The defense and protection of the family is one of the central tenets of Catholic social teaching.  In my view, it should be one of the central tenets of all Christians.  Over at The Atlantic, Emma Green has a nice piece on how Catholics are dealing with Trump’s decision to suspend Temporary Protected Status for Salvadorans.

Here is a taste:

A woman fled El Salvador in fear of violence, just months before a deadly series of earthquakes destroyed many Salvadorans’ lives and homes. She settled in Maryland with her husband’s family and started to build a life. She worked first in hotel housekeeping, then as a teaching assistant at a neighborhood school. She had four children, who excelled in school. She invested deeply in her local Catholic church, serving as a catechist and usher, working with kids on Sunday mornings, and hosting a small prayer group in her home.

Now, after nearly two decades in the United States, the Trump administration may be sending her back to El Salvador, a country that still suffers from one of the world’s highest homicide rates, destabilizing gang activity, and a stalled economy. Many immigration advocates have pushed back on the decision, but perhaps none more strongly than the U.S. Catholic Church. Catholic leaders see these deportations not as a left-right political issue, but as threat to the families that make up the heart of their communities. As one local priest told me, “I see it as an assault on the body of the Church”…

And this:

The Church’s argument for protecting Salvadorans is largely focused on protecting families—a cause that conservatives often like to claim for their own. “The family is sacred,” said Jacek Orzechowski, a priest based in Silver Spring, Maryland, who works with Catholic Charities. “The prospect of deporting people into areas where there will be an imminent danger—it tramples upon family. It’s disrespect for life.” The Center for Migration Studies estimates that TPS recipients from El Salvador collectively have 192,000 U.S.-born children. These families may soon face the choice of splitting up, with formerly TPS-protected parents leaving their kids behind in the U.S., or moving together to a deeply unstable country where Americans are often targeted for kidnappings and extortions.

Read the entire piece here.