Of Tears and Terror: Families Torn Apart By Community Raids in the New Orleans Area

By Sue Weishar, Ph.D. 

The family holds a central place in Catholic Social Teaching. Key Church teachings describe the family as "the sanctuary of life,"[1] the "essential cell of human society,"[2] and the "domestic Church."[3] Given the primacy of the family in the spiritual, ethical, social, and emotional formation of children, the unprecedented increase in deportations since President Obama took office is deeply distrurbing. An Urban Institute study found that one child was left behind for every two immigrants apprehended by immigration authorities in worksite raids.[4] Approximately 1,100 immigrants are being deported a day- causing profound grief, anguish, and hardship for tens of thousands of children a year. If the current pace of deportations continues, the Obama administration will have deported more than 2 million immigrants by the of 2014, a deplorable record for an American president.[5]