Fronteras

AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin, Pool

Two female detainees sleep in a holding cell as children are separated by age group and gender. Hundreds of mostly Central American immigrant children were being processed and held in Nogales, Ariz.

PHOENIX — Last year more than 57,000 unaccompanied child migrants arrived at the Southwest border, about a third of them girls.

Girls who make the journey are at risk for sexual abuse, and there have been cases where some became pregnant. All child migrants are housed in shelters run by government contractors until they can be reunited with relatives.

Kevin Appleby of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said his organization, along with Catholic Charities, runs some of these shelters and provides case-working services at others.

He said facilitating access to abortions or emergency contraception goes against Catholic teaching.

“If that does happen, we tell the child that is something that we don’t provide or don’t engage in,” Appleby said. “And then we notify the federal government that there is a situation where that is the case and the federal government makes the decision in that case.”

But Brigitte Amiri of the American Civil Liberties Union believes the law requires contractors running these shelters to provide access to all medical care, including reproductive health services. Children housed in these shelters for unaccompanied minors are typically not free to leave and would be unable to seek out services on their own without the cooperation of the facility.

“Religious freedom is a fundamental right and we strongly support that right at the ACLU,” Amiri said. “But that right does not include imposing your belief on others to harm them, which is exactly what the Bishops are doing here.”

Last December the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement proposed new regulations for how shelters housing unaccompanied child migrants must handle cases where children are sexually abused in custody. The proposed rules would require timely access to emergency contraception. In cases where a pregnancy does occur, the rules require the shelter provide access to “all lawful pregnancy-related medical services," which would include abortion.  

In February the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops co-authored a letter with other faith organizations objecting to the proposed regulation, and asking for a more explicit religious or moral exemption. The letter pointed out that while the introduction acknowledged organizations with religious objections, that language was not included in the actual text of the rule.

“What they want us to do is go against our belief, and our teaching, and facilitate it and be part of it," Appleby said, in reference to the proposed regulations' language on emergency contraception and abortion. “And that is not how this country works. There are rights on all sides here, and the right to religious freedom is a right that is enshrined in the constitution as well.”

Amiri said the Catholic Bishops should not take government contracts for child migrant shelters if they do not want to offer reproductive health services.

Her team at the ACLU filed a lawsuit Monday demanding the federal government turn over records on this topic, including what happened to girls in the custody of Catholic Bishops who requested access to reproductive health services.