On Oct. 24, the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in a 6-3 vote cleared the way for the pregnant 17-year-old to obtain an abortion.

Around 200,000 Salvadorans and 57,000 Hondurans have been residing in the United States for more than 15 years under Temporary Protected Status. But that status is set to expire in early 2018.

Catholics are called to act and to equip ourselves with truth-telling tools to transform the polemics of immigration into a grace-filled response to human suffering.

Poverty and criminal violence are pushing hundreds of thousands of people northward while escalated deportations are tearing families apart in the United States.

“The migrant family is a crucial component of our globalized world,” said Archbishop Ivan Jurkovic, Vatican observer to U.N. agencies in Geneva.