For the first time, Canada is seeing more people claim refugee status after hopping the U.S. border on back roads than make a claim at regular, official ports of entry. At the same time the total number of refugee claims has more than doubled in just one year.

VATICAN – With the help of the Migrant and Refugee Section of the Vatican Dicastery for the Promotion of Integral Human Development, eight bishops' conferences in Latin America have joined efforts to assist Venezuelans in transit through or settling in their home countries.

UNITED NATIONS – Faith-based organizations are uniquely able to care for migrants and refugees because they employ a holistic, person-centered approach that respects the human dignity of each individual, and they have established networks throughout the world, according to panelists at a May 3 United Nations event.

WASHINGTON – Continuing the legal drama against a program that protects some 800,000 young adults brought into the country without legal documentation as minors, seven states have filed a lawsuit attempting once more to end it.

MEXICO CITY – The first members of the Central American caravan of migrants have been allowed to make asylum claims, but a Scalabrinian priest said "very, very few" have their applications accepted.

WARSAW, Poland (CNS) – Poland's Catholic bishops said they no longer have enough clergy to minister to Poles living abroad and urged emigrant Catholics to integrate more with the church in other countries.

WASHINGTON – Catholic Church leaders and immigration advocates say President Donald Trump's recent moves to clamp down on immigration are extreme and unnecessary.

Pope Francis has once again expanded the Catholic definition of being pro-life. 

SOUTHERN SHUNEH, Jordan – The United States has a responsibility to help Jordan as it struggles to support hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees and must actively seek to end Syria's long civil war, American human rights advocate Kerry Kennedy told a conference on forced migration.

BOGOTA, Colombia – Bishops in Colombia are calling on officials, parishes and the international community to increase efforts to help Venezuelan migrants, who are leaving their country at the rate of at least 50,000 people per month.

The global refugee crisis is transforming Catholic outreach, as agencies and the communities they serve struggle to bring basic services to 66 million people displaced by war, famine and natural disaster and another 258 million voluntary migrants seeking a better life outside their home countries.

WASHINGTON – On the day that marked the fifth anniversary of the election of a pope who has called on others to "build bridges, not walls," the president of the United States toured Southern California to look at prototypes for a wall he promised to build on the border with Mexico.

VATICAN - A “hackathon” is a hacking marathon: a collaborative computer programming event in which a group works under a tight deadline to find software or programming approaches to real-world problems.

REGINA – Mbayang Dabo laughs as she says, “Every winter I reconsider my decision (to move to Regina).” It’s quite understandable in mid-February as the Prairie city struggles through a two-week stretch of winter where the mercury has barely risen above -20.

ROME –The Catholic Church and Catholic agencies that work with migrants and refugees around the world are called to educate, advocate and seek alternative host countries in the face of a growing "refusal to welcome" newcomers, as the Vatican secretary of state defined the situation.