Santo Nino Cautivo,
release those held unjustly
and unite those families who are separated.
On the 16th of every month, some Carmelite monasteries and other people devoted to the Infant Jesus, begin a novena in honor of the Holy Childhood of Jesus. It is a devotion similar to what many do for their annual Christmas novena.
This month I intend to pray for those children kept in detention centers, separated from their parents who are incarcerated, as they attempt to enter the United States. The Bishops of the United States have condemned this treatment of immigrants and asylum seekers.
I will honor the Infant Jesus in this novena with the titles of Santo Nino Cautivo and Santo Nino Atocha.
Traditionally, the Santo Nino Cautivo has been petitioned by those seeking release from some sort of impediment, restriction, or trap, especially financial problems or drug addiction, alcoholism. Many pray for the release of a friend or family member who may have been abducted and held for ransom, or imprisoned unjustly. Santo Nino Atocha is also a friend of those imprisoned and many stories of him visiting and consoling prisoners seems to me an important reason to implore his mercy for those who are detained by ICE.
Santo Nino Atocha,
have mercy upon us.
Visit those children who
are alone and frightened,
and unite them with their families.
One of the reasons they separate adults and children is that adults are traveling with children so they're treated more sympathetically. The children's parents are already here illegally in many cases and they're coming to join them. The only way to find out whether it's a family is to separate them so the kids are intimidated into silence.
ReplyDeleteNan, I know you are a woman of deep faith from you posts here. I am confused by this comment. Are you saying the parents are here already and the children are being transported by surrogates? My reading is that most are fleeing violence of some kind. Anyway, this is a new policy created to scare and intimidate other would be refugees. It is cruel, in my opinion, rife with potential abuse and very unChristian in every way.
DeleteYes, the children are transported by surrogates. There was just an article about an 11 yr old boy whose mother abandoned him in the Honduras and came here. He traveled with cousins, who abandoned him in Mexico and made it to the US with strangers and was then picked up by border patrol.
DeleteThere was a huge problem with Somalis claiming children who weren't theirs, so much that DNA tests are now required.
Here the problem is that these people aren't refugees, but economic migrants who come here for a better life on American social services handouts.
They are neither true refugees nor asylum seekers. The problem is that "violence of some kind" does not qualify them for asylum and true asylum seekers would request asylum in the next safe country, not come here.
There's nothing cruel or un Christian about expecting people to obey our laws and apply for legal entry. The Holy Family obeyed the laws of the Roman Empire.
You're right about the potential abuse, coyotes often mistreat those who paid for their assistance. We are not responsible for remedying all the world's ills and if there are issues in Honduras and other countries, the prople should stay home and try to change their country rather than come here illegally and commit identity theft or work for cash, if they work at all.
E-verify needs to be required to discourage identity theft, the wall needs to be built to keep people out, fees need to be added to remittances, birth tourism needs to stop and the constitution needs to be properly interpreted so citizenship is granted only to children whose mothers are citizens or landed immigrants, with no social services at all going to those here illegally.
The same was going on in Europe ... thousands of unaccompanied children went missing per European reports. Some were speculating the sex traffickers just homed in and swept them up. A sad fate ... may it not happen here in the US of A.
DeleteWhat have we become? How much lower can we sink?
ReplyDeleteSanto Niño Cautivo ten misericordia de nosotros. Amen
ReplyDelete