Immigration and Migration

As part of the immigration conference “Responding to Changing Realities at the U.S. Border and Beyond,” held April 11 at The Catholic University of America in Washington, Peter K. Kilpatrick, the university’s president, interviewed Bishop Mark J. Seitz of El Paso, Texas.

Continuing to minister to migrants at the border and beyond while advocating for policies that uphold people’s dignity is a way the U.S. Catholic Church follows God’s call, said experts during an April 11 migration conference at The Catholic University of America in Washington.

A divided U.S. Supreme Court March 19 lifted a temporary pause on a controversial Texas law that makes it a state crime for unauthorized migrants to cross into Texas from Mexico, allowing the state to enforce the law while litigation proceeds.

Arizona’s governor recently rejected legislation that would have made crossing the state’s international border a state crime separate from a federal one in a move praised by the state’s Catholic conference, as other controversial measures work their way through the state’s Legislature.

A state judge March 11 temporarily blocked the Texas attorney general’s demands for the records of Annunciation House, citing concerns the state had a “predetermined” motive to shut down the Catholic nonprofit serving migrants.