Credentialed pastors are being banned from ministering to the hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants being kept at border patrol facilities in Texas and Arizona.
“Border Patrol told us pastors and churches are not allowed to visit,” said Kyle Coffin, the pastor of CrossRoads Church in Tucson, Arizona to Fox News’ Todd Starnes. “It’s pretty heartbreaking that they don’t let anybody in there — even credentialed pastors.”
A Border Patrol spokesman confirmed the surprising ban.
“Due to the unique operational and security challenges of the Nogales Placement Center, religious services provided by outside faith leaders are not possible at this time,” the Border Patrol told me in a statement. “However, CBP’s chaplaincy program is supporting the spiritual needs of the minors for the limited time they are at the center.”
Area churches are even prohibited from donating items like soccer balls or other recreational items for the children.
A counselor that worked at the Lackland Air Force base center said in their entire tenure at the facility not a single minister or chaplain was brought to the children.
The Department of Homeland Security has announced the cancellation of a program that had drawn the ire of privacy advocates nationwide.
Homeland Security Secretary ordered the immediate end to a plan by Immigration and Customs Enforcement to collect data on all license plates in the United States and storing them in a massive database.
ICE officials has claimed in their initial request for proposals that the collection of the plates would help law enforcement be able to find and track fugitives. The database would also be used to help track down immigrants in the country illegally.
“The solicitation, which was posted without the awareness of ICE leadership, has been cancelled,” ICE spokeswoman Gillian Christensen said in prepared statement. “While we continue to support a wide range of technologies to help meet our law enforcement mission, this solicitation will be reviewed to ensure the path forward appropriately meets our operational needs.”
Members of Congress reacted swiftly to the announcement in praising the withdrawal of the proposed program but wondered how something like this could be made public without the knowledge of those in charge of ICE.
Pope Francis went to give alms Sunday at a Rome parish next to the city’s main railway station on the church’s World Day of Migrants and Refugees where he spoke out on the plight of the world’s refugees.
“Let us think of the many migrants, the many refugees and their suffering,” Francis said to those in attendance. “Their lives are often without jobs and without documents and with a lot of pain.”
The Pope is the son of Italian immigrants to Argentina. The parish where he spoke on Sunday provides the needs of immigrants and homeless in Rome.
The Pope also spoke bold words against human traffickers that prey on those attempting to reach a better life in a new country. He called them “merchants of human meat who want to enslave migrants” and asked for governments to focus on not only helping immigrants but jailing traffickers.
The National Park Service is erecting barricades to block veterans from visiting memorials to their fallen comrades but they will be allowing an immigration reform rally to be taking place on the “closed” National Mall. Continue reading →