A Catholic bishop was recently deported to Venezuela shortly after arriving in Mexico this month and has blasted Mexican authorities for alleged violation of human rights and racial discrimination.
Bishop Joseph Khawam of the Apostolic Exarch for the Melkite Greek Church in Venezuela, was detained in Mexico with illegal migrants and flown back on April 2, the National Catholic Register has reported.
The move comes after Mexico criticized U.S. bids to send illegal migrants back south of the border.
The clergyman said in a statement on social media that he "deplores and denounces," his deportation from Mexico calling it a "flagrant practice of racial discrimination and an insult to human dignity above all, given that his nationality of origin in the Vatican passport is Syrian and that he was treated by the authorities on this basis."
Khawam added that he considered the incident "a violation of human rights and a violation of international conventions that regulate the matter."
The incident this month comes amid ongoing issues relating to illegal immigration in the U.S. and Mexico. Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador previously criticized a bill in Texas that would give states the power to send illegal migrants back to Mexico if they crossed into the U.S.
"We would not accept deportations...from the government of Texas," Obrador said last month, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Khawam had reportedly traveled to Mexico to participate in a conference of Mexican Bishops for the Catholic Church, which was scheduled to take place from April 8 to April 12.
The statement from Khawam also called for officials in Mexico who led the deportation to "provide a general explanation for this strange and reprehensible incident."
His words were prefaced by a social media message translated by Google from the Melkite Greek Catholic Exarchate in Venezuela saying: "His Exec. Bishop Joseph Khawam, Apostolic Exarch for the Melkite Greek Church in Venezuela and Apostolic Administrator of the Melkite Greek Eparchy in Mexico, makes public and known to all the faithful, the statement on what happened last April 2 in Mexico City International Airport."
Newsweek reached out to the Melkite Greek Catholic Exarchate in Venezuela via email for comment.
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