(from New York) “A wall is not immoral in itself, but it may be built for an immoral purpose”. In an article on the New York Times, the archbishop of Newark, card. Joseph Tobin, denounces Trump’s government’s policies, especially the President’s statement that judges all those who oppose to the building of a barrier on the border with Mexico as “immoral”. The cardinal asks to consider the impact that such decision would have on human beings and points out that migrants would venture into “the remotest borders of the desert or the mountains, probably until they die, since the forces that are driving them to escape – abuse, persecution and destitution – are more dangerous than a dangerous border pass”. And actually about 8 thousand migrants died in Arizona and in some parts of Texas after the building of parts of walls in the areas of San Diego and El Paso in the mid-Nineties. Then, Tobin warns about the risk that asylum seekers may be left “at the mercy of drug cartels and other criminal groups from Northern Mexico”, especially after establishing the “Remain in Mexico” policy for asylum seekers, who would stop beyond the border while waiting for the hearings and the procedure that would expose them to organised crime for years.

In the article, the cardinal reproaches the President for his constantly placing emphasis on “the violent crimes committed by paperless immigrants but he does not tell that immigrants commit far fewer crimes, including violent ones, than American citizens”. At the end, Tobin wishes for a “humane immigration reform, that will honour the values of the nation” and that will tackle the causes of this mass exodus of peoples.