Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
El Paso (Agenzia Fides) – “For unaccompanied minors repatriation is sometime a death sentence”: said Catholic Bishop Mark J. Seitz of El Paso diocese Texas. The minors in question arrive unaccompanied from central America hoping to reach the United States.
Fides learned that Bishop Seitz explained that central American children “flee threats of death and rape, we cannot send them back to the same situation”. “When we find these youngsters on the road or on the border we must take care of them: this is our calling as Christians”, he observed.
On 21 October Bishop Seitz gave a Testimony before the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and presented suggestions to “improve responses to vulnerable peoples in Central America, in Mexico, at the US-Mexico and in the United States” (see Fides 23/10/2015).
According to information presented by various organizations to El Paso diocese, in the last 18 months at least 80 children died following repatriation. In many cases children suffer abuse following arrest. Bishop Seitz stressed the necessity of setting up international plans and programmes to improve life for children in central America in order to prevent the flight towards danger. (CE) (Agenzia Fides, 24/10/2015)
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