From Denver to New York City, the country’s Catholic bishops have joined a chorus of organizations, institutions and high-profile individuals urging the Trump administration to stop separating children from their parents as they seek respite in the U.S. from dire conditions in their home countries, largely in Central America.
About 600 Catholic institutions had signed the Catholic Climate Declaration, said Dan Misleh, executive director of the Catholic Climate Covenant, which developed the statement and released it during a June 18 teleconference.
The federal government, which accounts for about 13 percent of that total, could start shaving the size of its prison populations if the First Step Act becomes law.
The executive director of the U.S. bishops’ Migration and Refugee Services gives credit to a group of moderate Republicans in Congress trying to revive interest in Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals legislation, or DACA, by their efforts to bring not just one bill, but four, to the House floor.
Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio of the U.S. Archdiocese for the Military Services was one of seven U.S. religious leaders asking that any new North American Free Trade Agreement “avoid enhanced and extended monopolies on life-essential medicines.”
In front of a small crowd of cabinet members and religious leaders at the White House Rose Garden May 3, President Donald Trump announced, and then signed, an executive order giving faith-based groups a stronger voice in the federal government.
Continuing the legal drama against a program that protects some 800,000 young adults brought into the country without legal documentation as minors, seven states have filed a lawsuit attempting once more to end it.
In the last case before the U.S. Supreme Court this session, it seemed the majority of justices might uphold President Donald Trump’s travel ban on people from several Muslim-majority countries.
