Statements

July 22, 2020 WASHINGTON –On July 21, President Trump issued a Presidential Memorandum to the U.S. Secretary of Commerce ordering that undocumented people counted in the 2020 Census be excluded from consideration when determining the number of U.S. Representatives each state is allotted in the U.S. House of Representatives. Archbishop Paul S. Coakley of Oklahoma [...]

July 14, 2020 WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Department of Justice, Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) issued new proposed rules on asylum on June 15 with comments due on July 15. The new proposed rules would, among other changes: allow immigration judges to summarily deny applications before the asylum-seeker [...]

June 19, 2020 WASHINGTON—World Refugee Day, first celebrated in 2000 is observed in the United States and around the world on June 20. The observance was created two decades ago to increase awareness about the situation of refugees around the world. Currently, the world faces the biggest forced migration crisis since World War II, with [...]

June 18, 2020 WASHINGTON—Today, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an opinion preventing the Trump Administration from terminating the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. On November 12, 2019, the Court heard the challenge to the Trump Administration’s DACA repeal efforts, in which U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) submitted an amicus curiae brief in [...]

June 4, 2020 WASHINGTON— One year ago today, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the American Dream and Promise Act (H.R.6), which provides a pathway to citizenship for those who were brought to the United States as children by their parents (“Dreamers”), Temporary Protected Status (TPS), and Deferred Enforced Departure (DED) holders. In the year [...]

WASHINGTON - Responding to the proclamation signed by President Trump announcing a temporary reviewable immigration halt, Archbishop José H. Gomez of Los Angeles, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), Bishop Mario E. Dorsonville, auxiliary bishop of Washington and chairman of the USCCB’s Committee on Migration, and Bishop Jaime Soto of Sacramento and [...]

February 2, 2020 WASHINGTON — The President issued a proclamation Friday restricting the issuance of immigrant visas to people from Burma (Myanmar), Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan and Nigeria. People from Sudan and Tanzania will no longer be eligible for certain visas to come to the United States, commonly called “Diversity Visas.” Bishop Mario E. Dorsonville, auxiliary bishop [...]

January 29, 2020 WASHINGTON—On January 27, the Supreme Court of the United States issued a decision allowing the Trump Administration to implement its “public charge” rule everywhere in the United States (except Illinois) while litigation challenging the legality of the rule proceeds through the federal courts. Archbishop Paul S. Coakley of Oklahoma City, chairman of [...]

January 17, 2020 WASHINGTON—A federal judge has issued a preliminary injunction in HIAS Inc., et al v. Trump, halting implementation of Executive Order 13888 which had given state and local officials the power to veto initial resettlement of refugees into their jurisdictions. Unless it is overturned by the judge or a higher court, this injunction lasts [...]

December 13, 2019 WASHINGTON— Two bishops who chair committees for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) applauded the passage of the Farm Workforce Modernization Act of 2019 (H.R. 5038). Archbishop Paul S. Coakley of Oklahoma City, chairman of the USCCB’s Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development, and Bishop Mario E. Dorsonville, auxiliary bishop of Washington and chairman of the [...]