Catholic group under attack by GOP for aiding migrants says its work ‘is mandated by the gospel’

December 19, 2022

WN: It’s all so anti-Christ and tragic . . .

excerpts:

Humanitarian workers are slamming a baseless threat by Texas’ right-wing governor, who, without providing one shred of evidence, is directing his corrupt attorney general to investigate whether organizations have been helping migrants unlawfully cross into Texas.

Texas officials know damn well that groups are aiding migrants who have already been processed and released by federal officials, and we know that they know this because these are the same migrants they’ve rounded up for Abbott’s busing stunt. What Abbott is actually doing is intimidating groups as the Biden administration is set to lift the anti-asylum Title 42 order next week. 

But Fernando García, executive director of the Border Network for Human Rights (BNHR), said the organization will not be intimidated, and will continue its advocacy work. In a statement received by Daily Kos, he called Abbott’s threat an “abuse of power and authority.”

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“This is a direct attack on hundreds of organizations, including BNHR, that have been defending human rights and immigrant communities for years and providing essential social services that our federal government has failed to deliver,” García said. He noted Abbott’s already used his office to go “above and beyond to criminalize” migrants, through his racist Operation Lone Star stunt.

“Now he is going after humanitarian organizations that support and provide information to vulnerable people who seek asylum and safety in this country.”

The organization leader said that rather than “providing orderly and humane solutions,” Abbott “has chosen to arrogantly disregard the separation of power to pursue what BNHR has been actively denouncing: his white supremacist, xenophobic and anti-immigrant agenda.” It is a fact that Abbott has signaled to white supremacists and other violent actors, by unabashedly echoing their rhetoric in his administration’s policies. Even after a racist gunman espousing “invasion” rhetoric massacred shoppers at an El Paso Walmart.

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The Bible is actually filled with passage after passage demanding justice for the migrant—“Jesus was a refugee,” Pope Francis reminded in 2014—but you don’t see Christian nationalists pushing comprehensive immigration reform that might actually help someone. That would make it harder for them to keep using migrants as their boogeymen. That might actually make them follow their faith’s teachings.

Please click on: Mandated By The Gospel