Social Justice Tag: Earth

April 2026

Articles from Mercy:

• • The dangers of ending TPS for Haiti (Angie Howard-McParland; Institute Justice Team)
• • Santa Marta conference on fossil fuel transition (Marianne Comfort; Institute Justice Team)
• • Voting: How we know voter fraud in the U.S. is very rare (Rose Marie Tresp, RSM; Institute Justice Team)
• • U.N. Commission on the Status of Women (Angie Howard-McParland; Institute Justice Team)
• • “What?” and “Now what?” (Naomi Huttenga; Institute Justice Team intern)

Local Justice News & Upcoming Mercy Events

Justice Resources & Links

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The dangers of ending TPS for Haiti

Angie Howard-McParland; Institute Justice Team

“Forced migration from Haiti is not accidental. It is the result of decades of political exclusion, economic extraction, climate vulnerability, and international policies that weaken—rather than strengthen—community power. Any meaningful response must therefore be transnational, linking protection for Haitians abroad with sustained investment in grassroots leadership within Haiti.”

—from Faith in Action, from prayer and rally in Springfield, OH, 05 February 2026

Much of our Mercy Justice work centers on legislation in the United States, both at the state and federal levels. But as we have often heard from our sisters and associates across the Mercy world, U.S. policies ripple around the planet with dire consequences for populations in countries across the globe. Particularly when we talk about immigration, we often emphasize the root causes of migration, such as climate change’s disproportionate effect on less wealthy nations and violence that is often tied to U.S. political entanglements.

The recent headlines around Temporary Protected Status (TPS), and particularly TPS for Haiti, are a good example of why these root causes matter so much to our work and how any moral immigration policy must take these forces into account.

TPS is a designation afforded to an individual country by the Department of Homeland Security since 1990 for the protection of people who are already in the U.S. It is a recognition that individuals from the named country cannot safely return there due to armed conflicts, environmental disasters, public health crises, or other extraordinary situations. Importantly, TPS beneficiaries cannot be detained by DHS, cannot be removed from the U.S., and are permitted to apply for work and travel authorizations. By definition, TPS is temporary, typically granted for 12–18 months at a time, but can be extended indefinitely, depending on conditions on the ground. It is also not a path to citizenship, sometimes leaving people in limbo, especially given the recent focus on immigrants by the current administration.

Over the course of the last several months, then–Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem began abruptly terminating the TPS designations of a number of countries including Venezuela, South Sudan, Ethiopia, Nicaragua, Honduras, Somalia, Myanmar, Yemen, and Haiti. The official explanation reads that the legal basis for protection no longer exists, and yet, in all of these cases, conditions remain deeply unsafe. In fact, the U.S. government maintains Level 4 travel advisories (do not travel) to most of the above countries due to kidnapping/hostage-taking, unrest, terrorism, and health hazards.

For example, a recent United Nations report shares details of the disproportionate effect of destabilization on children in Haiti. The latest estimates suggest that gang violence there has displaced over 1.4 million people, more than half of whom are children. Additionally, most of these gangs engage in child trafficking for destruction of property, kidnappings, killings, and sexual violence. Conditions remain so dire in Haiti that 133 faith leaders signed a recent amicus brief to the Supreme Court (SCOTUS) detailing their first-hand experience of the continued humanitarian crises the country has suffered since the catastrophic hurricane in 2010. The SCOTUS case focuses on TPS for both Haiti and Syria with oral arguments scheduled for April 29.

These attempts to rapidly dismantle TPS mirror other strategies over the last 16 months of fomenting chaos and confusion while expressing a callous disregard for the human lives that hang in the balance. In my own work in our Haiti coalitions, the TPS debacle is such a crisis that we have seen all of our work on root causes of the conflict and violence suspended to shift focus to addressing this issue. There is hope to resolve it this week; a vote on Representative Pressley’s discharge petition passed on the floor of the House of Representatives on April 15, 2026.

In addition to the dangers posed to nationals being returned to countries in humanitarian crisis, TPS termination harms local countries and the U.S. as a whole. As of March 2025, there were nearly 1.3 million people from 17 countries benefiting from TPS in the United States. From Haiti alone, there are 350,000 TPS holders across the country, contributing $5.9 billion to the U.S. economy. These individuals own businesses, work as teachers and caregivers, and over 20% work in healthcare, an industry that has seen shortages of workers.

From a national security standpoint as well, continued destabilization of Haiti, which would be made worse by a mass influx of deportees, harms U.S interests in the region. The criminal gangs that control much of the country remain in power with U.S.-sourced weapons and ammunition, making it crucial to address domestic firearms sales laws as well as ramp up oversight of exports through legislation such as the ARMAS Act and the Stop Arming Cartels Act. Mercy continues to advocate for these bills with many of our partners.

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Santa Marta conference on fossil fuel transition

Marianne Comfort; Institute Justice Team

Dozens of countries will be gathering in Santa Marta, Colombia, April 24–29, for the First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels. Organizers expect that participants – representing nations, local and regional governments, and other sectors of society – will work together to identify ways to lessen dependence on coal, oil and gas.

Catholic bishop conferences in Africa, Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean [i.e., Abya Yala] hold out great hope for this conference as expressed in their “Manifesto of the churches of the global south for our common home.” The statement was also affirmed by Church leaders in Europe and Oceania.

Annual international climate negotiations, formerly called the Conference of the Parties (COP), have focused on minimizing the harms of greenhouse gases and a warming planet. But over three decades, participating countries haven’t been able to come to an agreement on how to address, or even name, the cause of the climate crisis: the extraction of fossil fuels.

“As pilgrim Churches in Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, and Asia, we witness that climate change is not only an environmental crisis, but also a consequence of unsustainable patterns of production and consumption and an ‘economy that kills,” according to the Manifesto authors.

“Therefore, guided by the preferential option for the poor and the care of creation described in the Catholic Social Teaching, we declare our unwavering support for a just transition and strongly call on the governments of the world to adopt a treaty to stop proliferation and abandon fossil fuels as a moral and political imperative,” the Manifesto continues.

Organizers of the Santa Marta conference make clear that the forum isn’t meant to replace formal climate negotiations, nor is it a space for working on a fossil fuel treaty. Instead, it is “intended to support practical action by those already prepared to move forward” and “to generate shared understanding and actionable guidance that can help accelerate a just, orderly and equitable transition away from fossil fuels.”

Forty-six countries are registered to attend the conference, including major oil-producing nations like Australia, Brazil, Canada and Norway. The U.S. government will not be represented, but state and local officials are expected to attend along with non-governmental organizations, including our partners at Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns.

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Voting: How we know voter fraud in the U.S. is very rare

Rose Marie Tresp, RSM; Institute Justice Team

Since the 2020 election, accusations of voter fraud in the United States are much more frequent. These accusations cover a broad range: dead people voting, non-citizens voting, illegal mail-in votes, extra ballots put in drop boxes, people voting more than once, voting machines counting inaccurately, etc. Yet investigations on voter fraud, even by conservative organizations, have shown that voter fraud is very rare.  The accusations alone result in less trust in the outcomes of elections, a danger to democracy even though investigations almost always discover no fraud.

States hold the primary role in administering presidential elections and those for members of Congress, as established in the U.S. Constitution, Article II. Because this authority is granted to the states, no state carries out this responsibility in exactly in the same manner, but each state has procedures to safeguard the voting process. I learned about many of these safeguards for North Carolina by attending county Board of Elections meetings and participating in poll observation inside vote polling places in my county during an election. But to ensure that I fully understood these safeguards, I made an appointment to interview the Director of Elections for Gaston County, Adam Ragan.

A few of the safeguards are explained below. While these are safeguards used in North Carolina, other states use very similar safeguards. Here is a detailed list of voting system security measures used by states as guidance and best practices.

First, the voting machines or tabulators are not connected to the Internet.

Second, the type of paper, font, and design of the ballot are carefully selected. Since registered voters can often download a copy of their ballot, this could be downloaded and copied, but the feel of the ballot would not be the same. Which ballot would be copied to be fraudulently used? North Carolina has over 2,000 different ballot styles, and Gaston County over 25. While all ballots will have the same national and statewide races, the ballots will diverge from there. Depending on congressional district, state legislative districts, school districts, county officials, city officials, and other elected offices, your ballot is matched to your address.

Third, registering to vote requires registering with your address and name. Some proof of residence will be required. In most states, no proof of citizenship is required. The registration form will require the voter to sign that they are a citizen. The penalty for a noncitizen voting is severe. When the voter comes to the polling place, you are asked your name which must be on the voter roll. Then you are asked for your address. If these don’t match, you cannot vote. To vote with a fake ballot, the person would have to register in someone else’s name and know that person is not voting. While in theory, this could be possible, this is unlikely and could not result in many fraudulent votes.

Fourth, when a polling place is opened, before voters are allowed in, the chief judge and staff count the blank ballots. When the poll closes, the chief judge and staff count the number of ballots that had to be redone because of a mistake, count the number of unused blank ballots, and the number of ballots cast according to the tabulator. These numbers – blank ballots still left, ballots cast, and redone ballots – must add up to exactly the number of blank ballots that the polling site had before the voting started. The book of voter registrations must be examined and the number of those who checked in to vote must be the same number as the number of the ballots cast.

The ballots from the polling sites are brought in locked boxes to the county Board of Elections and locked in a secure room. These boxes will not be opened until the county Board of Elections members are all there in person. Absentee ballots, both those mailed in and those dropped off, will not be examined until everyone on the Board of Elections is present.

The certification of the election must be done when all members of the election board are present; anyone can attend that meeting to observe. At that meeting, any issues are brought up. At the last meeting I attended, eight ballots were brought up to be discarded from citizens who voted prior to election day and then died before election day. These votes were deducted from the tallies. The Department of Health reports all of these deaths to the county Board of Elections.

I encourage you to attend county Board of Elections, ask questions, and if possible, volunteer to be a poll watcher.

Next month, an article will list the ways that citizens can be involved in and support the voting process.

“Let us never forget that government is ourselves and not an alien power over us. The ultimate rulers of our democracy are not a President and Senators and Congressmen and Government officials but the voters of this country.”

—Franklin D. Roosevelt

“In this possibly terminal phase of human existence, democracy and freedom are more than just ideals to be valued – they may be essential to survival.”

—Noam Chomsky

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U.N. Commission on the Status of Women

Angie Howard-McParland; Institute Justice Team

Last month, I was privileged to yet again spend ten days with my global sisters in the Mercy Emerging Leaders Fellowship (MELF) program. Following our immersion in Cambodia in the fall, we reconvened in New York for the United Nations 70th Commission on the Status of Women.

The contrast between the two experiences was stark: in Siem Reap, we were in close conversation with local people still working through the repercussions of a long civil war and genocide and taking action to deal with climate change and address communal needs. In Manhattan and at the UN, we experienced the frenetic pace of both urban life and the global scale of politics and changemaking with its possibilities and challenges. I attended sessions that included grassroots activists from Taiwan; students from North Carolina, Ukraine, and Iran; business owners in the Dominican Republic; and intergenerational leaders advancing solidarity for women and girls to name just a few. We also attended and took note of several religious congregations, such as the Loretto Community, Sisters of St. Joseph, and Good Shepherd sisters, who brought students to the commission and hosted side events featuring the crucial work of faith-based communities on women’s issues, particularly around migration.

One liminal moment for me as an American happened on the second day of the commission. We learned that United States had been the only “No” vote on adopting the “agreed conclusions” of the commission, a document that sets global standards for gender equity with recommendations for governments and NGOs as an outcome of the annual gathering. Attending a briefing to better understand what that meant, I learned that typically these conclusions are adopted by consensus by all the member nations, and to even force a vote was a signal that the U.S. saw issues in the document they could in no way condone. Those issues, it turns out, were “ambiguous language promoting gender ideology,” sexual and reproductive health commitments, and “censorship language on regulating artificial intelligence.” It wasn’t the first time I felt embarrassed on behalf of my citizenship or witnessed U.S. officials acting against gender equality and access to justice, but it was a stark reminder of how important our Mercy voices are in this moment as we speak out for women and all our Critical Concerns.

I continue to learn so much from participating in this fellowship with women from across the Mercy world, including our own Sister Aura Matalines of the Philippines, Tatiana Diaz of Gwynedd Mercy University, and Dr. Saska Sertimer of Guyana. I’m inspired by the ministries in Aotearoa (i.e., New Zealand) and Tonga, in Ireland and Kenya, and across the Philippines. And thanks to these experiences and relationships, I am more committed than ever to a truly global Mercy perspective serving those made poor and addressing the root causes of what New Yorker Dorothy Day coined “our filthy rotten system.” From the global to the grassroots, it’s so clear that Mercy is everywhere, infusing values of justice and community towards a better world for all.

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Featured Guest Writer

“What?” and “Now what?”

Naomi Huttenga; Institute Justice Team intern

Reflecting on my time here as a Justice Intern, I have witnessed how the Justice Team identifies societal issues, amplifies the voices of the unseen, and advocates for change. I began this internship expecting to learn about the complexities of our political systems and the barriers woven into our social structures. While I have gained a deeper understanding of “what” is happening in our world, I have more importantly learned how to bridge the gap between “What?” and “Now what?”.

In a time of constant, discouraging headlines, it is easy to become apathetic toward the injustices around us. But this is precisely why asking “Now what?” is so essential. Just as I have been challenged to take the next step from awareness to action, I invite you to do the same. Contact your local and national representatives, show up to protests, volunteer in your community, spark change in whatever way you know how. “Now what?” starts with you. If you don’t create change, who will?

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