Pope meets US bishops, issues migrants exhortation on reform

Pope Leo XIV met Wednesday with U.S. bishops and social workers from the U.S.-Mexico border at the Vatican, receiving letters and a video from immigrant families fearful of U.S. immigration enforcement, and in a separate action this week released a major apostolic exhortation calling for economic reforms and renewed hospitality toward migrants. The meetings and the document underscore the pontiff’s public emphasis on the church’s duty to welcome and protect people fleeing violence and poverty.

El Paso Bishop Mark Seitz, who led the delegation, said he handed the pope a packet of letters describing widespread fear in immigrant communities that families and loved ones could be rounded up and deported. Seitz said the letters and video show that even people with legal status and U.S. citizens are living in constant anxiety and that enforcement tactics have at times been aggressive. “They are terrorized,” he said. In one letter read to the pope, a woman described how people “can’t go out. They are afraid to shop, to go to church and so they stay home,” citing high-profile enforcement actions in U.S. cities.

Seitz said Leo thanked the delegation for its work and urged the U.S. bishops...