WASHINGTON — Catholic leaders praised the Supreme Court’s June 30 decision that gave the Biden administration the go-ahead to rescind a Trump-era “Remain in Mexico” immigration policy requiring asylum-seekers at the southwest U.S. border to wait in Mexico for their asylum hearings. The 5-4 decision in Biden v. Texas was written by Chief Justice John Roberts and joined by Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Brett Kavanaugh. On his first day in office, President Joe Biden suspended the 2019 Migrant Protection Protocols, or MPP, put in place by former President Donald Trump in an effort to curb the influx of those arriving at the southern border seeking asylum in the U.S. Biden formally sought to end the program months later, but lower courts ordered that the policy be reinstated in response to a lawsuit from Republican-led Texas and Missouri. From January 2019, when the Trump administration started the program, to the end of 2020, nearly 70,000 migrants were sent back to Mexico to wait for their court hearings, according to the American Immigration Council. The Supreme Court’s ruling — the last opinion issued for the current term — said the lower court’s decision about the immigration policy “imposed a significant burden upon the executive’s ability to conduct diplomatic relations with Mexico,” particularly since the United States cannot send migrants from Central America to Mexico without negotiating these actions with Mexican officials. A dissent, written by Justice Samuel Alito and joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch, said the Department of Homeland Security should not be free to “simply release into this country untold numbers of aliens who are very likely to be removed if they show up for their removal hearings. This practice violates the clear terms of the law, but the court looks the other way.” A joint statement issued by leaders of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, or CLINIC, and Catholic Charities USA, said the Supreme Court’s decision “recognizes and preserves the executive branch’s ability to reverse untenable, illegal and immoral policies, regardless of who is in office.” They also said the asylum policy “obstructed due process and subjected people to the very dangers that forced them to seek refuge in the United States in the first place.” “With this ruling, we welcome the end of MPP,” said Auxiliary Bishop Mario E. Dorsonville of Washington, who is chairman of the USCCB’s Committee on Migration, Dominican Sister Donna Markham, president and CEO of Catholic Charities USA, and Anna Gallagher, CLINIC’s executive director. The leaders also noted the court’s ruling does not “resolve the ongoing challenges at our country’s southwest border,” but they said it helps “pave the way forward.” The three groups had filed amicus briefs in the case.
Pope Francis’ witness on immigration inspired local ministries Catholics in the Archdiocese of Chicago who minister to and advocate for immigrants were inspired by Pope Francis’ words and actions, from visiting Lampedusa, Italy, to mourn migrants lost at sea in the opening months of his pontificate, to celebrating Mass at the U.S.-Mexico border, and urging members of the U.S. Congress in 2015 to find an immigration policy that would be “always humane, just and fraternal.”
El Paso bishop calls Catholics to advocate against ‘morally indefensible’ actions toward migrants U.S. Catholics must advocate for a humane immigration system at a time when the federal government is taking a number of “morally indefensible” actions towards migrants and immigrants, according to Bishop Mark J. Seitz of El Paso, Texas.
Pope, a ‘son of immigrants,’ leaves legacy of migrant advocacy When Pope Francis chose the small Italian island of Lampedusa as the destination for his first trip outside Rome after his election, he signaled to the world that migration would be a defining issue of his pontificate.