More Francises are urgently needed to defend immigrants

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Washington, DC – Below is a column by Maribel Hastings from America’s Voice en Español translated to English from Spanish. It ran in several Spanish-language media outlets earlier this week:

With the death of Pope Francis, the voice of one of the most ardent defenders of immigrants and refugees is silenced, at a time when they are facing one of the most difficult chapters worldwide, particularly in the United States, where President Donald Trump is heading up an anti-immigrant crusade that affects even U.S. citizens and authorized residents.

Pope Francis didn’t hesitate to condemn Trump’s immigration policies. When Trump was a presidential candidate in 2016 and proposed a wall along the border with Mexico, the Pope affirmed that someone “who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian.”

When Trump won the presidency, the Pope condemned his first administration’s family separation policy at the border, categorizing it as “immoral.”

In February of this year, in the second Trump administration, the Pope castigated the policy of mass deportations. He wrote a letter to the U.S. Bishops in which he affirmed the following:

“The rightly formed conscience cannot fail to make a critical judgment and express its disagreement with any measure that tacitly or explicitly identifies the illegal status of some migrants with criminality.” And, he added that “the act of deporting people who in many cases have left their land for reasons of extreme poverty, insecurity, exploitation, persecution or serious deterioration of the environment, damages the dignity of many men and women, and of entire families, and places them in a state of particular vulnerability and defenselessness.”

He went even further, indicating that “an authentic rule of law is verified precisely in the dignified treatment that all people deserve, especially the poorest and most marginalized.”

This past Easter Sunday, in a message read by an assistant to the multitude gathered in Saint Peter’s Square, the Pope once again took up the topic of immigrants: “How much contempt is stirred up at times towards the vulnerable, the marginalized, and migrants!”

The contrasts between the compassion and humility of Pope Francis, the first Latin American supreme pontiff, an Argentine son of Italian immigrants, and the cruelty and arrogance of Trump and his administration could not be greater.

Just like it was warned when his plan for mass deportations was just that — a plan — the use of racial profiling is already real and there are various cases of U.S. citizens who have been detained by immigration authorities. It’s not yet been reported that they were deported, but it would not be surprising for this to occur. In this atmosphere, anyone, including citizens, can be detained and deported.

Moreover, the Trump administration is waging a war against the courts, including the highest court in the nation, disobeying rulings and decisions that seek to impede the summary deportation of immigrants without being given the opportunity of a hearing before a judge, particularly in the case of those deported to the feared CECOT jail in El Salvador. Trump disobeyed the Supreme Court order to “facilitate” the U.S. return of a legal resident, Kilmar Ábrego García, who was deported “by mistake” to El Salvador.

While this fight between the judicial and executive powers goes on — since the legislative branch is already a rubber stamp for Trump, with majority Republicans in both chambers — many are asking who will take the baton to continue this relief in defense of all the groups attacked by Trump: the working class; those who depend on vital programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, and SNAP and Head Start; the LGBTQ+ community; immigrants; the rule of law; due process of law; and democracy itself.

That is why we have to resist.

In his letter to the Bishops, the Pope issued a call to action: “I exhort all the faithful of the Catholic Church, and all men and women of goodwill, not to give in to narratives that discriminate against and cause unnecessary suffering to our migrant and refugee brothers and sisters. With charity and clarity, we are all called to live in solidarity and fraternity, to build bridges that bring us ever closer together, to avoid walls of ignominy, and to learn to give our lives as Jesus Christ gave his for the salvation of all.”

Certainly, at this juncture, more Francises are urgently needed to defend immigrants.

The original Spanish version is here.