The San Diego Convention Center, fitted with cots and not much else, is the temporary home of nearly 1,500 unaccompanied minors. The surge at the border, the highest in 20 years, is stressing the neglected U.S. migrant and refugee systems that were designed to deal humanely with refugees seeking asylum.
Many of the children in San Diego are arriving from Texas, but all the border states are being impacted. Federal authorities are partnering with local non-profits such as Catholic Charities, Jewish Family Services, and many others to provide basic services to the children, including administering to their spiritual needs.
San Diego’s Bishop Robert McElroy and Auxiliary Bishop Ramón Bejarano visited the convention center over Easter to meet the children, most of whom are around ten years old, and provide them with the Eucharist. Many staff members also received Communion.
“We had sent over rosaries earlier in the week because the children had asked for them,” explained Bishop McElroy. “They held them in their hands or wore them around their neck as they received the Sacrament.”
Bishop McElroy was impressed with the devotion of the children as well as the loneliness and fear they held within themselves.
“One girl, when she found out I was a bishop,” said Bishop McElroy, “asked if she could be confirmed.”
Bishop Bejarano also brought the Sacrament to children in the COVID-19 isolation area. Both bishops have already been vaccinated.
After the services, the children had nowhere else to go except back to their cots, said Bishop McElroy. Many of them knelt at their cots for a few minutes of prayer.
The U.S. Health and Human Services Agency (HHS) now has more than 14,000 minors in custody. Most are from Honduras, Guatemala, or El Salvador. HHS says most will be placed with responsible family members, but the system is extremely stressed.
“President Biden has inherited a chaotic border situation created by a decade of Congressional failures, four years of a President who coldly used the border as an instrument of political and ethnic division, and a long history of exploitation and economic deterioration in Central America,” Bishop McElroy told the Tablet, an international Catholic news outlet.
“It is President Biden’s responsibility to create and implement a system of fairness and order for those seeking refuge in our country, but this project will fail if the humanity and suffering of those at our gates is not the primary element propelling us at every stage.”
The above comes from an April 16 release from the California Catholic Conference.
‘President Biden has inherited a chaotic border situation’
bahahahahahah
This Catholic notion that Trump failed is one of a false compassion that doesn’t understand the greater situation at hand. In Australia we stopped the boats from coming and refugees come through proper means. It has been a success.
Closing the border, raising the minimum wage, will make south America more competitive and better their standard of living.
Good to see groups from many different faiths providing relief to these children.
They wouldn’t be suffering if they didn’t try to come here. Manufactured crisis. Biden is to blame for encouraging them. We didn’t have this under Trump because the border was respected.
This bishop is such a jerk.
Um, Bishop McElroy, borders are for political and ethnic divisions. That’s what they are for. In our case, the border defines where political America ends and political Mexico begins. Borders define regions of government and peoples from those of others. Borders are good.
For example, I’m glad I live outside the border of the Diocese of San Diego. McElroy is not my ordinary!
Once the schism in the Church becomes even more apparent, I imagine many won’t be seeing him as an ordinary at all.
Juan, Robert McElroy is not “ordinary” in any sense. He’s an extraordinary shill for the Democratic Party, pure and simple. I’m tempted to add that he’s been outed–many times–as a horse’s ass of the first class. Perhaps it’s not entirely his fault. Maybe he just lived in San Francisco too long.
The bishop is a liar and a damn fool. Biden did not inherit a chaotic border. It is of his own making.
President Biden inherited a chaotic border situation? What a joke!
Thanks for being nice and visiting those poor children. I am surprised that he says it has been a problem for a decade. Closer to a century.
“Initial news reports [on the plane crash] listed only the pilot, first officer, stewardess, and the immigration guard, with the remainder listed only as “deportees” Only 12 of the [32] victims were initially identified. The Hispanic victims of the accident were placed in a mass grave at Holy Cross Cemetery in Fresno, California, with their grave marked only as “Mexican Nationals”.
Happened in 1948.
Is this man an apologist and lobbyist for the abortion and castration promoting Mr. Biden?
Or, is he a bishop, a successor of the Apostles?
Or, both?
The Church has had bad bishops going back to Judas up through McCarrick and our 21st century.
The border facilities were built by Obama, only called “cages” when Trump was president and are now again filled with children. If the conditions are immoral, they are immoral regardless of the political party of the occupant of the White House.
For how many years will they blame everything wrong on Trump? (And, take credit for the good economy and other things.)
We here in California have been ruled by Democrats for decades, yet, still, some want to blame Trump for all of our troubles.
Trump didn’t, couldn’t, severely damage our nation and state in his four years. The Obama-Biden-Harris-Newsom-Brown administrations need to take some responsibility for their irresponsible actions.
Brown administrations need to take some responsibility for their irresponsible actions????
Is that a racist statement if I ever saw one.
Huh?! You think being critical of Jerry Brown, another White pro-abortion Catholic, who governed California for sixteen years, is somehow racist?!
Not everything is about race. Brown is his last name, not his identity group.
McElroy: “a President who coldly used the border as an instrument of political and ethnic division”
You mean the best president ever?
The sub headline should read: “President Biden has created a chaotic border situation.”
Unaccompanied minors? Why, let us ask, aren’t their parents in their home countries caring for them? Children don’t just up and walk hundreds of miles away from home to a place they know nothing about. This smells fishy.
Bishop McElroy just couldn’t hold back his political bias any longer. He used the desperate state of unaccompanied migrant children as a cudgel to smear President Trump. What he said was absolutely false. I just wonder how the priests in the Diocese of San Diego feel about this bishop? There are probably plenty of them who pray that he gets transferred.
During the lockdown of the past year, I would look, from time to time, for a word of comfort from our Bishop. If it was out there, I never found it. Then, after the election, came a blurb telling us that we should all be happy warriors for Biden. Lord, it would seem that we are now sheep without a shepherd. Make haste to help us.
Maybe he’ll have a Big Mac attack.
It’s unbelievable that the bishops are encouraging people to get an experimental vaccine. Hopefully no major health problems arise in a year or so from now. By the way Bishop, Biden did not inherit a border problem.
Is this really a Bishop speaking? Biden opened the borders and created the chaos dear Bishop. Pull your head out and act like a man of God instead of a ploy of the left. If anything, this scamdemic has shown who truly Godly leaders are versus those who play party politics and use people to do that. Quit giving to a Church that does not hold your values. ( Oh wait! They can get a PPP check~ what do they need parishioners for?) So precious to me that the Eucharist is worth holding on to. With leaders like this, no wonder we are having a crisis – still- in the priesthood.
The border was fine under Trump. Biden does not know what he’s doing; my church is turning left; we need prayer for the people living in our church.
Let’s put politics aside. Life in many Central American countries is inhumane. The terrible political leaders, and cartel leaders make life such that families are willing to send their children on a walk of thousands of miles to seek freedom. They assume that there will be a welcome for them because of the false news reports that tell them that our borders are open to them. Thousands of immigrants are turned away every day and week. Only unaccompanied children are allowed in. It is about the children. I think it is not quite correct to say that Biden inherited the problem any more than it is to say that he created the “crisis.” His administration has told people not to come and that the borders are closed. What is the solution? Should we put machine guns on the border and kill those who try to come in? We know the wall isn’t working. Should we take over the northern triangle countries by force and just kill the cartel leaders? What is the humane thing to do to stop the massive movement toward our border? What is the solution?
This assumes that we (in the U.S.) have a solution, or the ability to implement one. We don’t govern Mexico or other countries to the south. The solution(s), if there be any, must come from there. A few ideas, simple but by no means easy: End corruption. End socialism and crony capitalism. Rule of Law. Respect private property and small business. Educate citizens to take control of their own lives – most are already hard-working, but need the tools to take advantage of tech and other opportunities. The border won’t be so much of a problem if both countries are roughly at the same economic level – ideally, but probably decades from now, when Mexico advances to the point where its citizens aren’t desperate to head north. The way things are going, unfortunately, is that California and other border states more and more resemble Third World countries; then why bother coming north (AKA the Democratic Party solution – and I’m speaking of fiscal policy, not ethnicity which is irrelevant).
B.O. says, “Should we put machine guns on the border and kill those who try to come in?”
Total straw man. So we either let everyone in or kill ’em all, right?
Ridiculous.
Oh, sure, let’s just invite everyone into our country. Do you open your doors to all the homeless in your city? Of course not.
“President Biden has inherited a chaotic border situation created by a decade of Congressional failures, four years of a President who coldly used the border as an instrument of political and ethnic division, and a long history of exploitation and economic deterioration in Central America,” Bishop McElroy told the Tablet, an international Catholic news outlet. No Bishop McElroy, Mr. Biden created the whole mess by himself in less than four months in office. You are a fool, not a bishop. God help us. Susan Fox
Pro-abortion, pro-Gay, pro SSM, pro-Islam. Can we get a pro-Catholic bishop? We are having faithless clergy crisis.
Yes. The Bishop certainly wants to encourage his U.S. Govt. welfare gravy train!
He should have said that Biden created a chaotic border situation.
Many are coming from Honduras which has much destruction after 2 category 4 hurricanes in two weeks hit last year. Last December, the US allotted an additional $30 million to help Honduras, Guatemala and Columbia. Roads, schools, health centers, homes, farms etc were all destroyed.
This is where the influx is coming from. This isn’t people looking for a better life for their kids.
The situation is a humanitarian crisis.
It is not political.
Some of these women have been raped and the children have been sex trafficked by the cartels, and when we have a woman now in the office of the vice presidency who was considering legalizing prostitution in California and was prosecuting David Deleiden and Sandra Merritt. It does not take much of a brain to figure out who is lining her pocket.
I get the impression from reading the above comments that we should not let any of these unaccompanied children come across the border. We are sending the adults and families back. What is the appropriate way to treat children? There are thousands of them. They are children. They are trying to escape before they or their parents are killed.
I suspect that most Americans can’t even imagine how bad it is in Honduras and Nicaragua. We are a nation of immigrants. That is what made America great, a shining city on the hill. Do we not want them because they are not white European? Nobody seems bothered by all the Irish who have overstayed their visas. Why is that?
Bob One, no one should overstay his/her visa. Many of us are not immigrants by any stretch of the imagination.” My ancestors in this country go back to at least four generations and some on my maternal side to the beginning of the United States. Biblically one could not become a citizen of Israel until at least the third generation. We let first generation people not only become citizens but run for office. It has created total chaos here. We no longer have anything in common, other than being human, and it seems some scientists would create “chimeras” to destroy even that commonality.