AMERICA/UNITED STATES - Delegation of Bishops to visit a detention center for immigrant families

Friday, 27 March 2015

San Antonio (Agenzia Fides) - A delegation of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) will visit today, Friday, March 27, a detention center for immigrant families in Dilley, Texas, to learn more about their situation. The visit is part of the commitment that the USCCB is carrying out on immigration, which intensified last year due to the exponential increase regarding the arrests of unaccompanied minors from Central America.
"This visit will help us to make proposals to Congress, also because several Bishops have already given their testimonies in the past", said Norma Montenegro Flyn, USCCB spokeswoman, in the note sent to Fides.
The delegation is led by Archbishop Gustavo Garcia-Siller, M.Sp.S., Bishop of San Antonio (Texas), and the Bishops Mgr. Eusebio Elizondo, of the diocese of Seattle; Mgr. James A. Tamayo, of the Diocese of Laredo, and two Bishops of the Lutheran Church: H. Julian Gordy and Michael Rinehart.
According to information of USCCB, about 68 thousand families in Central America have fled the violence and poverty in their countries. Many of these have been arrested "to stop and discourage migration", but "these families can become free with an alternative detention program, to be verified case by case, in a more humane option", says the press release. (CE) (Agenzia Fides 27/03/2015)


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