Agenzia Fides

Baltimore (Agenzia Fides) - The Archbishop of Los Angeles, His Exc. Mgr. Jose Gomez, who chairs the Committee on Migration of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the United States of America (USCCB), urged re-elected President Barack Obama and Congress to make an immigration reform in 2013. "I invite the President and Congress to seize the day and begin the difficult process of creating a bipartisan agreement," said Bishop Gomez at the annual meeting of the USCCB in Baltimore, Maryland. In the note sent to Fides Agency, we read Mgr. Gomez’s words: "Millions of people remain in the shadows, without legal protection and marginalized. As a moral question, this suffering must end."
After November 6 election, both the President of the House of Representatives, Republican John Boehner, and the leader of the Democratic majority in the Senate, Harry Reid, have stressed the need for global immigration reform. "I am excited about the recent public statements by leaders of the two political parties that support the examination of the immigration reform in the new Congress," said the Archbishop of Los Angeles.
Mgr. Gomez believes that the immigration reform must uphold the rule of law, preserve the unity of the family, protection of human rights and dignity of persons, and therefore urged Catholics to make their voices heard in support of the immigration reform. "Immigration: a problem of 50 States" was the theme the Bishops discussed in December 2011 (see Fides 12/12/2011). According to data from the Pew Hispanic Center, at the end of 2011 11.2 million were undocumented immigrants. (CE) (Agenzia Fides 15/11/2012)