Letter
Letter from Bishop Eusebio Elizondo and Bishop Kevin Vann to Jeh Johnson, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary (2016)
Letter from Bishop Eusebio Elizondo, Chairman, USCCB Committee on Migration and Bishop Kevin W. Vann, Chairman, Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc. to Jeh Johnson, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary, January 8, 2016
On behalf of the Committee on Migration of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB/COM) and the Catholic Legal Immigration Network (CLINIC), we are writing to express our grave concern over the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) recent enforcement actions resulting in 121 Central Americans, primarily mothers with children, being taken into custody for impending deportation.
From January 2-4, DHS enforcement officers entered homes in immigrant communities, primarily in Georgia, Texas and North Carolina, searching for families to deport. Our organizations have first-hand knowledge that these actions have generated fear among immigrants and have made their communities more distrustful of law enforcement and vulnerable to misinformation, exploitation and fraud.
We find such targeting of immigrant women and children -- most of whom fled violence and persecution in their home countries -- to be inhumane and a grave misuse of limited enforcement resources. DHS’s action contrasts sharply with the statements articulated by President Obama himself in November 2014, namely, that his administration would pursue the deportation of “felons, not families; criminals, not children; gang members, not a Mom who’s working hard to provide for her kids.”