Pope Francis Calls for Protection of Migrant Children

Wall Street Journal

By Dudley Althaus And Deborah Ball

July 15, 2014

Pope Francis Calls for Protection of Migrant Children 

Pope Francis is urging the U.S. and other governments to protect the migrant children flocking by the thousands across the Rio Grande and to rectify often appalling conditions at home that have set them on the road.

The pope's call comes as U.S., Mexican and Central American officials scramble to contain what President Barack Obama and others have called an "urgent humanitarian situation" unfolding along the U.S.-Mexico border, primarily in Texas.

"I must call attention to the tens of thousands of children who migrate alone, unaccompanied, to escape poverty and violence," Pope Francis said in a letter, read at a migration conference in Mexico City sponsored by the Vatican and the Mexican government. The letter says youngsters cross the U.S. border "in extreme conditions, in a hopeful search that most of the time is in vain."

Child migrants must be especially cared for, Pope Francis said. But governments must improve economic and security conditions that guarantee the youths viable futures in their homelands.

Since October, more than 57,000 unaccompanied minors—most from impoverished and gang-besieged Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador—have been detained by U.S. immigration agents. Thousands more mothers or other guardians with young children have turned themselves in to the Border Patrol in the mistaken belief they will be allowed to remain in the U.S.

The human wave has overwhelmed U.S. officials' abilities to both rule on individual migrant cases and to care for them while the minors await hearings in immigration courts. Most have been released to the care of relatives in the U.S., feeding rumors in Central America that the youths were obtaining permits to stay.

Intent on sending a message that no such permission exists, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Monday flew 38 recently detained women and children home to Honduras.

U.S. officials say it is the first of many such deportations as the government expedites immigration hearings.

"Our border is not open to illegal migration and we will send recent illegal migrants back," the agency said in a statement Monday.

Pope Francis from the onset of his papacy has been a vocal defender of migrants across the globe. His first trip as pontiff last year was to Lampedusa, the tiny Italian island that serves as a European gateway for thousands of migrants from Africa and the Middle East.

More than 300 people from Eritrea, in East Africa, died last fall when their boat capsized off Lampedusa, drawing attention to the soaring numbers of migrants arriving in Europe. The Italian Coast Guard routinely seizes overloaded boats near Lampedusa carrying thousands of migrants.

"Many people obligated to migrate suffer and frequently die tragically," Pope Francis said in his missive. "Many of their rights are violated, they are forced to leave their families and unfortunately continue being the object of racist and xenophobic attitudes."

Catholic clergy and laymen, as well as Mennonites and those of other faiths, long have worked both to aid migrants on their journey as well as help improve conditions in the areas they have left.

Shelters financed by Catholic parishes and dioceses in Mexican cities and towns have been set up along the migrants' route to the U.S. The Scalabrinis, a Catholic religious order dedicated to aiding migrants world-wide, operates shelters on Mexico's southern and U.S. borders.

Attending the immigration conference in Mexico this week, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, who is the Vatican's second-ranking cleric, highlighted the church's work in assisting migrants across the Americas.

Every country must measure itself by "the quality of the support it offers to people…particularly the poorest and most vulnerable," Cardinal Parolin told Vatican Radio on Tuesday.

In their comments this week, both Pope Francis and Cardinal Parolin tied the migration crisis to free-market policies that favor capital over people, seeding desperation alongside wealth.

"While, on the one hand, borders are increasingly opened for commerce, for money and for new technologies," Cardinal Parolin told a gathering of Mexican Catholic bishops Tuesday, "on the other [hand], people suffer multiple restrictions, tramplings and abuses, remaining stuck in vulnerable situations.

"Migrants frequently are the suffering face of Christ in our times," he added.

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