Maura Baker
Staff Writer
Once again, the Curia’s Bishop Howard Memorial, Covington, found itself full of people of all ages — including both high school age students and seniors — for a presentation by the Intercommunity Sisters Peace and Justice Committee, titled “Immigration: The Catholic Perspective, Part 2.”
Following the success of the previous part in the series of presentations, Part 2 provided attendees with further detail on both the Catholic teaching and the law surrounding the topic of immigration in the United States. After an introduction by Sister Kay Kramer, CDP, and an introductory prayer from Bishop John Iffert — keynote speakers Hannah Keegan, Director for Thomas More University’s Center for Faith, Mission and Catholic Education and Jessica Ramos, an immigration lawyer and manager of the immigration legal team for The Legal Aid Society of Southwest Ohio, LLC, took to the podium.
Hannah Keegan, who previously gave an overview on Catholic teachings, particularly Catholic Social Teaching, at the first presentation, this time gave a “deeper dive” on the intricacies of the subject.
“The Catholic social doctrine is trying to help us to under the Church’s responsibility in society,” Mrs. Keegan explained, “What does the life of faith compel of me in the world? How does it change or inform or challenge my actions in life?”
Perhaps the most crucial part of Catholic Social Teaching, as Mrs. Keegan described is the importance of human dignity, “which is that every human person is created with an intrinsic value,” she said.
“The Catholic social doctrine is saying that the person has a right to migrate. The state has a right to regulate its borders,” said Mrs. Keegan, “but it must regulate its borders with justice and mercy. And so, the more we regulate the borders without a consideration of mercy, the less we respect the dignity of the person.”
“When we speak about the issue of immigration, we are fundamentally addressing the movement of people,” Mrs. Keegan quoted Bishop Mark Seitz, bishop of El Paso, Tx., “Human persons created in the image and likeness of God, each one of them a brother or sister to us all.”
Following Mrs. Keegan, lawyer Jessica Ramos took to the podium to describe, in depth, the pathways to legal immigration in the United States — and the associated challenges that often face migrants seeking U.S. citizenship. While facing hardships such as economic instability, psychological trauma and language barriers — many immigrants, particularly though unauthorized or undocumented, are described by Ms. Ramos as “undocumentable”. This term, coined by a colleague, means that many prospective migrants lack a legal pathway to immigration status.
Achieving a “green card” in the United States — the first step to citizenship — typically requires one of two avenues; employment, which is mostly restricted to individuals with higher education in specialized fields, and family, which is restricted to immediate family and categorized based on the type of relationship — with waitlists for familial green cards ranging from 4 years to 150 years. And, while avenues for asylum seekers and refugees exist, the specific discrimination conditions for asylum and the United States’s limited refugee acceptance number of 125,000 individuals also makes these routes inaccessible for most.
The current administration, according to Ms. Ramos, is “taking away the opportunity to apply for asylum, and putting people in what is called ‘expedited removal’ — which is where they say if you were ever caught at the border, or if you have been in the country for less than two years, then you are not entitled to talk to a judge about your asylum case … that is what our law says.”
The real issue which arises is many individuals inability to prove on the spot of arrest their legal status, regardless of whether they have a green card or citizenship or not, according to Ms. Ramos, who states that these practices possibly encroach on the rights of everyone, not just migrants.
“How do you prove that you’re a U.S. citizen?” Ms. Ramos asked the crowd, “How do you prove that you’ve lived here for more than two years without due process? This could affect any one of us.”
Following the presentation, Holy Spirit Parish, Newport, pastor Msgr. William Cleves remarked on his experiences hearing confessions at the Campbell County Detention Center — learning from migrants awaiting deportation that many have been cut off from their families and were told that they could not reach out to contact them. Some of them, according to Msgr. Cleves, fear deportation to countries different from their country of origin, as well. He concluded the night with prayer, for mercy and justice for all.
