“The Holy See fears the collapse of the country,” Archbishop Paul Gallagher, the Vatican’s secretary for relations with states, stated frankly.

“In every large city in Brazil, you can now see a greater number of kids begging for money or selling candy on the streets than before the pandemic.”

The bishops could be the Biden administration’s strongest allies in the region in alleviating the problems that force people to try to reach the United States.

“You can’t understand [border realities] by talking to government officials. You have to talk to the people who are working with migrants and hear about the suffering.”

“No one is safe from their attacks. Anyone they are suspicious of, anyone they think are against them, they will arrest, they will torture and some of them are even shot to death.”

What began on April 28 as a public reaction to a tax reform proposal from President Iván Duque has expanded into a massive mobilization of broad discontent.