Immigrants, both documented and undocumented, constitute a growing percentage of Arizona Catholics. Finding new ways to welcome and integrate immigrants into parish life can only make us a stronger and more united Church in Arizona. As Catholics, we are called to live out the principles of global solidarity, to care for and defend the human dignity of one another as members of one universal Body of Christ, and to be active in the public arena to bring the Gospel to bear on the pressing issues of the day.

Learn More About Scripture, Catholic Social Teaching and Immigration in Arizona>

Act: Through Direct Service, Advocacy or Community Organizing

Unaaccompanied Refugee Minors

Catholic Charities finds stable and caring homes for undocumented minors who are without family members or relatives in the Phoenix area.

DIGNITY

DIGNITY Trafficking programs identify and assist victims of human sex trafficking to safely leave bondage in the sex trade.

Tonatierra-Macehualli Day Labor Center

This site, which opened in 2003 at 16801 N. 25th St. near Bell Road, serves as a gathering spot each day for about 80 to 100 laborers looking for work. Employers drive into the location and are paired with someone with the appropriate skills. Contact information: Mr. Salvador Reza, Volunteer Coordinator: 602-743-3876

Borderlinks

BorderLinks is a bi-national non-profit organization that offers experiential educational seminars along the border focusing on the issues of global economics, militarization, immigration, and popular resistance to oppression and violence.  With these topics occupying the spotlight in public and political debate, it is more important than ever that US citizens witness a reality affected by our policies and lifestyles.

Arizona Catholic Conference
Arizona Catholic Conference is the official public policy agency for the Dioceses of Phoenix, Tucson and Gallup, New Mexico. Sign up for action alerts that relate to local Arizona legislation related to migration.

Catholic teaching has a long and rich tradition in defending the right to migrate. Based on the life and teachings of Jesus, the Church's teaching has provided the basis for the development of basic principles regarding the right to migrate for those attempting to exercise their God-given human rights. Catholic teaching also states that the root causes of migration–poverty, injustice, religious intolerance, armed conflicts–must be addressed so that migrants can remain in their homeland and support their families. Five principles emerge from such teachings, which guide the Church's view on migration issues (Strangers No Longer, USCCB, 2003).

Persons have the right to find opportunities in their homeland.
All persons have the right to find in their own countries the economic, political, and social opportunities to live in dignity and achieve a full life through the use of their God-given gifts. In this context, work that provides a just, living wage is a basic human need.

Persons have the right to migrate to support themselves and their families.
The Church recognizes that all the goods of the earth belong to all people. When persons cannot find employment in their country of origin to support themselves and their families, they have a right to find work elsewhere in order to survive. Sovereign nations should provide ways to accommodate this right.

Sovereign nations have the right to control their borders.
The Church recognizes the right of sovereign nations to control their territories but rejects such control when it is exerted merely for the purpose of acquiring additional wealth. More powerful economic nations, which have the ability to protect and feed their residents, have a stronger obligation to accommodate migration flows.

Refugees and asylum seekers should be afforded protection.
Those who flee wars and persecution should be protected by the global community. This requires, at a minimum, that migrants have a right to claim refugee status without incarceration and to have their claims fully considered by a competent authority.

The human dignity and human rights of undocumented migrants should be respected.
Regardless of their legal status, migrants, like all persons, possess inherent human dignity that should be respected. Often they are subject to punitive laws and harsh treatment from enforcement officers from both receiving and transit countries. Government policies that respect the basic human rights of the undocumented are necessary.

Learn More About Scripture and Catholic Social Teaching on Immigration>

Justice for Immigrants

This website is designed to help achieve the goals of the Justice for Immigrants Campaign.  It provides tools and information for diocesan and community-based organizing, education, and advocacy efforts.  You will find information about Catholic teachings that underpin this Campaign, as well as proposals from the Catholic Bishops to achieve reforms in our nation’s immigration laws and policies that better reflect our values as a nation of immigrants.

Migration and Refugee Services

Migration and Refugee Services carries out the commitment of the Roman Catholic bishops of the United States to serve and advocate for immigrants, refugees, migrants, and people on the move. This commitment is rooted in the Gospel mandate that every person is to be welcomed by the disciple as if he or she were Christ himself and in the right of every human being to pursue, without restraint, the call of holiness.

CATHOLIC LEGAL IMMIGRATION NETWORK, INC.

In 1988, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) established CLINIC as a legally distinct 501(c)(3) organization to support a rapidly growing network of community-based immigration programs. CLINIC's network originally comprised 17 programs. It has since increased to 156 diocesan and other affiliated immigration programs with 255 field offices in 48 states. The network employs roughly 1,200 attorneys and "accredited" paralegals who, in turn, serve 400,000 low-income immigrants each year. CLINIC and its member agencies represent low-income immigrants without reference to their race, religion, gender, ethnic group, or other distinguishing characteristics.

In fulfilling their specific tasks, the lay faithful should be engaged in concretely carrying out what truth, justice and love require. They should thus welcome migrants as brothers and sisters and do all they can to ensure that their rights, especially those concerning the family and its unity, are recognised and protected by the civil authorities (The Love of Christ Toward Migrants, The Pontifical Council For the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People, 2004).

Every human being has the right to freedom of movement and of
residence within the confines of his own state. When there are just
reasons in favor for it, he must be permitted to migrate to other
countries and to take up residence there. The fact that he is a citizen
of a particular state does not deprive him of membership to the
human family, nor of citizenship in the universal society, the common,
world-wide fellowship of men (Address to the New World Congress on the Pastoral Care of Immigrants, Pope John Paul II, 1985).

Learn More About Scripture and Catholic Social Teaching on Migration>

Catholic Relief Services

Catholic Relief Services was originally established to respond to the needs of uprooted peoples and a significant aspect of our work remains in this area. CRS is currently responding to the needs of refugees, internally displaced persons (IDPs), immigrants and victims of human trafficking.

Jesuit Refugee Service

The Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) is an international Catholic organisation with a mission is to accompany, serve and defend the rights of refugees and forcibly displaced people. JRS programmes are found in over 50 countries, providing assistance to refugees in refugee camps, to people displaced within their own country, to asylum seekers in cities and those held in detention. The main areas of work are in the field of Education, Advocacy, Emergency Assistance, Health and Nutrition, Income Generating Activities and Social Services. At the end of 2004, more than 450,000 individuals are direct beneficiaries of JRS projects.

Caritas Internationalis

Caritas Internationalis is a confederation of 162 Catholic relief, development and social service organisations working to build a better world, especially for the poor and oppressed, in over 200 countries and territories.  Caritas works without regard to creed, race, gender, or ethnicity, and is one of the world’s largest humanitarian networks.

Caritas provides a beacon of hope for tens of millions of women, men and children in times of hardship and contributes to the development of social justice in times of peace. Caritas’ mandate includes integral development, emergency relief, advocacy, peace building, respect for human rights and support for proper stewardship of the planet’s environment and resources.

The Caritas approach is based on the social teaching of the Church, which focuses on the dignity of the human person. Caritas’ work on behalf of the poor manifests God’s love for all of creation.

Prajwala

Hundreds of thousands of young adults and children are traded for flesh trade in the guise of jobs, marriage, film roles, modeling and love. Trafficking in women and children is one of the worst forms of violation of human rights - a form of modern day slavery where the victim is subjected to violence, violation of personal integrity and total humiliation, without any hope of succor.Today, sex trafficking in women and children is one of the fastest growing areas of national and international criminal activity.

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