Just about a week after Pope Francis spoke about the need for immigration reform in the United States, the Center for Migration Studies held their annual Catholic Immigrant Integration Conference in El Paso.
Everything from border security to health care and education was discussed at the conference with people who work and study every step of the immigration process. Sister Norma Pimentel, Executive Director of Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley spoke about her experience working on the border during the wave of unaccompanied children migrating into the United States.
“The wonderful thing about what happened,” Pimentel said. “Was that the community responded so positively, so wonderfully. It joined together in making sure that the children had all the care they needed to be able to be ok.”
Democratic Congressman Beto O’Rourke also attended the conference to discuss a bill he brought forward with Republican Congressman Steve Pearce that would increase both accountability and training for border patrol and law enforcement working at the border. However, He says the bill will have a tough time passing without first passing a comprehensive immigration reform bill.
“Part of what Representative Pearce and I are trying to do,” O’Rourke said. “Is to show that you have a republican and a democrat who do not see eye to eye on most issues in this country. And yet on one of the most difficult issues of our day immigration, we’re able to find some common ground. We’re not going to solve all the problems, or come to the same conclusion on all the issues. But we can fix parts of it that are broken that matter to people in our community.”
Executive Director of the Border Network for Human Rights, Fernando Garcia, says a lot has to be done to help integrate immigrants into our communities like economic development and education reforms, but something else has to be reformed to get to that.
“The first step has to be immigration reform,” Garcia said. “I think how can we integrate someone that doesn’t have social security or legal status. Here in El Paso, and in New Mexico we have close to 100,000 undocumented immigrants. So, how would we integrate them, is it going to be good enough to provide them safety nets, education, health care, and jobs.”
Director of Refugee and Immigration Services for Catholic Charities Marjean Perhot helps people coming to the United States integrate. She says an increase in certain services will help the process, but says people also need to be treated with dignity.”
“Do things such as increasing interpreter and translation services,” Perhot said. “And access to such services would really make a big difference in helping people along the path to integration. But I really just see the biggest challenge is looking at people like the Pope said as a human face. Not as a number, that is so incredible, because that will go a long way to helping people become more people.”
Sister Norma Pimentel agrees, and says the most help can be offered when you look past the politics.
“Just simply focus on the fact that this is a mother,” Pimentel said. “This is a little kid, a tiny baby, a child that is in a very sad state. And this is a human being, and he needs care and attention. That’s when everything is put aside and you say welcome.”
This was the first time the annual conference was held in El Paso.
