Spanish bishops have published a pastoral address focused on migration.

In it, they call for new "legal and safe" migration routes, laws allowing "access to regularization, dignified jobs, housing, healthcare, education and culture" and the closure of migrant detention centers.

This address was inspired by Pope Francis's 'Fratelli Tutti' (All Brothers), which states that "migrant people are not a problem; they are an opportunity for enrichment and integral human development for all."

The Archbishop of Madrid, Cardinal José Cobo, and the director of the migration department of the Spanish Episcopal Conference (CEE), Xavier Gomez, delivered the address on May 6.

Political exploitation of migration worldwide

"A Catholic cannot engage with racism and phobia of the poor," Gomez was quoted as saying by Spanish news agency Efe.

He warned against the "attempt to make us use the drug of fear which can anesthetize the conscience of many people," especially during electoral campaigns, he noted.

The "political instrumentalization" of migration is ongoing worldwide, raising "hostility" through a "narrative that can be easily debunked," he added.

In particular, bishops denounced in the document the "mantra that immigrants steal jobs, which doesn't stand the test of real numbers."

Migrants as a resource and deaths at the border

CEE highlighted in the address that migrants, "far from threatening the jobs of Spanish citizens," are instead a "valid and necessary resource on which we depend."

Gomez recalled that Europe needs young workers who can contribute to the regeneration of the labor market.

In the document, bishops condemned casualties at the border: "It is intolerable that we keep letting people die at the border while they are trying to cross it."

They also denounced human trafficking networks "that must be fought with all the tools of the rule of law."