Pope Migration Spain
FILE - Migrants crowd a wooden boat as they sail to the port in La Restinga on the Canary island of El Hierro, Spain, Sunday, Aug. 18, 2024.
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Pope Leo XIV will visit two flashpoints of migration from Africa to Europe over less than a month starting on June 11. He will go first to Spain’s Canary Islands in the Atlantic and then Italy’s Lampedusa island in the Mediterranean. These remote outposts of Europe have struggled with the arrivals of tens of thousands of migrants on often deadly trafficking routes. Even as new arrivals decrease this year, especially in the Canaries, illegal immigration and integration remain vastly controversial politically in the historically Catholic countries. Many in the front lines of helping migrants say they hope the papal visit will help lower the temperature, and refocus attention on the human plight and away from political slogans.
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