Catholic Charities meeting links immigration reform, Katrina victims

Published: 2005-09-21

PHOENIX (CNS) -- Immigration reform issues and the problems facing immigrants who survived Hurricane Katrina were linked during the Catholic Charities USA annual meeting in Phoenix. "These are not separate issues. They are very much entwined with one another," Father Larry Snyder, president of Catholic Charities USA, said Sept. 17. Organizers revamped the Sept. 15-18 conference to include discussion of the problems caused by the natural disaster on the Gulf Coast. The participants also approved floor recommendations that the U.S. government include immigrants in federal disaster aid programs regardless of their legal status and assure victims lacking legal residency that they would not be deported if they apply for aid. "We wanted to make sure that the plight of the undocumented as disaster victims didn't go unheeded," Candy Hill, Catholic Charities senior vice president for social policy, told Catholic News Service.

Copyright (c) 2005 Catholic News Service /U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The CNS news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed, including but not limited to such means as framing or any other digital copying or distribution method, in whole or in part without the prior written authority of Catholic News Service .