What to do After Welcoming?

By Rafael Gacía, S.J.

Moral dilemmas force flexibility and creativity and reveal the fact that human laws are never without exceptions. One of these relates to the plight of migrants and refugees—the recently arrived and those established in our communities.

The Catholic Church, other Churches, many elected leaders, and people of good will support welcoming those whose lives are threatened by criminal elements or are fleeing war or systemic impoverishment. They have a right to migrate to save their lives and find a safe home, according to Catholic social teaching and human solidarity. The United States is one of those safe homes. The welcome is needed! 

But once here, new challenges arise. How are those welcomed going to survive and provide for their families if they are legally prohibited from securing work? Is this major dilemma being adequately acknowledged and addressed by church and state? Those of us in ministry with migrants and refugees constantly see the detrimental effects of the status quo regarding illegality of working. Lack of work typically triggers many other problems that create individual and family deterioration. 

The Church teaches that denial of work is a violation of a person’s rights:

Work is a fundamental right and a good for mankind, a useful good, worthy of man because it is an appropriate way for him to give expression to and enhance his human dignity … Work is needed to form and maintain a family, to have a right to property, to contribute to the common good of the human family.1

Unemployment, on the other hand, is a “real social disaster.”2

Pope Francis prophetically addressed this dehumanizing status quo in his recent message for the World Day of Migrants and Refugees (January 14, 2018). He called for a ‘four-step’ response to the crisis of forced migration: welcome; protect; promote; integrate. Francis wrote:

When duly recognized and valued, the potential and skills of migrants, asylum seekers and refugees are a true resource for the communities that welcome them…This is why I hope that, in countries of arrival, migrants may be offered freedom of movement, work opportunities, and access to means of communication, out of respect for their dignity.3

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