Church Leaders Don’t Sway Bryant on Child Refugees

By Jeff AmyAssociated Press

JACKSON – Gov. Phil Bryant’s decision to block additional legal child refugees from being resettled in Mississippi hasn’t changed following a Thursday meeting with Catholic, Methodist and Episcopal leaders.

Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Jackson runs the program under state sponsorship.

Bryant again says he fears President Barack Obama will take over the program, which currently cares for 27 children in the state, and use it to send children who immigrated illegally to Mississippi.

Monsignor Elvin Sunds, deputy to Catholic Bishop of Jackson Joseph Kopacz, says Catholic Charities only takes children who enter legally.

In a Thursday interview with Mississippi Public Broadcasting, Bryant said he didn’t know locations of children who entered the country illegally and were sent to Mississippi while awaiting deportation hearings, saying they might be diseased or exploited.