After a gut-wrenching
visit with young children in the El Paso, Texas, area who are in
immigration detention, the bishops of the border region of Texas and
Mexico have decided to write a joint pastoral letter on how families are
harmed by the current immigration system. San Antonio Archbishop Gustavo Garcia-Siller said in a Sept. 12 phone interview that after visiting the children who were brought to meet the bishops at an El Paso parish and learning their stories, the bishops wanted to draw attention to the family effects of the broken immigration system.
He told about meeting a girl of 6 who has been in detention since her parents were deported four years ago.
Apparently both her mother and father were killed soon after they were returned to Mexico and their daughter has been a ward of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency ever since, as official systems of two countries have slowly churned to place the girl with another member of her family.
That girl and the other children in ICE custody intensely long to be with their families, he said.
"Here in this country are 11 million undocumented people. How many of their children risk losing a parent because they lack documents" and could be deported, he asked.
The pastoral letter to be issued in the next month is intended to "bring some sane, rational understanding" of the many ways families are broken apart by the current immigration system, Archbishop Garcia-Siller said.