Even just one: Walking with immigrant families
Encounter at Catholic Charities
“We couldn’t think about our immigration cases. We could only think about saving our daughter’s life.”
Sitting in my office in Family Immigration Services and holding her baby close, the usually cheerful Ukrainian mother began to cry as she shared that her daughter had been gravely ill for the first several months of her life.
Doctors had told the family there was nothing left to be done.
Both parents had revived their baby several times at home as they continued to care for their fourth daughter, never losing hope that she would heal.
I had worked with this family on numerous cases since the Russian invasion in 2022, but this time was different.
They showed up at my office eight months after their humanitarian parole had expired and needed help with the late applications.
I wasn’t convinced there was anything I could do.
Still, after hearing what the family had suffered over the past year and the trauma of having fled their home country in the midst of war just a few years earlier, I knew I had to make an effort to appeal to the common humanity and sense of compassion of the officers who would have discretion in adjudicating their cases.
Most Ukrainians who have entered the United States over the past four and a half years were granted permission to remain for two years with the potential to renew this protection on a case-by-case basis.
Although the family still had temporary protected status (TPS), I was initially stunned that they had let their parole lapse.
While TPS can be revoked for an entire country at any moment, parole is determined on a case-by-case basis, so it can be more secure for individuals who still qualify.
Miraculously, the late petitions were quickly approved, and the family remains safe in the U.S. for now.
The uncertainty of pending case outcomes and fear of family separation is rarely lost on the children of immigrants.
Pope Leo XIV acknowledged these and countless other worries when he chose “Even Just One of These Children” as the theme for the 112th World Day of Migrants and Refugees (WDMR).
In anticipation of WDMR, the theme was announced in a statement by the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development and included a reference to the Gospel of Matthew, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me” (Matthew 18:5).
The same statement noted that this is not the first time popes have spoken on this issue, authoritatively declaring that “this is not a matter of discussing numbers or percentages, because ‘even just one’ has the highest value.”
Families on the move face numerous challenges in navigating the immigration system, often leaving them in precarious situations.
And far too many of our clients have been separated from their children for years while caught up in the immigration processing backlogs.
In his WDMR message released last month, Pope Leo XIV recognized this injustice, stating, “Others, separated from their families for long periods, try to reunite with them while enduring the anguish of separation.”
An Afghan client stopped by our office this week.
He had recently returned from visiting his family abroad where he had finally met his son for the first time in five years.
He hadn’t known his spouse was pregnant when he fled Afghanistan in a split-second decision back in August of 2021 amidst the fall of Kabul.
Since his work with the U.S. government made him a Taliban target, there had been no time to gather his family when escaping Afghanistan.
Once he was resettled in the U.S., our office immediately began working on his immigration case.
While he was granted a green card for his work with the U.S. military in Afghanistan, he didn’t have permission to travel outside the U.S. until this year, and his family-based petitions to reunite with his family here are still pending.
While the family reunification process has been complicated by several factors particular to his case, two years is within normal processing times for U.S. citizens petitioning for green cards for their children.
At Family Immigration Services, we are grateful for every opportunity to support even just one of these children.
While the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has long advocated for immigration reforms that prioritize family unity and family reunification, migrant families continue to struggle through these processes, and children, of course, bear the brunt of this hardship.
As Pope Leo XIV affirmed in his WDMR message, meaningful change requires a commitment to protecting every child’s dignity, promoting family reunification, and preventing the trauma of separation.
“An urgent change of perspective is needed: the focus of the debate must shift from the mere management of migration to the full and immediate protection of human rights... .”
Find out more about Catholic Charities of Central and Northern Missouri at: cccnmo.diojeffcity.org.
