Five Things to Remember on Jan. 8

 

1.      For National Migration Week, January 6-12, USCCB’s Migration and Refugee Services has launched a postcard campaign that calls on Congress to pass just and compassionate immigration reform. You can send an electronic postcard to the local representative and senator from the Justice for Immigrants Website, http://www.justiceforimmigrants.org/index.shtml.

2.      January is Poverty Awareness Month. Today in America, over forty-six million people live in poverty. That’s over ten percent of all families and more than 1 in 5 children. Close to 23 million are unemployed or underemployed; our economy still cannot produce enough decent jobs. This is a scandal and a serious moral failure, but there is hope.  For over forty years, the Catholic Campaign for Human Development has been empowering families and communities to fight poverty and create economic opportunity because as Pope Benedict XVI said in Deus Caritas Est, “love for widows and orphans, prisoners, and the sick and needy of every kind, is as essential to [the Church] as the ministry of the sacraments and preaching of the Gospel. The Church cannot neglect the service of charity any more than she can neglect the Sacraments and the Word.”

3.      Ambassador Thomas Melady makes a strong case that Americans must take child poverty seriously in his guest blog on the USCCB media blog yesterday.

4.      Catholic Schools in the inner cities and urban areas remain a significant presence: four decades ago 46.5 percent were located in urban and inner city areas, today 42.3 percent of the schools are still in the urban/inner city locales.  During the same period of time, suburban schools increased from 25 percent to 36.5 percent. Source: “The Annual Statistical Report on Schools, Enrollment and Staffing; United States Catholic Elementary and Secondary Schools 2011-2012 published by National Catholic Educational Association.

5.      God loves you.

 

Five things to Remember for Jan. 3, 2013

1.   National Migration Week is January 6-12. This year’s theme: “We are Strangers No Longer: Our Journey of Hope Continues.” Celebration includes a postcard campaign for comprehensive immigration reform. It is spearheaded by USCCB Migration and Refugee Services and urges Congress to pass fair and comprehensive immigration reform to provide a path to citizenship for undocumented persons, preserve family unity as a cornerstone of the immigration system, provide legal paths for low-skilled immigrant workers to come and work in the U.S., restore due process protections to immigration enforcement policies and address the causes of migration rooted in persecution and economic disparity. National Migration Week resources can be found at: www.usccb.org/about/migration-and-refugee-services/national-migration-week.
 
2.  Interesting data from R. Gordon Melton, Ph.D., ordained elder in the United Methodist Church and distinguished professor of American religious history at Baylor University. Melton predicts Catholics will grow to 100 million adherents by mid-century. His observations and those of other researchers are found in an insightful blog by former AP religion writer David Briggs, now with the Arda, the Association of Religion Data Archives.  
 
3.  For Poverty Awareness Month, the Catholic Campaign for Human Development highlights how government policies can address serious needs in our nation.

4.      Courts are responding to lawsuits opposing the Health and Human Services mandate in the Affordable Care Act. Last count from the Becket Fund finds 12 early opinions on the merits, nine in favor of plaintiffs and three against for for-profit businesses asking for a halt to enforcement of the law that many religious organizations and businesses argue would force them to violate their conscience. The HHS mandate requires employers to pay for contraceptives, including abortion-inducing drugs, and female sterilization for employees.

5.      God loves you.

A System of Fifty State Immigration Laws Is Untenable

Immigration advocates, Catholic leaders and others gathered in Utah this week to examine the consequences of federal inaction on comprehensive immigration reform and state and local legislation, particularly enforcement-only measures.

Bishop John C. Wester of Salt Lake City delivered January 11 the keynote address at the “Immigration: A 50 State Issue” conference, organized by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in partnership with the Catholic Legal Immigration Network . He offered a look into the model of the “Utah Compact” and made the case for how, in the absence of federal legislation, state compacts offer an opportunity for people with diverging opinions on immigration to come together and take action for the common good.

Local media such as the Salt Lake Tribune and Deseret News have reported on the event. Excerpts from Bishop Wester’s welcome address, “Catholic Public Policy and State Compacts” follow.

*****

Time is up for comprehensive immigration reform. But it is the American public, including the Catholics, who will decide the final outcome.

This is an important time in the immigration debate in this nation. While Congress has failed to address this issue, our state legislatures and local governments are not hesitating to attempt to fill the vacuum. Instead of one consistent national policy, we are now confronted with hundreds of State and local immigration policies, the majority of which are harmful to immigrant families and communities.

Rather than looking at the moment as a daunting challenge, we should look upon it as an opportunity. Congress will not act on this issue unless a strong national consensus emerges, where the majority of Americans agree on a path forward and communicate that to their federal, elected officials. The only way that will happen is if the American people are educated on the issues and the realities of immigration, and that can only occur if the issue is right in front of them, being debated in their local communities. Catholics must be part of and help bring about such consensus.

Different laws, particularly enforcement-only initiatives, played out in fifty States are bound to fail, since they will not fix a broken federal immigration system. Immigrants, over 70 percent of whom have been here five years or longer, are not leaving; they are just hiding in fear.

We must continue to fight because of the real suffering that is occurring in immigrant families and communities. There are four million U.S. citizen children who have one or more undocumented parents. The combination of Federal-State enforcement partnerships and federal enforcement actions has led to an unprecedented separation of families. Nearly a quarter of those deported in the last year were part of a family with a U.S.-citizen—most likely a child. They also have led to a record number of deportations over the past three years.

How do we fight these State and Local immigration laws? Here in Utah, we have employed the Utah Compact, which helped us define the debate in this State. Three laws were passed. The Compact principles helped diffuse a much harsher enforcement-only bill.

The compact was an effort to bring leaders from the civic, political, religious, business, legal and law enforcement community around a common set of principles, but from a state perspective. These principles are meant to guide our state leaders who must grapple with the realities of a broken immigration system in our country, and who hopefully do not forget that immigration is a human, moral issue and not simply a political debate.

The Utah compact contains several elements consistent with Catholic teaching:

• First, it emphasizes that immigration is best addressed on the federal level, rather than on the State and local levels.
• Second, it acknowledges and supports the need for law enforcement of immigration laws, but with respect for basic human rights.
• Third, it talks about the break-up of families. Local initiatives have had a harsh impact on family unity. Children are the victims of family separation.
• Fourth, it highlights the economic contributions of immigrants, and how they work in important industries in Utah. Immigrants, by and large, possess a strong work ethic and enhance our economic life—as consumers and producers of goods.
• Finally, we live in a free society, in which we enjoy basic constitutional rights guaranteed by our Founding Fathers and our Constitution. Basic human rights are guaranteed by our Creator.

The ultimate goal of a Compact is to build pressure for federal reform. A system of fifty State laws which supplant federal authority is untenable.

We do not believe enforcement alone is the answer. Rather, it must be coupled with humane reforms in our legal immigration system that will allow immigrants to play by a fair and equitably administered set of rules. That is not the case in our current system—only the federal government can achieve this balance.

I am gratified by the fact that there is now also an Iowa Compact which has been released, and an “Arizona Accord,” being developed. I hope that you will consider such a tool in your efforts on the State and local level.

+ Most Reverend John C. Wester, Bishop of Salt Lake City

Did you know...MRS helped reunite 331 unaccompanied children with their families in 2011?

Did You Know...

... that Migration and Refugee Services (MRS) of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has an active children services program? If there such thing as a vulnerable population in the world, it is children, and particularly children who are left to fend for themselves or who have been separated from their families. MRS provides residential care for unaccompanied children through a network of foster care programs nationwide. This program provides housing, food, clothing, and other much needed services to children who are under our care. MRS also works with the federal government and over 130 providers across the country to reunite children with their families. In Fiscal Year 2011, MRS helped reunite 331 children and provided them with a wide range of social services to ensure their continued health and safety. The top three nationalities were Mexican, Salvadoran, and Guatemalan.

More information here

Did you know...the Cuban-Haitian Program served more than 9,400 in 2011?

Did you know…

... that Migration and Refugee Services (MRS) of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has a Cuban/Haitian Program located in Miami?

Here is a peek into the fantastic work that they do in Florida. The program is a historic leader in helping Cubans and Haitians who resettle in the United States under unique and complex immigration laws. Since 1995, this program has served a whopping 198,949 clients, the greater majority of which are Cuban.

In 2011, the program served 9,417 clients (trust me when I tell that it is a small office, and so that is a lot of people to serve!). The Miami Office was also integral providing support for Haitians who were adversely brought to the United States for medical support following the January 12, 2010 earthquake, which took the lives of some 300,000 Haitians.

Find more information on the Cuban-Haitian Program on our website.

Picture: Haitian children pose for picture during visit by a USCCB delegation to Port-au-Prince after devastating earthquake in 2010

Did you know...73% of trafficked persons are victims of slave labor?

Did You Know...

.... that from April 2006 through October 10, 2011, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) had an exclusive contract with the government to provide health, psychological and related services to survivors of human trafficking?

During this period USCCB provided services to 2,223 victims, along with 512 family members. In doing so, the Conference helped to provide former slaves with the opportunity for a new life and new opportunities. Of victims served, a full 73% of clients served were victims of slave labor. This flies in the face of widely accepted common wisdom, which tends to identity human trafficking with forced prostitution or other forms of sexual slavery. Further, 44% of clients were male, with the remaining 56% female.

The work that the staff USCCB anti-trafficking office has done in recent years deserves recognition and we should thank them for their efforts to help some of the most vulnerable populations on this planet.

For more information, click here.

Picture: This desperate mother traveled from her village in Nepal to Mumbai, India, hoping to find and rescue her teenage daughter who was trafficked into an Indian brothel. Nepalese girls are prized for their fair skin and are lured with promises of a "good" job and the chance to improve their lives. "I will stay in Mumbai," said the mother, "Until I find my daughter or die. I am not leaving here without her." (Credit: “Kay Chernush for the U.S. State Department.”)

Did you know... MRS resettled 27% of refugeess into U.S. in 2011?

Did you know…

... that the Migration and Refugee Services of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) resettled 15,543 of just under 57,000 refugees, or 27 percent of all refugees admitted into the United States in 2011? While the total number of refugees resettled by the USCCB signified a decrease from 2010, the total percentage remained competitive with the previous year. The top six nationalities resettled by the Conference were Bhutanese, Burmese, Iraqi, Somali, Cubans and Iranians, along with smaller groups of Congolese and Eritreans. Enormous thanks go out to the USCCB staff in Resettlement Services, and to the staff of the over 100 diocesan resettlement offices across the country, who make this work possible.

For more information, please visit the Resettlement Services page.

It’s National Migration Week

This week Catholics across the country will pay special attention to immigrants and refugees. From special Masses and prayer services, to the sharing of migration stories, food, cultural and religious traditions’ festivals, Catholics and other Americans have been encouraged by the U.S. Catholic bishops to reflect on the issues surrounding migration, refugees and trafficking of human persons.

The bishops of Illinois opened National Migration Week on Sunday, January 8, with a statement that announces several months of sharing and reflection in parishes across the state on the realities of migration, following in the footsteps of the Michigan bishops, who issued a statement in the summer, and the Latino bishops in the country who addressed undocumented immigrants in a pastoral letter December 12.

Observation of National Migration Week takes many different shapes around the country. For example, the Diocese of San Bernardino, California, will celebrate its Sixth Annual Migration Mass on January 15. In the Diocese of Arlington, Virginia, NMW is intermingled with other January events of its multicultural ministries, such as events of Our Lady of Lavang’s Vietnamese Catholic Community to celebrate its Tết (New Year) at St. Veronica’s and Holy Martyrs’ Parishes.

At the national level, over 200 Catholic diocesan staff, legal service providers, immigrant advocates and others will gather January 11-13, in Salt Lake City, for a conference. “Immigration: A 50-State Issue, A Focus on State and Local Immigration Initiatives” will examine enforcement-only state approaches, such as those attempted in Arizona and Alabama. Participants will discuss actions that communities can take on the local level. The conference further will evaluate federal-state enforcement partnerships, such as the Secure Communities program, and their impact on local immigrant communities. Attendees will hear about and discuss consequences of federal inaction on immigration reform. Organizers—USCCB Migration and Refugee Services and the Catholic Legal Migration Network, Inc. (CLINIC)— say the purpose of the conference is to provide participants with the support and tools they need to engage decision makers about humane, comprehensive solutions both nationally and locally.

Materials for NMW can be found on the USCCB website. Those interested are also encouraged to visit the Justice for Immigrants website, where a wide range of educational resources on immigration and Catholic Social Teaching can be found.

The observance of National Migration Week was begun over a quarter century ago by the U.S. bishops to provide Catholics an opportunity to take stock of the wide diversity of peoples in the Church and the ministries serving them.

In the coming days reflections and contributions by bishops and others on the topic of migration will be published on this site.