At a UN migration forum, the Holy See urged governments to protect family unity and expand legal pathways for migrant families.
The Holy See is calling on governments to place family unity at the center of migration policy, warning that too many migrant families remain separated by restrictive legal systems and limited reunification pathways.
Speaking at the Second International Migration Review Forum at the United Nations on May 6, Monsignor Robert D. Murphy, chargé d’affaires of the Permanent Observer Mission of the Holy See to the UN, said stronger efforts are needed to keep migrant families together and protect children affected by migration.
“Regular pathways for family reunification remain limited,” Murphy told delegates during a policy debate on implementing the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration.
What the Vatican called “cyber slavery”
The Vatican cautioned that new technologies can help migrants through tools like telemedicine and online consular services, but may also expose them to exploitation and invasive surveillance if safeguards are weak.
The Vatican urged countries to include “family accompaniment” within labor migration programs and to guarantee access to education and healthcare for migrant families. The statement placed particular emphasis on protecting minors, who are often among the most vulnerable people displaced by conflict, poverty, or climate-related crises.
The intervention offered one of the clearest recent examples of how Pope Leo XIV’s papacy is shaping the Holy See’s international approach to migration. Echoing themes long present in Catholic social teaching, the Vatican framed migration not simply as a political or economic issue, but as a question of human dignity and solidarity.
Pope Leo XIV was quoted directly in the statement: “Every migrant is a person and, as such, has inalienable rights that must be respected in every situation.”
The Pope also noted that many migrants are forced to flee violence, persecution, conflict, and the effects of climate change.
The Holy See warned against reducing migration debates to technical policy discussions detached from human realities. “Behind each objective” of global migration policy, Murphy said, stands “the God-given dignity of migrants.”
The Vatican’s intervention comes as migration continues to divide political leaders across Europe and the Americas, where debates over border enforcement and asylum systems often overshadow questions about family separation and long-term integration.
For the Holy See, however, preserving family unity remains a moral priority rooted in the Church’s understanding of the family as the foundational unit of society.
