While President Donald Trump has sought to end DACA, there have been legislative efforts to maintain elements of DACA in an immigration law, and DACA recipients may still submit applications to renew their status.
Brava said she hoped other Catholics would see immigrants as their brother or sister in the faith. "We're human beings, there's no difference. Legal status doesn't make a person less worthy," she said.
Many immigrants from Central and South America who come to the United States are Catholic, and Hispanics make up more than 40 percent of Catholics within the U.S.
Because of this, immigrants often look to the Church for help once they arrive in the U.S.
Alfonso Lara is the Director of Hispanic Ministry for the Archdiocese of Denver, Colorado. He said that parishes need to be intentional about welcoming immigrants, "not only with coffee and donuts but also having a committee to welcome them, realizing that they're another human being coming to your country with a different experience of life and a different experience of the Church."
He said he would encourage church leaders not to inquire about the legal status of immigrants, but to be "humans receiving humans."
"We're welcoming the stranger, that's what we do," he said. "When another person comes to church to have an encounter with Jesus, we need to respect that."
Patricia Zapor is the director of communications for The Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc. (CLINIC), which is a network of non-profit organizations that provide immigration legal services to their clients.
Zapor told CNA that there are many practical things that parishes can do to support and welcome immigrants in their parish.
"It could be something as simple as collecting money to help people pay the fees that go along with their applications," she said. Depending on the form, that could be anywhere between hundreds or more than a thousand dollars, which doesn't include the fingerprint and background check fees.
"They might offer (language classes), or they might host a know your rights event," Zapor said. CLINIC has resources about the rights of immigrants available in nine languages.
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Immigrants often are not sure where to get started in the application process, and there are a "fair amount" of fraudulent companies out there that try to offer immigration services to unwitting clients, so providing proper resources and information is key, Zapor noted.
If a parish really wanted to get involved, they could host a refugee family, Zapor said.
Or they could host something as simple as a rosary with immigration-themed reflections, or a Las Posadas celebration, or other simple ways "of getting a community to think about immigrants and maybe have a conversation about them without being hammered over the head with the politics," she said.
Ultimately, Catholics should acknowledge immigrants as fellow human beings who should be treated with care and respect, Brava said.
"We need to treat each other as brothers or sisters in Christ," she said. "We have differences in culture, in ideas, in opinions, but at the end of the day, we believe in the same God. We need to value our neighbors, our brothers and sisters regardless of their status and immigration."
Mary Farrow worked as a staff writer for Catholic News Agency until 2020. She has a degree in journalism and English education from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.