AMERICA/UNITED STATES - Solidarity of Churches for the humanitarian emergency of immigrant children

Saturday, 28 June 2014

Laredo (Agenzia Fides) - "By the end of September, the number of Central American and Mexican undocumented immigrant children who come to Laredo and Brownsville in Texas could reach 90 000": this was said yesterday by the Bishop of the Diocese of Laredo Mgr. James Anthony Tamayo at the end of a meeting with other religious authorities in the area. As Fides learns, the meeting was organized specifically for this humanitarian emergency that is being experienced in Texas: in 2014 the number of unaccompanied minors, ie children and adolescents up to 17 years of age, has reached 47,000 (see Fides 05/06/2014 and 24/06/2014).
"It is a real emergency. There are many, in addition to the thousands of mothers with children as young as four years old, who live in a situation of extreme danger", said Mgr. Tamayo.
The meeting was attended by representatives of the Christian communities in the area: Catholics, Methodists, Episcopalians, Evangelicals and others. Together they have asked for concrete gestures of solidarity with the faithful because, according to the note sent to Fides, "no one knows when this migration will end which is becoming a critical phenomenon".
The U.S. government is making efforts to respond to this "humanitarian crisis", so named by President Obama. A coordination group of the United States, Canada, Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Honduras, is engaged in a massive action to control the flow of young people and children who arrive alone or traveling to the North. The group has decided to launch an information campaign to discourage travel. The campaign will announce that once people cross the border, the U.S. authorities do not grant everyone a regular residence permit. Each country then has committed to protect children, especially those who travel alone. (CE) (Agenzia Fides 28/06/2014)


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