Promoting reunification of families broken up by deportation is top priority
Next month, Auxiliary Bishop Eusebio Elizondo of Seattle will assume the chairmanship of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Migration. He was elected to the position last fall. The committee deals with issues affecting migrants within the U.S., as well as immigrants and refugees.
Recently, the committee has been working to influence the reform of the country’s immigration laws being considered by Congress. Current immigration policy is not working, Bishop Elizondo said.
“I don’t like to call it broken, because for many it has worked, so it’s not broken — it’s just deficient, I would say.”
His top priority for the committee will be to promote provisions in the law for the reunification of families that have been broken up by deportation.
“The base and foundation of any society is family,” he said.
A native of Monterrey, Mexico, Bishop Elizondo received a bachelor’s degree in theology and a canon law degree from the Gregorian University in Rome. In 1984, he was ordained a priest of the Missionaries of the Holy Spirit, a religious congregation of men who provide spiritual direction for priests and consecrated religious.
In 2000, he was assigned by Archbishop Emeritus Alexander J. Brunett to St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Parish in Bothell to minister to the growing Hispanic community in Western Washington. He was appointed auxiliary bishop of Seattle by Pope Benedict XVI on May 12, 2005, and was ordained a bishop by Archbishop Brunett on June 6, 2005. Bishop Elizondo is the first Hispanic bishop in Seattle.
October 17, 2013