Mercy Srs. JoAnn Persch and Pat Murphy, along with Mercy Associate Carol Conway and dozens of volunteers and donors, have been hard at work delivering peace and mercy to asylum seekers in Chicago.
The increase in migration has shelters along the route at capacity, but places such as CAFEMIN in Mexico City, run by the Josephine sisters, are among the few stops where migrants are still welcomed, despite overcrowding.
Catholics at the U.S.-Mexico border, including many sisters, are working to better assess how to help migrants and to talk about what they have learned and how to go forward post-Title 42.
Tensions were already high at the U.S.-Mexico border and they escalated May 7 after a car ran into a crowd outside a Brownsville, Texas, building that provides shelter to migrants, leaving eight dead and at least 10 injured.
Faith-based groups are voicing worries that lawmakers will extend already existing provisions to further prevent immigrants from entering the U.S. as legislators haggle over what will be included in a historic $260 billion spending bill focused on health care and the environment.
Catholic leaders praised the Supreme Court's June 30 decision that gave the Biden administration the go-ahead to rescind a Trump-era "Remain in Mexico" immigration policy requiring asylum-seekers at the southwest U.S. border to wait in Mexico for their asylum hearings.
The Biden administration has confirmed it will lift a public health measure in May that was put in place at the start of the coronavirus pandemic that has kept asylum-seekers out.
