Loretto Joins LCWR in Call for Protection of Immigrants

Loretto Joins with LCWR in Urging All to Call for Protection of Immigrants, Register Objections to ‘Mean-spirited’ U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security Proposed Changes to Public Charge Regulation

The Sisters of Loretto join with the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) in urging “all people of faith to call for protection of immigrants, especially those most vulnerable, and to register their objections” to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s proposed changes to the public charge regulation.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s proposed changes to the public charge regulation are “yet another attempt by President Trump to restrict immigration and punish immigrant families,” LCWR said in a recently released statement. “The new regulation would force parents to make impossible choices between the well-being of their families and the prospect of future citizenship” and “would dramatically increase the barriers to lawful status for low-income immigrants and their families.”

Loretto President Pearl McGivney said the proposed changes would make it harder for immigrants who might use essential public services to come to the United States and settle here permanently. “The rule changes would hurt those who are most vulnerable and create a nightmare for immigrant parents who might be forced to choose from obtaining a benefit for which their children qualify, like nutrition assistance, out of fear that they may be denied permanent residency in the future. ”

LCWR predicted that a lack of access to public benefits programs would result in a wide range of negative consequences, including increasing poverty, hunger, homelessness and disease, and decreasing children’s school attendance and general well-being. LCWR, an association of leaders of congregations of Catholic women religious in the United States, “urged all people of faith to call for protection of immigrants, especially those who are most vulnerable, and to register their objections to this unreasonable and mean-spirited proposal during the 60-day comment period.”

The Loretto Community consists of Catholic Sisters of Loretto and Loretto co-members, women and men who are members of the Community and share its values and mission. Loretto members work for justice and act for peace, living and working throughout the United States, and also in Nicaragua, Guatemala, Pakistan, Uganda, Holland, Haiti and France. The Loretto Community’s members, and their network of supporters and friends, are mobilized in the struggle for immigration justice in the United States and will not rest until it comes.

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Click here to read LCWR’s statement in full.