USCCB: bishop decries Homeland Security’s memos on border security
February 24, 2017
Bishop Joe Vásquez of Austin, the chairman of the US bishops’ Committee on Migration, criticized two memoranda on immigration enforcement and border security issued by the Department of Homeland Security.
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The memoranda, Bishop Vásquez argued, “will harm public safety rather than enhance it. Moreover, taken in their entirety, the policies contained in these memoranda will needlessly separate families, upend peaceful communities, endanger the lives and safety of the most vulnerable among us, breakdown the trust that currently exists between many police departments and immigrant communities, and sow great fear in those communities.”
He added:
The DHS memoranda eliminates [sic] important protections for vulnerable populations, including unaccompanied children and asylum seekers. They greatly expand the militarization of the U.S./Mexico border. Taken together, these memoranda constitute the establishment of a large-scale enforcement system that targets virtually all undocumented migrants as ‘priorities’ for deportation, thus prioritizing no one.
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Posted by: brenda22890 -
Feb. 25, 2017 6:19 AM ET USA
Nonsense. It's about time we began protecting our borders. Most of the illegal immigrants I know (and there are quite a few) came here to make more money (and I don't blame them), but there is only one I know as honest, hardworking and tax paying. These are not people in grave danger. I feel bad about their families - but it is their own doing...
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Posted by: rickt26170 -
Feb. 24, 2017 5:31 PM ET USA
I can't see that our faith requires the US government to make a serious attempt to control its borders: it is fundamental to sovereignty and practiced by every nation in the world. Mexico is in serious trouble and the US must avoid making it worse if possible, but it takes faith to think drug violence etc will stay south of the border. And this administration has been very good for religious liberty - we might shy from delivering heavy criticism on immigration.