Bishop Mark Seitz of El Paso, chairman of the US bishops’ Committee on Migration, criticized President Donald Trump’s executive order granting Afrikaners from South Africa priority treatment in refugee admissions.
“We cannot turn a blind eye to the disparate treatment of refugees currently taking place,” the prelate said. “As exemptions are considered” to this year’s refugee ceiling of 7,500, “it is essential that they be applied consistently and without discrimination on the basis of race, religion, or national origin, in accordance with longstanding domestic and international norms.”
Bishop Seitz added:
Resettlement tainted by the perception of unjust discrimination is contrary to Catholic teaching and quintessential American values, grounded in our Constitution and refugee laws, including the equality of every person from the moment of their creation by God.