In October of 2013, a small boat filled with migrants from war-torn East Africa capsized and sank off the island of Lampedusa in the Mediterranean Sea. More than 350 people drowned, many of them women and children. Thousands more have perished in an attempt to reach the shores of southern Europe in vessels completely unsuitable for such a journey. Pope Francis, upon his visit to Lampedusa, referred to the deaths of these migrants as a “serious symptom of a lack of respect for the human person.”
Let’s cross the Atlantic to the United States. Since October of 2013, fifty thousand children have crossed the U.S.-Mexico border, most travelling hundreds of miles from Central America. The majority of these the children were sent by their parents to make the 
journey alone. Along the way, many have become victims of human trafficking and child prostitution. With an undetermined immigration status and nowhere else to go, they are now being housed in detention centers in the United States.
One might ask what propels a parent to send his or her own child hundreds of miles away to a foreign country. One might also ask what propels a person to walk onto an overcrowded, rickety boat and travel across the sea. What at first seems like a stupid, callous decision looks much more palatable when we place ourselves into these migrants’ shoes. Ethnic conflict, violence, and instability have ravaged countries like Honduras, Guatemala, Yemen, and Somalia for decades. Living conditions are very poor. Life itself is uncertain, difficult, and dangerous. It is no small wonder that many choose to immigrate, even under poor conditions, even when they are most certainly unwanted.
The 20th of June has been designated by the United Nations as World Refugee Day. Recent data shows that over 50 million people have been forcibly displaced due to persecution, conflict, generalized violence, or human rights violations. It is unthinkable to have hundreds of people drown within the sight of your shores, as in the Lampedusa tragedy, yet it is just as unthinkable to do nothing to help them. Clearly, there is no simple solution to this human rights crisis. But as tragedies like that of Lampedusa remind us, we can no longer remain indifferent to the suffering of migrants. We must not allow politics to get in the way of our humanity. As Pope Saint John XIII writes in his encyclical, Pacem in Terris (Peace on Earth), we must “draw the attention of the world to the fact that these refugees are persons and all their rights as persons must be recognized.”
We pray as Pope Saint John XXIII prayed:
“May Christ inflame the desires of all men to break through the barriers which divide them, to strengthen the bonds of mutual love, to learn to understand one another, and to pardon those who have done them wrong. Through His power and inspiration may all peoples welcome each other to their hearts as brothers, and may the peace they long for ever flower and ever reign among them.”
Amen.
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