Bishop Zubik: Retain asylum laws
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Pittsburgh Roman Catholic Bishop David Zubik has added his voice to that of his colleagues in denouncing immigration policies of the Trump administration that block some victims of violence from seeking asylum in the United States and that separate children from their asylum-seeking parents at the border.
“There is a real sadness in Attorney General [Jeff] Sessions’ statement that physical abuse of a Salvadoran woman by her husband could not be a reason for her to be given asylum. U.S. asylum laws, he said, cannot remedy ‘all misfortune.’”
He added: “Have we given up on doing good in the world? Are the lives of women in real physical jeopardy simply a ‘misfortune’ that we can do nothing to help?”
Bishop Zubik’s statement came as meetings of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops continue this week in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. On Tuesday, several made scathing denunciations of the administration’s hard-line immigration policies, comparing the urgency of the matter to that of abortion, long at the core of their public advocacy.
“For the United States to abandon years and years of offering a safe haven to women being physically beaten, to victims of gang violence and domestic terrorism, accomplishes nothing,” Bishop Zubik said. “It doesn’t improve the economy, save jobs, or somehow heighten our internal security. Rather, it seems an almost calculated willingness to score anti-immigration rhetorical points at the expense of brutalized women.”
Women are fleeing to this country “to escape being viciously beaten in countries where their governments could not protect them,” Bishop Zubik said. “They will now be returned to those beatings. How could our response be anything but fear for them and sadness for what we are becoming?”
He also condemned the separation of children from their families at the U.S. border with Mexico.
“Yes, protecting our borders is important,” he said. “But separating infants from their mothers does nothing to accomplish that.”
He continued: “Decency, morality, security and fairness have been at the heart of our asylum laws for many years. Let us show the world that we will continue as a people to try to fight ‘misfortune’ whenever and wherever we can.”