Even at the height of Italy's strict COVID-19 lockdown this spring, migrants arrived. The government said 241 newcomers came in March and 671 arrived in April.

Canadian Cardinal Michael Czerny: “We had to be as shocked and stuck” during lockdown before “our eyes began to open.”

“Democracy can be one of the victims of the pandemic if we do not take care with our political condition,” Father Arturo Sosa told Vatican News. “Many governments—including so-called democratic governments—are taking the path of authoritarianism.”

Bishop Jaime Soto of Sacramento, California, said the administration’s action, announced July 28 in a memo issued by the Department of Homeland Security, was “irresponsible and recalcitrant.”

“Counting the undocumented in the census and then denying them and the states in which they reside their rightful representation in Congress is counter to the Constitution and a grave injustice,” the statement said.

A federal judge in Canada has struck down the Safe Third Country Agreement, which sends refugees arriving at the border back to detention in the United States, on the grounds that it violates the Charter of Rights and Freedom.