Seeing Humanity in Each Other: A Hopeful Reflection by a Catholic Immigration Attorney
by Diocese of Des Moines | August 11, 2026
By Elena Reveiz, Immigration Attorney
It’s been twenty-three years since I graduated from Creighton University School of Law, and the lesson that stuck with me most wasn't a statute, a case file from the legal clinic, or a historic Supreme Court decision. It was a Jesuit principle: cura personalis, or care for the whole person. Over the years, practicing immigration law has taught me that a law degree shouldn't just be a shield. It’s a tool to step into human suffering and care for people.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately after reading Pilgrims of Hope, a recent letter from the Catholic Bishops of Iowa. If you watch the news, it is so easy to get lost in the loud, partisan shouting matches about the border. But underneath politics is a simple truth: most of us are just a few generations removed from starting over.
My own family’s history is proof of that. My grandfather fled Lebanon during a famine, hoping to find a safe refuge in Colombia. Decades later, my father brought his surgical skills from Colombia to a small town in Iowa, where he delivered thousands of babies. On the other side of my family, my grandmother was once sent home from school just for speaking Swedish; years later, she hosted a U.S. President in her living room. And today, I see that same resilient drive in my kids, passed down from their Egyptian father.
Wanting a safe place to rest and raise a family isn't a political issue. It is a basic human instinct. It’s also right at the center of our faith reminder that seeking sanctuary is a deeply sacred part of the human story.
When you practice immigration law, the policies aren't abstract. You sit face-to-face with people in their most vulnerable moments. Recently, a mother from Nicaragua sat across from my desk. She had been severely disfigured by a machete attack. Then she shared the unthinkable: her young son had been beheaded with the exact same weapon.
She started reaching into her bag to show me the photographs. She wanted her attorney to believe her. I gently stopped her. I told her she didn't have to show me the pictures, and I just sat with her and told her how sorry I was. The walls instantly came down, and she finally let herself cry. In that quiet room, we weren't a lawyer and a migrant navigating a broken system. We were just two people sitting together in a very heavy, real grief.
In Pilgrims of Hope, the bishops remind us that our faith is measured by how we treat the vulnerable. But to actually live that out, we have to do something incredibly difficult: extend compassion to absolutely everyone.
The late legal scholar Thomas L. Shaffer said lawyers are called to be ministers of healing. To do that, we have to open our doors to the people we strongly disagree with. Yes, we absolutely must find our shared humanity with immigrants caught up in raids, separated from families, and held in detention conditions we would never accept for our own children. But we also have to find that exact same humanity in the ICE agents enforcing the laws, and in the neighbors who support those strict policies.
This is the only way out of our current division. We have to keep reminding each other that we belong to one another. You can enforce a border and still treat people with deep compassion. The two are not mutually exclusive.
The bishops wrote that hope has to take concrete form, and I believe that happens in small, everyday choices. It happens when we change the tone of a conversation at the dinner table, steering away from political labels. It happens when we invite someone with different politics out for coffee, just to listen. And it happens when we look at the people caught in this system, on all sides of it, and recognize that they are someone’s mother, father, or child.
When we actually look at each other, the fear and anger that are fracturing our world start to fade. This is about so much more than fixing immigration laws. It is about healing how we relate to one another. Whether we are welcoming a stranger looking for a safe haven or extending grace to a neighbor whose beliefs completely challenge our own, it is the exact same work. Caring for each other isn't a political debate. It is the heartbeat of our shared humanity, and it is the highest calling we can answer.