1 How sad and fraught with trouble is the state of those who yearly emigrate in bodies to America for the means of living is so well known to you that there is no need of Us to speak of it at length. For the evils which press about them are witnessed by you close at hand, and more than once in your letters to Us, many of you have mournfully referred to the matter. It is, indeed, piteous that so many unhappy sons of Italy, driven by want to seek another land, should encounter ills greater than those from which they would fly. And it often happens that to the toils of every kind by which their physical life is wasted, is added the far more wretched ruin of their souls. The very first voyage of the emigrants is full of perils and hardships, for they fall for the most part into the hands of avaricious traders, whose slaves they in a manner are, and thrown together by droves in the narrow spaces of the ships, with but slight clothing, they are gradually driven into depraved habits. When they reach the lands for which they are destined, ignorant as they are of the language and the place, and hired out for daily labour, they fall into the hands of the dishonest, and into the snares of those more powerful men to whom they enslave themselves. Even those who by their industry are able to provide the wherewithal of life by continually mixing with men who value everything by profit and worldly advantage, they learn to toss aside by degrees the high aspirations of humanity and to live the life of those who place all their hopes and desires upon this world. Then the troubles of ambition are on all sides in their path, and the deceits of sects, which in these countries are widespread in their hostility to religion, pull down many into the path that points to ruin.
Source: Quam Aerumnosa (Vatican.va)