“We will pause this coming Thursday to thank God for the many blessings we enjoy in the United States. My brother bishops and I” will be “attentive in a special way to those who are often excluded – the poor, the sick, the addicted, the unborn, the unemployed, and especially migrants and refugees”. Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, President of the US Bishops’ Conference, wrote this at the beginning of his message for Thanksgiving Day that will be celebrated on 23 November.

The cardinal recalled the meeting in Baltimore last week, where all the bishops expressed a “shared” sense of alarm in the face of “policies that seemed unthinkable only a short time ago” targeting the Dreamers, that is, those young workers and students who arrived in the US as children and now risk being deported. Card. DiNardo, together with his brother bishops, shares in the uncertainty of all those migrants from Haiti, El Salvador and Honduras who enjoy Temporary Protected Status because of the natural disasters that have struck their countries of origin: these families, too, risk being repatriated with no guarantee that their home countries are adequately equipped to receive them.
Card. DiNardo decries these policies whose common feature is “their tendency to tear apart the family. These threats to so many vulnerable immigrant and refugee families must end now”, and urgent legislation is needed to put an end to these months of uncertainty. According to the bishops, these policies are symptoms of an immigration system that requires comprehensive reform with a view to “welcoming the most vulnerable, ensuring due process and humane treatment, protecting national security, and respecting the rule of law”.
Finally, the president of the US Bishops gives thanks for “the gift and contributions of immigrants and refugees to our great nation” and prays that “families now under threat will not be broken and dispersed, but instead will be united in joy around their tables, giving thanks for all the blessings our nation has to offer”.