JUSTNews

Happy Earth Day! As we celebrate new life in Christ and the beauty of creation this Easter season, take some time to find one or two new ways to reduce your carbon footprint. Here are some ideas to get you started.

1. Drive less. Walk, bike, or use public transportation when possible and consolidate your errands into fewer trips.

2. When you drive, avoid unnecessary braking and acceleration. Keep your tires properly inflated, maintain your car, and remove unnecessary items adding extra weight.

3. Avoid flying. If you must fly, fly economy class and fly non-stop since landings and takeoffs use more fuel and produce more emissions.

1. Seek out and use plastic-free alternatives to everything from snack and produce bags to toothbrushes to laundry detergent. Plastic is rarely actually recycled (even when you put it in the recycling bin), and it ends up everywhere - the ocean, harming wildlife, and in people's bloodstream.

2. Don’t rinse dishes before putting them in the dishwasher, just scrape off any excess food first. Then, make sure it’s full before running it on the economy setting.

3. Use cold water to wash your clothes and line dry them.

1. Eat less meat and dairy products. Check out some Mindful Meatless Meal ideas.

2. Use reusable beverage containers made of glass or steel rather than single-use plastics.

3. Reduce the distance your food is shipped by growing herbs and vegetables at home.

1. Consume less. Opt for quality rather than quantity to cut down your carbon footprint. Make a statement with your purchases by supporting companies that are taking action to reduce their environmental impact.

2. Avoid fast fashion. Cheap clothes contribute to more than 15 million tons of textile waste produced each year. These companies also tend to engage in exploitative labor practices.

3. Avoid buying products with excessive packaging.

1. Purchase carbon offsets. A carbon offset is an amount of money you can pay for a project that reduces greenhouse gases somewhere else. If you offset one ton of carbon, the offset will help capture or destroy one ton of greenhouse gases that would otherwise have been released into the atmosphere.

2. Become politically active and let your representatives know you want them to take action to phase out fossil fuels use and decarbonize the country as fast as possible.

3. Calculate your carbon footprint at carbonfootprint.com to find out how you’re doing. The EPA’s carbon footprint calculator can show how much carbon and money you will save by taking certain steps.

4. Check out more ways to shrink your carbon footprint from the City of Austin, Columbia Climate School, and Global Giving.

5. Help St. Austin start a Creation Care Team. If you're interested, contact Kristen.

As we conclude our immigration series this Lent, we seek to better understand Catholic Church teachings on immigration, particularly as they relate to border security. In debates on this issue, the people who are entrusted with the difficult task of defending our southern border are often overlooked.
 
The bishops of the U.S. and Mexico wrote a pastoral letter on immigration titled Strangers No Longer, Together on the Journey of Hope in 2003. In the letter, they examine Catholic church teaching with regards to migration and articulate five principles that emerge:

1. Persons have the right to find opportunities in their homeland.

2. Persons have the right to migrate to support themselves and their families.

3. Sovereign nations have the right to control their borders.

4. Refugees and asylum seekers should be afforded protection.

5. The human dignity and human rights of undocumented migrants should be respected.

Regarding the third principle, the letter further states, “The Church recognizes the right of sovereign nations to control their territories but rejects such control when it is exerted merely for the purpose of acquiring additional wealth. More powerful economic nations, which have the ability to protect and feed their residents, have a stronger obligation to accommodate migration flows” (paragraph 36). It is clear that the United States is among the more powerful economic nations that the letter enjoins to take a greater role in accepting migrants. We as Catholics believe that our nation is faced with balancing this call to welcome migrants with our need for national security. Along with the migrants who arrive at our shores, Border Patrol agents are often at the crossroads and bear the brunt of this ongoing tension.

Lord of All,
Some of us make our homes on hills,
others in valleys.
Some in tall buildings, some on shorelines,
some at risk on the street.
And we divide up our patches with lines
we scratch into the ground
And call them borders.
Where the lines don’t suffice, we build fences.
Where fences fail, we dig moats.
Where moats aren’t enough, we erect walls.
But what if we were to look across these borders?
Across fence, moat, and wall
And see you on the other side?
Lord, teach us to reach across all borders,
Fabricated or natural,
To join with all our brothers and sisters
To unify, and not separate.
To honor all who wander
Seeking hope, seeking opportunity—seeking you
As assuredly as we seek you
Lord, let no border ring our hearts.
May we find a place within them for all.
Turn our hands from building walls
Toward building justice.
Stretch our arms across fence, wall and moat
To seek out those on the other side
That we might find you in each other’s eyes
In each other’s hands
In each other’s wounds.
Amen

Source: Catholic Relief Services

Beyond praying and learning, consider preparing a mindful meatless meal as Lent comes to it's close in the next few days. As New Mexico is a border state, we offer a recipe for New Mexican Green Chile Stew (vegan), paired with a traditional bread of the Navajo and other native peoples. 

The men and women stationed at our southern border experience a variety of challenges. With each surge in the number of migrants crossing the border, U.S. Border Patrol regularly must divert large percentages of its agents away from its primary mission of border security. The surges lead agents to take on a humanitarian mission: feeding and providing medical care for migrants, etc., and take them away from the border security they were hired to do. Border agents are not always trained in or prepared for the humanitarian tasks, which can cause both morale issues and lead to lead to the mistreatment of migrants, even unwittingly.
 
Detaining the extremely high number of migrants coming to our southern border creates overcrowding and some inhumane conditions, both in Border Patrol facilities (designed like police stations) and in ICE’s longer-term custody facilities. Addressing the humanitarian needs of large numbers of migrants takes away from Border Patrol agents fulfilling their primary duties, and the at times inhumane conditions of people in their charge can be difficult for these agents to witness.
 
The challenges of migrant surges are compounded by the fact that Border Patrol agent positions are chronically under-staffed. The constant flow of migrants into the U.S. can take a heavy emotional toll on the men and women who seek to protect our nation. Although they are not Border Patrol agents, we continue to hear in the news about the poor living conditions, gear shortages, and multiple suicides among Texas National Guard members stationed on the border as part of Operation Lone Star.

The lack of training, inhumane conditions migrants are kept in, and the emotional toll on Border Patrol agents negatively affects the dignity of their work, another principle of Catholic Social Teaching. As the USCCB notes, “Work is more than a way to make a living; it is a form of continuing participation in God’s creation.” It also includes the right to productive work. Obviously respecting the dignity of migrants and offering them human conditions is vital. One could also argue that witnessing and sometimes participating in either the direct inhumane treatment or the system that treats migrants inhumanely undermines the dignity of Border Patrol agents as well as the dignity of their work.
 
We pray and are tasked with working for a better immigration system in our nation, one that welcomes the stranger, treats migrants humanely, secures our borders, and respects the dignity of the border patrol agents and the work they do. Let us also remember in our prayers “Adam”, all other migrants, and all those who work to secure our borders (Adam is the Afghan man that St. Austin is legally sponsoring to help reunite him with his family in the U.S.).

As we enter into the third week of Lent, we continue to pray for “Adam,” the Afghan man who St. Austin is legally sponsoring to help reunite him with his family in the United States. We continue to learn about the plight of many migrants. Refugees are another type of immigrants who come to the United States after fleeing their homelands.

 
The Catholic Church in the United States cares deeply about the plight of refugees around the world and advocates for and participates in their resettlement in the United States.
 
Let’s all continue to pray for Adam and his family as they await a decision on his legal case. Please also hold in prayer the world’s more than 26.6 million refugees.

Lord Jesus, when you multiplied the loaves and fishes, you provided more than food for the body, you offered us the gift of yourself, the gift which satisfies every hunger and quenches every thirst! Your disciples were filled with fear and doubt, but you poured out your love and compassion on the migrant crowd, welcoming them as brothers and sisters.
 
Lord Jesus, today you call us to welcome the members of God's family who come to our land to escape oppression, poverty, persecution, violence, and war. Like your disciples, we too are filled with fear and doubt and even suspicion. We build barriers in our hearts and in our minds.
 
Lord Jesus, help us by your grace,

• To banish fear from our hearts, that we may embrace each of your children as our own brother and sister;

• To welcome migrants and refugees with joy and generosity, while responding to their many needs;

• To realize that you call all people to your holy mountain to learn the ways of peace and justice;

• To share of our abundance as you spread a banquet before us;

• To give witness to your love for all people, as we celebrate the many gifts they bring.

 
We praise you and give you thanks for the family you have called together from so many people. We see in this human family a reflection of the divine unity of the one Most Holy Trinity in whom we make our prayer: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
 

Source: USCCB  

We pray for the millions and millions of refugees around the world. We remember in a special way, Adam and the many refugees from Afghanistan, Syria, the Middle East, and the African continent. We offer recipe for an Ethopian meatless meal as a pathway of compassion.

Mindful Meatless Meals

What’s the difference between a refugee and an asylum seeker?
 
Like an asylum seeker, a refugee is any person unable to return to their home country out of a well-founded fear of persecution because of their race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group. The refugee resettlement system protects certain persons of special humanitarian concern to the United States who meet the refugee definition, are outside the United States, are taking refuge in a country outside of their home country, and are referred for U.S. refugee resettlement. A main difference is where the person is currently located. Asylum seekers must be in the U.S. or at a U.S. point of entry, while refugees are in a country that is not the United States or their home country.
 
Some people say that the process for admitting refugees to the United States is not secure and terrorists can easily enter the country. Is that true?
 
No. The most difficult way to enter the United States legally is as a refugee. No other category of traveler to the United States undergoes such a rigorous and detailed screening process. The screening process typically takes 18 - 24 months and involves numerous federal intelligence and security agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of State, the Department of Defense, the National Counterterrorism Center, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Please click the link to view an infographic on the process makes clear the rigor involved. 

Refugee Screening Process

 
Fewer than 1% of all refugees worldwide are even considered for resettlement. If referred to the U.S. program, refugees undergo biographic and fingerprint security checks to confirm their identity. They are also extensively interviewed by specially trained officers from DHS’ U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). The vetting process is designed to ensure that each incoming refugee is not a public safety or national security risk. Ultimately, if our government has concerns that an applicant is a threat or safety risk, that refugee will not be admitted to the United States.
 
Can you work in the U.S. or become a U.S. citizen if you are classified as a refugee, asylee, or asylum seeker?
 
Refugees and asylees have work authorization granted to them immediately, as part of their status, when they become refugees or asylees, and they can then apply for an Employment Authorization Document (EAD) as further evidence of that authorization. Asylum seekers cannot apply for a work permit until 150 days after they have applied for asylum. If there is still no decision, they can apply at the 150 day mark, although USCIS cannot issue an EAD until 180 days without an asylum decision.
 
A refugee may apply for a green card one year after their arrival to the United States. An asylee may apply for a green card one year after being granted asylum in the United States. Either can apply for U.S. citizenship after having a green card for five years.
 
Sources: Justice for Immigrants Three Common Myths About Refugees and Differences between Refugees and Asylees