Pope Francis enlightened Philadelphia and our nation with his powerful messages of love and compassion for all people. But now that the pope has returned to the Vatican, we wonder: Will our state and federal governments learn from his teachings, or revert to business as usual?

Across Central and South America, thousands of families relinquish their meager savings to traffickers with the slim hope of reaching America to provide a better life for their children. This treacherous journey is an act of desperation. It often involves trekking for miles through the desert without food, only to possibly be caught, detained, and deported. Many are fleeing unyielding gang violence, perpetual extreme poverty, and a political system that cannot offer support or protection. Unfortunately, for those who do arrive, they quickly learn that the “land of opportunity” is not what they expected.

For thousands of undocumented children, 7,600 of whom live in Philadelphia and the surrounding suburbs, something as simple as scheduling a doctor’s appointment or receiving annual vaccinations is very difficult because they are prohibited from enrolling in Pennsylvania’s Child Health Insurance Program (CHIP). Being uninsured has been tied to poor health outcomes, even death. A 2009 Johns Hopkins analysis of 23 million pediatric hospitalizations found that an uninsured child admitted to the hospital was 60 percent more likely to die than an insured child.

When the pope addressed a joint session of Congress last week, he said we should view our immigrant population “as persons, seeing their faces and listening to their stories, trying to respond as best we can to their situation. To respond in a way which is always humane, just, and fraternal. We need to avoid a common temptation nowadays: to discard whatever proves troublesome.”