The Rev. Gary Graf, a Chicago Heights Catholic priest, began a 50-day pilgrimage Monday from Pope Leo’s boyhood home in Dolton to New York to bring attention to the cause of immigrant children.

Graf’s planned destinations are Ellis Island, formerly the country’s primary immigration processing center, and the Statue of Liberty, a national symbol of freedom.

“There’s no real path to citizenship for millions of people,” Graf said. “The process is pretty much stagnant. And there’s really no, on the Google map, route from here to Ellis Island. You got to kind of create it.”

Graf said one reason he is undertaking the walk is because his own great-grandparents were immigrants who arrived through Ellis Island.

“My great-grandparents, who came from County Cork and County Mayo, Ireland, and

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