation as the administration's actions ending DACA and TPS are litigated.
While delivering an update on the U.S. bishops' working group on immigration, Bishop Vasquez maintained that "it is vital that they feel supported by the Church during this time of uncertainty."
With thousands of undocumented immigrants in detention centers throughout the country, "we as pastors should be concerned that we have our priests there celebrating Mass for them, that the Church is present to them in this area," Archbishop Thomas Wenski of Miami stated. "We have to respond to them and not let the Church be invisible to them."