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One need not look further than the life and words of Jesus Christ to understand that persons on the move -- refugees, migrants, immigrants -- are special in the eyes of God. The baby child Jesus was a refugee who, along with the Holy Family, fled the terror of Herod into Egypt (Mt. 2:14-15). In His public ministry, Jesus was an itinerant, moving from place to place, “with nowhere to lay His Head.” (Mt. 8:20). As we welcome the stranger into our midst, we welcome Christ Himself.
In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus instructs us to welcome the stranger: “For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me” (Mt. 25-35). Jesus Himself was not welcomed by His own people: “He came to what was His own, but His own people did not accept him.”
Pope John Paul II reaffirmed the Church’s basic teaching on immigration in an address in 1985: “Every human being has the right to freedom of movement and of residence within the confines of his own country. When there are just reasons in favor of it, he must be permitted to migrate to other countries and to take up residence there. The fact that he is a citizen of a particular state does not deprive him of membership in the human family, nor of citizenship in the universal society, the common, world-wide fellowship of men.”
The U.S. Catholic Bishops have taken the Gospel teachings and the teachings of the Popes and applied it to the immigration reality in the United States. In January, 2003, the Bishops issued the pastoral letter, Strangers No Longer: Together on the Journey of Hope. In that document, the U.S. Bishops teach the following five principles that govern how the Catholic Church responds to public policy proposals related to immigration:
• Human persons have the right to find opportunities in their homeland.
• Human persons have the right to migrate to provide for themselves and their families.
• Sovereign nations have a right to control their borders.
• Refugees and asylum seekers should be afforded protections.
• The human rights and human dignity of undocumented migrants should be respected.
What can you do today, to advocate for the rights of immigrants? Add your voice to the national Catholic call for justice for immigrants!