Immigration Action by Jesuit Entities

The California Province designed an immigration mass prayer card to pray for those making the challenging journey.
The California Province adopted the Jesuit Conference’s comprehensive immigration reform letter and sent it to Senators and Congressional representatives from the state of California.
The California Province, in conjunction with Jesuit social ministries, institutions and partners throughout the province — including Santa Clara University, Sacred Heart Nativity School, Los Altos Jesuit Retreat House, PICO, and the Jesuit Volunteer Corps — offered a mass of solidarity with migrants at Most Holy Trinity Church in San Jose in February 2011 to pray for fair and just migration reform.
Boston College is working to protect the rights of deported migrants. The Post-Deportation Project, based at the Center for Human Rights and International Justice at Boston College, aims to conceptualize a new area of law, providing direct representation to individuals who have been deported and promoting the rights of deportees and their family members through research, legal and policy analysis, media advocacy, training programs, and participatory action research.
Dallas Preparatory High School, in addition to endorsing the Jesuit institutional sign-on letter, asked students and faculty to add their names to a large four foot by six foot poster of the Jesuit provincials’ letter to Congress. The letter garnered over 100 signatures and was mailed to the White House.
The New Orleans Province, in coordination with the Jesuit Social Research Institute, has fought against local anti-immigrant legislation through research and testimony. Specifically, these efforts seek to shed light on the harmful implications of stricter e-verify laws and other anti-immigrant legislation. Click above to see JSRI’s analysis if two local anti-immigrant laws and testimony from Fr. Ted Arroyo, S.J. to the Alabama state legislature.
New Orleans Province Jesuit, Fr. Kevin Wildes, President of Loyola New Orleans, wrote a letter to the Times Picayune editor supporting the Dream Act.
In the New Orleans Province, the Twomey Center for Peace through Justice at Loyola University New Orleans took a multitude of actions on immigration issues — from promoting an end to the modern day slave trade to defending immigrant worker’s rights. Below is a brief summary of the actions; CLICK HERE to see a full report.
- The Center published a brochure targeted at people who are trafficked, explaining US law and where to seek assistance. Additionally, Twomey Center staff member, Carmelite Sister Jane Rosen, published articles and research in the Carmelite NGO Bulletin on human trafficking.
- Twomey Center Director Ted Quant spoke at the “Expanding the Human Right to Organize” conference of the National Excluded Workers Congress where historic agreements of unity and solidarity were signed between excluded worker organizations.
- Director Quant participated in many demonstrations in support of immigrant rights and immigrant workers’ fights against wage theft; as well as demonstrations protesting the Sheriff’s cooperation with ICE Holds and the racial profiling this represents. Furthermore, Director Quant advocated for immigrants in meetings with city council representatives on issues related to immigrant detention, jail size and ICE holds.
- Director Quant delivered a number of speeches and moderated panels for conferences and workshops related to Catholic Social Teaching on Migration, immigrant worker rights, racial implications of immigration laws, and local anti-immigrant ordinances and criminalization laws.
- See a full report and pictures from the Twomey Center.
The New York Province, in support of comprehensive immigration reform, facilitated two educational events on immigration. The first event, co-hosted by the NY Province and the Woodstock Theological Center and held at the Church of Holy Family in NYC, explored a Catholic approach to migration and immigration that honored human dignity. The second event, organized by St. Francis Xavier Parish in NYC, has led the parish to consider participation in the New York State Congregations in Solidarity with DREAM’ers to build support for Congressional passage ofthe DREAM Act.
Members of the Creighton University Community have helped to prevent an Arizona-clone bill (LB 48) from passing out of the Judiciary committee in the Nebraska Unicameral. Fr. Andy Alexander (VP for Mission and Ministry) and Ms. Maria Teresa Gaston (Center for Service and Justice) as well as others in the Creighton Community have convened campus conversations and also been invited to speak at other community events to educate and advocate against LB 48, a bill which has also been directly opposed by the Nebraska Catholic Conference. The Creighton community also showed up in large numbers at a UNITY Rally at the state Capitol to oppose LB 48 soon after it was unveiled.
Creighton Prep hosted Annunciation House (El Paso) founder, Ruben Garcia, for 2011 Ignatian Heritage Week keynote. Faculty members Troy Wharton, Dave Lawler, Kathy O’Keefe and the student council are the animators of the annual Ignatian Heritage Week. To help bring the week to life, they invited Mr. Ruben Garcia to speak on February 10. Mr. Garcia is the Executive Director of Annunciation House located in El Paso, Texas. During its 31-year history, Annunciation House has hosted close to 90,000 refugees, immigrants, and undocumented persons from over 40 countries.
Marquette University and Gesu Parish Milwaukee invited Santa Clara theologian Dr. Krisin Heyer to deliver the Spring 2011 Gathering Points Lecture on Christian Ethics and Immigration — “Kinship across Borders”: In her lecture she highlighted Christian commitments to human rights and social solidarity pose challenges to the causes and consequences of undocumented immigration in our present context. The lecture (which will soon be posted online) considers how Christian ethics illuminates the human impact of immigration policies, practices and rhetoric. While in the Milwaukee area, Dr. Heyer visited a number of immigration service and human rights groups, organizations and ministries.
The Wisconsin Province of Jesuits wrote an article “Finding God at the Frontiers” in the Summer 2011 edition of Jesuit Journeys about the experience of Marquette University Rector Fr. Jim Flaherty and other Province Jesuits and partners who have spent time working at the Kino Border Initiative in Nogales Arizona. The Kino Border Initiative is a social ministry founded by six major religious organizations, including the Jesuit provinces of California and Mexico and Jesuit Refugee Service. In the Jesuit spirit of “solidarity with the least and with all” the KBI accompanies both migrants and communities affected by the consequences of migration.
The Wisconsin Province of Jesuits magazine Jesuit Journeys (Winter 2010) profiled the lives of two immigrant students whose lives have been adversely affected by our current immigration policy.
Fr. Dean Brackley, SJ, delivered the Wade Public Lecture on Migration at Marquette University, titled “The Migrants: Illegals or God’s Ambassadors” in March of 2010: View a video of the lecture.
Jesuit President of Seattle University, Stephen Sundborg, S.J., wrote a November 2010 Op-Ed in the Los Angeles Times in favor of the DREAM Act.
National Jesuit News published an Article in November 2010 highlighting how various Jesuit institutions — including Dallas Preparatory High School, Dolores Mission Parish and the Ignatian Solidarity Network — were responding to the National Sign-on Initiative.
In November 2010, over 1200 Participants from the Ignatian Solidarity Network’s Ignatian Family Teach-In for Justice converged on Capitol Hill, making visits to their Senators and Congressional Representatives urging them to support the DREAM Act and comprehensive immigration reform.