Ahead of the 2020 elections, immigration is once again expected to be a core issue among voters. When asked how voters can consider the Church's teaching on the right to migrate and on the state's just authority to regulate immigration, Bishop Flores pointed to global solidarity, the common good, and the limits of national sovereignty.
"The good of survival is a very high good in terms of Catholic social teaching," he said. "And while a country has a responsibility to defend its borders, it also has a responsibility to be just and reasonable in attending to the human crisis which is beyond our borders. Because Catholic social teaching has never considered national sovereignty as an absolute right that is sort of 'free to be capricious, it's not our problem'."
Pope Francis has taught of the "responsibility in global solidarity" to pay attention to crises beyond the borders of one's own country, he said, and the pope has pointed out problems that transcend national boundaries and demand the attention of everyone, such as human trafficking.
To ignore these problems, and the plight of migrants, as a country, "we will simply just kind of shrivel in terms of our own human awareness of the basic commonality we have as human beings."
"And the Gospel certainly calls us to look with open eyes as to the Lazaruses at the door. And to try to find some sort of reasonable accommodation to address those situations," he said. Migrants are often victims of gang violence and human traffickers, he said, "basically what the pope calls the modern slave trade. It happens not just in the Americas, it happens across the world."
"And this is, as the Holy Father keeps saying to the world, especially to the economically successful in the world, you can't keep pretending this is not happening."
Matt Hadro was the political editor at Catholic News Agency through October 2021. He previously worked as CNA senior D.C. correspondent and as a press secretary for U.S. Congressman Chris Smith.