The Biden administration announced April 27 new steps it would take in an effort to reduce migrant arrivals at the U.S.-Mexico border when Title 42 expires in May.
In remarks at the State Department, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas said the administration would set up migrant processing centers in Latin America to screen those seeking entry as to whether they have a legal pathway.
The administration also will expand legal pathways for entry, while increasing deportations of those who enter the United States unlawfully.
Blinken said the centers would « improve qualified individuals’ access » to refugee resettlement, family reunification and lawful settlement in the U.S. or other countries.
« These centers will take a hugely important step to prevent people from making the dangerous journey to the border by providing a much safer, legal option to migrate that they can pursue in and from their own countries, » Blinken said.
Mayorkas said that « when people have safe and orderly pathways to come to the United States, and face consequences for failing to do so, they use those pathways. »
Title 42 is a part of federal U.S. public health law granting the federal government some authority to implement emergency action to prevent the spread of contagious diseases by barring some individuals from entry.
Then-President Donald Trump implemented the policy in 2020 at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, but the move was seen as part of his administration’s broader attempts to reduce migration. The use of Title 42 to expel migrants at the southern border was criticized by some public health experts, who argued it was politically motivated rather than evidence-based.
Since then, Title 42 has been invoked more than 2.7 million times to expel migrants, including those seeking asylum, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data. Title 42 is set to end May 11.
J. Kevin Appleby, interim executive director of the Center for Migration Studies, told OSV News that the Biden administration’s announcement seems « a positive step forward. »
J. Kevin Appleby, interim executive director of the Center for Migration Studies, told OSV News that the Biden administration’s announcement seems « a positive step forward. »
« Of course, as always, it depends on how something is implemented and what resources are devoted to the implementation that will decide whether it’s successful or not, » Appleby said. « But it gives asylum- seekers an opportunity to tell their stories and have their cases adjudicated without taking a dangerous journey north. »
Appleby, a former adviser on migration policy for the U.S. bishops, said that for the last quarter century, « Congress has not had the political courage to reform the immigration system. »
« So it’s left to the executive branch to come up with these responses, when Congress should be working with the administration to pass legislation to overhaul our immigration laws, » he said.
Republicans have made immigration a key part of their criticism of the Biden administration, accusing him of lax policies. In a statement reacting to Joe Biden’s 2024 reelection bid, Trump, in the midst of his third bid for the White House after Biden defeated him in 2020, said, « Under Biden, the Southern Border has been abolished — and millions of illegal aliens have been released into our communities. »
A fact sheet from the State Department about the new actions said, « The lifting of the Title 42 order does not mean the border is open. »
The fact sheet said that any individuals who unlawfully cross the U.S. southern border after Title 42 is lifted will be processed for expedited removal, barred from reentry for at least five years if they are ordered removed and would be ineligible for asylum « absent an applicable exception. »
« To avoid these consequences, individuals are encouraged to use the many lawful pathways the United States has expanded over the past two years, » the fact sheet said.
The U.S. bishops and other Catholic immigration advocates have criticized Title 42 as well as the Biden administration’s continued use of the Trump-era policy.
OSV News has reached out to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops for comment.
Harry Belafonte, the famed Black entertainer and activist whose voice adorns several of the mid-20th century’s most famous recordings, died of heart failure on April 25 in New York. He turned 96 in March.
« Whether he was breaking barriers as a young musician, supporting civil rights activists in the 1960s, or convening (and calling-in) the next generation of leaders and artists, Mr. B was unfettered in his commitment to improving the lives of oppressed people across the globe, » his daughter Gina said in a statement via the Sankofa Justice & Equity Fund, Belafonte’s legacy foundation.
« While today I know his fans, friends and family are saddened by his passing, our family will be forever grateful for his legacy and leadership. He’s left a shining example of what love, community and commitment looks like. »
Best known as the popularizer of the calypso genre of music, the Harlem native was born Harold George Bellanfanti, Jr. to mixed-race Jamaican parents in 1927, amid the Harlem Renaissance and its flourish of Black arts heavyweights. Belafonte’s own career would begin some two decades later, with a breakthrough in the theatre scene that led to a Tony Award in 1954.
A noted singer, he released his first notable single, « Matilda, » in 1953, before his « Calypso » album three years later — the first in the world to sell a million copies within a year. It would spend 99 weeks on the Billboard charts and bring the music of his parents’ home region to the American public.
Perhaps his most famous track, « Day-O (The Banana Boat Song), » was a cover of a Trinidadian folk song that anchored the album and became his signature song. It remained part of his repertoire throughout his career.
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Belafonte would go on to record across a number of genres, including blues, jazz, Broadway, and gospel, releasing more than 40 albums in total. Though none of his later albums reached the broad commercial success or impact of his first, the 1961 release « Jump Up Calypso » also went platinum.
« I was tilting more toward pop than jazz, » he wrote in his 2011 memoir.
« My new managers had noted I drew a lot more women than men, and had me crooning love songs that tugged at their heartstrings. … Afterward, I stayed up drinking with the musicians, wondering how a one time gig at the Roost, meant only as a stopgap until I found work as an actor, had turned into a full-time job. »
Belafonte would indeed eventually make his way to Hollywood, sustaining a 65-year career in film in which he garnered a number of leading roles —at least one of which he declined due to the film’s racist overtones. For seven years during the height of his career, Belafonte also refused to perform in the South due to the prevailing Jim Crow attitudes and policies in white society.
Activism remained a focus for Belafonte throughout his life, and he is credited as a major financier of the Civil Rights Movement, which sought an overturning of the post-Reconstruction disenfranchisement and terrorism against Blacks that lasted for the better part of a century. Belafonte bankrolled much of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.‘s activities and personally raised more than $50,000 to bail the famed preacher out of the Birmingham City jail alongside other protesters.
Among various other efforts during the movement, Belafonte also financially supported the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the 1961 Freedom Rides to New Orleans, and the 1963 March on Washington — where he stood alongside King as he deliver his famed « I Have a Dream Speech » on the National Mall. They would remain close friends until King’s death.
Belafonte’s social activities also extended into humanitarian causes, including the anti-Apartheid Movement in South Africa and the music supergroup USA for Africa, which benefited victims of famine and disease in the motherland. For the latter ensemble, Belafonte organized the Grammy Award-winning song « We Are the World » in 1985, which went on to become one of the top 10 best-selling physical records in history. On the homefront, the former bluejacket and World War II veteran positioned himself firmly within a left-leaning milieu, criticizing U.S. foreign policy in Cuba, the Soviet Union, Grenada and Spain.
Belafonte’s activist work also brought him into contact with the faith of his childhood, having been reared a Catholic by his devout mother, attending St. Thomas the Apostle Catholic Church and St. Charles Borromeo School in Harlem. He would credit his mother as a primary inspiration for his activism, with her words during his youth: « Don’t ever let injustice go by unchallenged. »
Belafonte later left the church, but maintained tenuous connections partly due to his first wife Marguerite, who converted during their relationship. (This later factored into their divorce.) Belafonte also noted in his memoir that many of his collaborators in the 20th century progressive movement were nuns.
« I still had such conflicted feelings about the church, such anger at those Catholic nuns who’d rapped my knuckles long ago, » he wrote.
« But these ladies, these activist nuns, were a very different breed, and I felt blessed — there was no other word for it — at being in their company. »
One such nun, Sr. Thea Bowman, a Franciscan Sister of Perpetual Adoration, became a face of Black Catholic activism during the same period, making headlines for her bold display of culture and resistance in a church often associated with European austerity. Belafonte became fascinated with her story, and at one point in the late 1980s planned to cast Whoopi Goldberg to play her in a biopic.
He also organized the famed « Stars for Freedom » rally that drew 25,000 participants in 1965, featuring celebrities performing to raise morale for a voting rights march in Alabama. The venue? The City of St. Jude, a Catholic complex in Montgomery serving the city’s Black population. Decades later, Belafonte would find a collaborator in Cardinal Roger Mahoney of Los Angeles, with whom he created the Urban Peace Awards in 2002, celebrating the achievements of activists and public figures working for the common good.
Over his nearly 75-year career in entertainment, Belafonte became one of the few artists to achieve « EGOT » status, having won three Grammys, an Emmy (for « Tonight with Belafonte » in 1960), a Tony, and the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
In 2013, Belafonte received the Spingarn Medal from the NAACP, later using his appearance at the Image Awards ceremony to advocate for gun control.
« A river of blood that washes the streets of our nation flows mostly from the bodies of our Black children, » he said.
« Yet, as the great debate emerges on the question of the gun, white America discusses the constitutional issue of ownership, while no one speaks of the consequences of our racial carnage. The question is: Where is the raised voice of Black America? Why are we mute? Where are our leaders, our legislators? Where is the church? »
Quoting his mentor, the Black entertainer-activist Paul Robeson, Belafonte added: « Artists are the gatekeepers of truth. We are civilization’s radical voice. »
Named in his honor, the inaugural Harry Belafonte Voices For Social Justice Award was awarded by the Tribeca Film Festival in 2021, the same year Belafonte was named a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor in France — occasioning one of the star’s last public appearances. In 2022, Belafonte was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in absentia.
Belafonte leaves behind four children and two stepchildren, the product of his three marriages. His wife Pamela Frank, whom he married in 2008, was at his side at the time of his death.
Funeral arrangements for Belafonte have not been publicly announced.
Editor’s note: This story was originally published at Black Catholic Messenger. It has been republished with permission.
More than 31% of Citigroup shareholders supported a resolution brought by Catholic congregations that called for a review of the global bank’s financing policies around climate change and Indigenous rights after Citigroup pumped billions of dollars into oil pipeline companies in recent years.
The vote took place April 25 during Citigroup’s annual general meeting. A similar resolution drew roughly the same support last year, when 33% of shareholders voted in its favor. While shareholder resolutions are legally non-binding, companies typically respond in some way to measures that garner more than 20% support.
The resolution at Citigroup called for the bank, one of the top financiers of fossil fuels worldwide, to produce a report reviewing the effectiveness of its policies and practices in adhering to international standards for Indigenous rights and financial industry benchmarks it helped draft for assessing environmental and social risks in project funding.
The resolution was brought by the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace; the Sisters of St. Dominic of Caldwell, New Jersey; the Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia; and United Church Funds, the institutional investment ministry of the United Church of Christ. It was supported by Investor Advocates for Social Justice, a coalition of predominantly Catholic congregations.
While hoping for higher support this year, Sr. Susan Francois, treasurer for the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace, which acted as the lead filers, said it was not a totally surprising result given Citigroup’s disagreement with the resolution in its proxy statement.
« We will be back, » she told EarthBeat. « We’re committed to engaging with Citigroup on this, » Francois added, while expressing optimism that its board would reenter into dialogue with them after talks broke down following last year’s resolution vote.
« It’s an issue of critical importance for both Earth and for Indigenous rights, » she said.
The vote was one of several held Tuesday (April 25) during shareholder meetings at major banks, with more to come later in the week. On Monday, climate activists demonstrated by holding sit-ins at banks across the U.S., including Citigroup headquarters in New York City.
Along with targeting fossil fuel companies, such as through global divestment campaigns, climate activists have increasingly focused attention on the financial sector that provides the capital for new mining and drilling for coal, oil and gas around the globe.
In order to meet the Paris Agreement’s more ambitious goal of limiting average temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius — which climate scientists say remains possible, though the window is narrowing fast — the world must stop investing in new fossil fuel projects, the International Energy Agency determined in a May 2021 report.
Overall, the world’s 60 largest banks have injected $5.5 trillion into the fossil fuel industry in the past seven years, according to an April report issued by Rainforest Action Network, Sierra Club and other environmental groups. At $332 billion, Citigroup ranks second in total fossil fuel financing, behind JP Morgan Chase, and has provided $113.5 billion toward expanding the use of the polluting fuel sources.
At the center of the Catholic sisters’ shareholder resolution with Citigroup was more than $5 billion in financing that the bank has provided to Enbridge, a Canadian fossil fuel company and one of the largest pipeline builders in the world with a long history of oil spills. Recently, its Line 3 and Line 5 pipeline replacement projects in the Great Lakes region have drawn strong opposition from Indigenous communities, environmentalists and even some government officials.
The resolution argued that financing Enbridge was at odds with Citigroup’s various commitments to respect and uphold Indigenous rights in projects it finances, as well as the bank’s own public climate pledges. The bank has said its current environmental and social risk policy is working to identify potential investment pitfalls, and that it provided Enbridge with general financing, not project-specific financing that triggers the screens — a defense the sisters say minimizes its role in funding fossil fuel projects like Line 3 and Line 5.
A separate resolution called for Citigroup to cease financing to fossil fuel companies for new coal, oil and gas projects, with roughly 10% of shareholders voting in favor, a total also lower than the previous year.
Francois told EarthBeat it was important that Citi shareholders heard directly from Indigenous leaders through their resolution. Tara Houska, founder of the Giniw Collective that led opposition against Line 3, presented the resolution at the meetings.
« Indigenous peoples hold 80% of earth’s remaining biodiversity — we are the canary in the mine of humanity, » Houska said in a statement. « [Citigroup’s] big oil clients are destroying our homelands and lifeways as they tout empty policies and procedures. For our children’s sake and yours, hear our voices: humans cannot live without water, humans cannot endlessly extract without consequence. »
Citigroup was one of three major banks to hold shareholder meetings on Tuesday. Wells Fargo and Bank of America also faced votes on resolutions calling for the financial institutions to end financing for new fossil fuel projects. At Bank of America, just 7% of shareholders supported the measure, less than the year before, and Wells Fargo shareholders also rejected the motion, though specific tallies were not released, Reuters reported. A separate resolution at Bank of America drew 28.5% support for an action plan to be created to meet the bank’s 2030 net-zero emissions goals.
Other climate-related resolutions were on the docket at Goldman Sachs on Wednesday and with BP on Thursday.
Francois said that consumers have a political responsibility to use their economic power and influence « to support the common good, because that’s really what good business is. »
Beyond companies’ bottom lines, « we have a fiduciary responsibility to Earth and to future generations. And that’s clear in the resolution season this year, and I have a feeling next year will be even more coordinated and moving us in the right direction. »
President Joe Biden announced April 25 that he will seek a second term in the White House. Biden, a Democrat, is the nation’s second Catholic president, but his reelection would make him the first Catholic to serve twice in the Oval Office.
In a video message titled « Freedom, » Biden said, « When I ran for president four years ago, I said we are in a battle for the soul of America. And we still are. »
« The question we are facing is whether in the years ahead we have more freedom or less freedom. More rights or fewer, » Biden said. « I know what I want the answer to be. This is not a time to be complacent. That’s why I’m running for reelection. »
Amid video images from the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol and an image of Biden’s declared and undeclared GOP rivals, former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaking face to face, Biden said, « MAGA extremists are lining up to take on those bedrock freedoms. »
Biden claimed his rivals intended to cut Social Security, reduce taxes « for the very wealthy, » ban books, and implied his opponents would ban abortion, same-sex marriage, and increase restrictive voting requirements.
The announcement was expected, but followed months of speculation from critics and allies alike as to whether Biden, 80, would launch a reelection campaign.
Biden frequently discusses the role of his faith on issues such as labor, immigration and the environment. Biden routinely attends Mass on Sundays and holy days of obligation.
However, Biden’s positions on some issues, such as his platform supporting legal abortion, including his call to end a prohibition on taxpayer funding for abortion, and his administration’s increasingly harsh actions toward migrants at the border, have come under fire from some Catholics.
In 2023, the U.S. bishops issued statements criticizing the Biden administration for expanding the use of Title 42, a pandemic-era federal public health rule permitting immigration officials at the border to block migrants seeking asylum from entry previously implemented by the Trump administration. The bishops also have pushed back on comments made by Biden appearing to indicate the bishops were not calling for a ban on the use of taxpayer funding for elective abortion, as they have called for that ban.
Most Americans don’t appear eager for Biden or his presumptive GOP challenger, Trump, according to recent polls. While a rematch is likely between the two, who faced off in the 2020 election, an April NBC News poll found significant majorities of Americans did not want either Trump or Biden to run.
The same poll, however, found Trump leading the Republican primary field for the Republican nomination in 2024.
Trump faces a few declared candidates — Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy and Asa Hutchinson — but some election analysts speculate that his biggest threat is DeSantis, who is seen as a likely contender for the 2024 Republican presidential primary but has not declared his candidacy.
Should DeSantis enter the race and secure his party’s nomination, the general election would become a contest between two Catholics. Up to now, no Catholic has won two terms as U.S. president, and the U.S. has not seen two back-to-back Catholic presidents.
