What's Happening

September 3, 2019, Adrian, Michigan – Sister Elise García, OP, General Councilor for the Adrian Dominican Sisters and President-elect of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), speaks about a variety of topics in a recent interview. Ever the bridge in her childhood and as a Sister, she talks of the many influences of her life, why she left her name in for election with the LCWR, and her views of religious life and the transitions ahead. Read the entire interview, written by Dan Stockman and published in the National Catholic Reporter’s Global Sisters Report. 

Feature photo: Sister Elise García, OP, President-elect of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) speaks during a press conference at a Catholic action for Immigrants, held in Washington, D.C., in 2018.

September 26, 2018, Adrian, Michigan – The Adrian Dominican Sisters join the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) in calling for opposition to the Trump Administration’s new proposed rule impacting immigrants. The new regulation would penalize immigrant families, forcing parents to choose between accessing medicine, housing, and food for their children and risking their eligibility for possible legal permanent residency.

The LCWR statement follows:

The US Department of Homeland Security’s proposed changes to the public charge regulation are yet another attempt by President Trump to restrict immigration and punish immigrant families. The new regulation would force parents to make impossible choices between the well-being of their families and the prospect of future citizenship.

The rule changes would dramatically increase the barriers to lawful status for low-income immigrants and their families. It could dissuade parents from obtaining benefits for which their children qualify, out of fear that they may not be able to regularize their immigration status in the future. Lack of access to public benefits programs will increase poverty, hunger, homelessness, and disease, and decrease children’s school attendance and general well-being.

This attempt to target the most vulnerable within the immigrant community violates the tenets of our faith and threatens the values of our nation. We are called by our faith to welcome the stranger and care for the most vulnerable and we are challenged by our national values to promote the welfare of our children and tend the common good. If we want our communities to thrive, all families in those communities mast have access to the care and services they need and to which they are entitled. The Trump administration’s proposed changes to the public charge regulation threaten us all.

The Leadership Conference of Women Religious urges all people of faith to call for protection of immigrants, especially those who are most vulnerable, and to register their objections to this unreasonable and mean-spirited proposal during the 60-day comment period.