Auxiliary Bishop Richard J. Garcia returned from a trip to Central America hopeful that U.S. bishops can work more closely with Central American bishops to help put an end to the inhumane treatment of migrants.

“In all (of) Central America there are similar problems. No one country can take care of the migrants alone,” Bishop Garcia said of tackling problems surrounding migration of thousands of Central Americans to the United States.

“I think we saw a willingness on the part of governments and bishops of the region to work together in a regional solution to the problem of migration that respects dignity and rights in this hemisphere. That gave us great hope.”

The delegation, which included Bishop Garcia, Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio of Camden, N.J., chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Migration, and Chicago Auxiliary Bishop John Manz, visited Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras Oct. 29 to Nov. 4 to look at the migration issue.

Experts are unsure of the true number of emigrants leaving Central America each year for for the United States, legally and illegally.

El Salvador estimates around 1.5 million of its 6 million inhabitants now reside in the United States. They send more than $1.3 billion home each year in family remittances, according to official figures.

One of the purposes of the U.S. bishops’ visit was to get behind the statistics, Bishop Garcia said.

“What most impressed me was to discover the depth of this problem of migration throughout the region,” he said.

He said he was particularly moved when in El Salvador he saw the large number of Salvadoran deportees being sent back from the United States. He said he was surprised to see that many were deported for minor offenses, and many have lived most of their lives outside El Salvador.

During their brief stay in El Salvador, delegation members visited a Catholic Relief Services-run reception project in the country’s international airport. The project, “Bienvenido a Casa,” or “Welcome Home,” was designed to provide deportees from the United States with information, support and financial assistance on their arrival.

More than 50 U.S. Justice Department flights land each year in El Salvador carrying deportees sent back by the Immigration and Naturalization Service, Bishop Garcia said.

The U.S. bishops have been pushing Congress to amend this part of immigration law that allows the INS to deport minor offenders. “We’ll be doing whatever we can to put pressure on those who can make the changes in the U.S. laws,” Bishop Garcia said.

“There is a real stigma on these people who are deported, “ he added. “They are handcuffed and shackled when they come back on flights. It could be an elderly lady whose only offense was she didn’t have proper documentation.”

Among the delegation’s primary concerns is the human impact of “Operation Forerunner,” a regional initiative designed to apprehend and prosecute human smugglers who provide transportation to migrants traveling through the region on their way north. The U.S. bishops are calling upon Congress and the newly elected president to work with Central American governments to ensure the rights of migrants are upheld and that they are provided humane treatment. They are also appealing to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to more carefully monitor the treatment of extra-regional migrants throughout Central America.

While in Honduras, the bishops visited the Central Penitentiary for men in Tegucigalpa, and heard testimony from migrants from several countries including Ecuador, Peru and China. Many migrants had been detained for weeks, sometimes without adequate food or sanitation and most had no access to legal representation.

“It makes our prisons look like Marriotts and Sheratons,” Bishop Garcia said of the sub-standard prison he visited in which prisoners share open space under a leaky tin roof.

He explained that these migrants from Ecuador and Peru are part of “a new migration that is taking place in the hemisphere” involving people who are fleeing political unrest and economic disasters.

The delegation expressed its support and gratitude to humanitarian organizations in Central America such as CRS, the U.S. bishops’ international relief and development agency.

CRS is assisting migrants with basic needs support and defending their human rights within Central American countries. Bishop Garcia praised CRS, noting that the organization had done “superb work after Hurricane Mitch” in 1999, which left countries like Honduras suffering huge economic losses.

In Guatemala, the agency’s principal work is in education and trying to deal with the great numbers of people migrating to Mexico due to poverty at home.

Bishop Garcia found the people of Central America to be most hospitable and said “even in their poverty are rich.”

He added that the delegation found Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras all still recovering from civil wars and natural disasters, and as a result, neither economically nor socially able to assimilate large numbers of deportees. He said the countries will not be able to rise out of poverty unless they are able to educate their people and rebuild their infrastructures.

To lessen the negative impact of migration on Central American economies, the delegation plans to encourage the U.S. government to work more closely with Central American governments to assist in funding reintegration programs and encourage legislation that provides protection to Central American nationals in the United States since 1995.

While the U.S. bishops support the right of a person to migrate to survive, they join with Central American bishops in endorsing “the right not to migrate.” That effort, Bishop Garcia said, would receive a major boost if the U.S. government would forgive foreign debts.

As this was his first visit to Central America, Bishop Garcia said he was deeply touched by a visit to the chapel in San Salvador where Archbishop Oscar Romero was gunned down 20 years ago.

Another visit he won’t forget was to the site in the same city where six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her teen-age daughter were murdered in 1989. In recalling the rose garden that now flourishes there, Bishop Garcia noted, “Out of all that death comes life.”

As well as meeting with representatives of the bishops’ conference in Guatemala and El Salvador, the delegation met members of El Salvador’s National Forum on Migration and U.S. embassy staff in each country.

Some information for this story was taken from Catholic News Service.

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