Migration During a Pandemic
The Church of Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras Advocating for the “Invisible” Migrants

 
The Pastoral Care of Human Mobility of the Episcopal Conferences of Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras recently published a document on migrants during the Coronavirus pandemic according to Fides (April 13, 2020). The conferences note, with deep concern, “that migrants, among the many vulnerable people facing this pandemic, continue to be invisible in social and humanitarian policies."
Here are some of the other highlights from the document:

• The high risk of coronavirus infection is constant in their three countries and "although each nation has taken measures to prevent and contain the pandemic, not all governments have put in place sufficient measures to protect their citizens and neighbors."
• They indirectly refer to the challenges migrants face at Mexico’s northern border, the one it shares with the United States of America: "Mexico is not treating the issue of migration as a vital phenomenon in these days of Covid-19, allowing its northern neighbor to expel citizens of any country in its territory, including many without due process and without the necessary protection provided to asylum seekers."
• The authors denounce "the expulsion of entire families with children, late at night, makes them easy prey to organized crime."
• The document goes on to focus on Mexico that "continues to expel Central American citizens, in particular Honduran migrants, to Guatemala, violating international law and leaving these Honduran citizens in a situation of total lack of protection, thus increasing their degree of vulnerability. Guatemala is allowing migrants to pass through its territory, even with closed borders and with the complicit silence of the Honduran government, which is not doing enough to meet the needs of its population and maintain border control which they say they have closed."
• The document underscores four pastoral concerns:
  • They ask the governments to attend to the needs of the migrants – for their own good and to protect their own populations – and to reduce the high degree of discrimination and stigmatization of migrants as carriers of the virus."
  • "Stop expulsions, apply international law which prohibits a country from expelling a foreigner to another country other than its country of origin or where its legal residence is established."
  • For humanitarian reasons and to avoid overcrowding, people who are in a process of regularization of their situation should be allowed "to leave the migratory stations and detention centers for migrants."
  • Guarantee adequate medical care to migrants, regardless of their immigration status.
  • They call on all – in their countries – to raise their voices, and promote concrete initiatives – to defend the rights of the most vulnerable.
• Finally, the document concludes by joining “our voice to that of those who have already done so, to ask our rulers not to politicize the coronavirus crisis and to take concrete measures to stop the spread of the virus. Among these actions, it is essential to consider migrants as a highly vulnerable population."
• #CatholicCares