USCCB - Global Poverty

Migration and our Catholic Response

Migration has been a consistent aspect of the human experience throughout history and continues to be a defining characteristic of the United States. Migration is closely linked to economic, social and political realities that influence the decision, and often the necessity, for people to migrate. Currently close to 200 million people live outside their country of birth worldwide. Although this number includes refugees, asylum seekers and others, economic migrants make up the largest proportion. These economic migrants—who could often be described as economically displaced people—have few other options to remain in their country and meet the basic needs of their families.

Migration
The Catholic Church’s teaching on migration is based on its commitment to promote and defend human dignity and to devote particular attention to those who are most vulnerable. In this video, Mary DeLorey, Strategic Issues Advisor-Latin America/Caribbean Region for CRS, focuses on the conditions that cause many people to be forced to migrate, and on how we, as Catholics, can respond justly to those immigrants already in the United States.

How does Migration affect real people?

Photo by David Snyder for CRS

Like most men in Laguna Patzijon, Guatemala, Anselmo Ramundo (seen here with his son) migrates to the Guatemalan coast every year to find work cutting sugar cane. He works twelve hours a day, seven days a week, and earns about $4 a day.

Many of today’s economic migrants, such as Anselmo, often have no other option but to migrate to other areas of their country, and even outside of their country, so they can meet the basic needs of their families. Leaving their families behind for many months at a time is hard, and migrants often face serious dangers during their travels.

Anselmo and his fellow farmers in Laguna Patzijon insist, however, that if they simply had irrigation systems in their community they would be able to diversify their crops, which in turn would lessen their need to migrate annually after harvesting the maize and beans that they plant.