Denying refugee claimants entry to Canada at the United States border during the COVID-19 pandemic is dangerous, immoral and legally dubious, says a Catholic law professor and other refugee advocates.

As someone whose life was disrupted at an early age by the ravages of war, Fr. Sami Helewa, SJ, understands the plight of the refugee who has escaped their homeland to call elsewhere home.

MONTREAL -- Unlikely as it might seem, the Irish are once again in the eye of a controversy storm, this time over the naming of a Montreal commuter rail station in historic Griffintown neighbourhood.

OTTAWA -- Canadian churches and refugee advocates want a federal court to declare an agreement with the United States null and void, saying it is putting refugees seeking asylum in Canada at risk because the U.S. is not a safe country for them.

Churches and volunteer associations who sponsor refugees are calling on the federal government to shoulder a fairer share of the burden.

For Christians in Syria and Iraq, Turkey’s invasion into Syria could be the tipping point to drive them out and hasten the end of Middle-East Christianity, fears Chaldean Catholic Bishop of Canada Bawai Soro.

Syrian Christians have been neglected, forgotten and cast aside like “the scum of the world,” charged the patriarch of the Syriac Catholic Church.

Catholics from coast to coast are rallying to answer a call to help resettle Christian Pakistani refugees stuck in Bangkok.

Federal funding that will reverse Ontario government cuts to legal aid for asylum seekers is getting praise from Catholic refugee advocates.

BANGKOK, Thailand -- For 63 families, the strangers from Toronto represented something they’ve lived without for years — hope.

BANGKOK, Thailand -- It’s not Joshua’s fault. He was born into statelessness more than three years ago in Bangkok and immediately suffered a stroke that left him seriously brain damaged. But Joshua scares the rest of his family daily.

AMMAN, Jordan -- Syriac Christians in northeastern Syria are calling on the United States to help defend them against a buildup of Turkish troops along the border, fearing they will be overrun and suffer the same fate as Afrin, where jihadist forces pushed out inhabitants last year.

EDMONTON -- Having survived the Fort McMurray wildfire, they feel solidarity with displaced persons.

OTTAWA -- Canadians should not get too smug about becoming No. 1 in the world for resettling refugees, says the head of the Canadian Council for Refugees.

With great promise can come deep sorrow.