Mexican and U.S. Bishops Urge Respect for Immigrants

MEXICO CITY, JAN. 21, 2003 (Zenit.org).- The bishops of Mexico and the United States wrote a joint pastoral letter to appeal to their flocks and nations to recognize and promote the rights of immigrants.

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They commit themselves “to support them in their reality and help them in a more fraternal and active manner,” Bishop Thomas Wenski, chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Migration, and Bishop Renato Ascencio León, president of Mexican episcopal Commission for Human Mobility, explained in the presentation of the letter.

The unprecedented letter is “an appeal to the social conscience of our countries so that they will be more hospitable and welcoming toward those who seek to survive and attain a better quality of life,” the bishops said in the presentation sent to ZENIT.

The document recognizes the contribution made by immigrants “to the economic and cultural progress and the spiritual growth of both nations.”

Urging the governments to make efforts to “give a more just and worthy treatment to all immigrants,” the document aims to generate “the necessary changes in the existing laws and immigration systems, in such a way that they will protect the human rights and dignity of the immigrants and their condition as sons and daughters of God.”

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