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The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has drawn criticism from the Trump administration’s Catholic border czar who asserts the bishops’ “special message” this week – calling for an end to “indiscriminate mass deportation of people” – would likely embolden more foreigners to risk journeying across the U.S. border illegally.
On Wednesday, during their Fall Plenary Assembly in Baltimore, the bishops issued a “special message” on immigration in which they claimed the Trump administration is engaged in creating “a climate of fear and anxiety around questions of profiling and immigration enforcement.”
The bishops drew attention to the “special” nature of their message, noting that its release marks “the first time in twelve years the USCCB invoked this particularly urgent way of speaking as a body of bishops.”
According to the USCCB Office of Public Affairs, over 95% of the bishops assembled voted in support of the statement, with 216 in favor, 5 against, and 3 abstained.
“The Catholic Church is wrong,” Trump administration border czar Tom Homan – a Catholic – flatly told reporters Friday. “I’m sorry. I’m a lifelong Catholic. I’m saying it as not only a border czar. I’ll say it as a Catholic. I think they need to spend time fixing the Catholic Church in my opinion.”
The bishops say in their message that, “[a]s pastors,” they are “saddened by the state of contemporary debate and the vilification of immigrants.”
“We are concerned about the conditions in detention centers and the lack of access to pastoral care,” they continue, asserting that “some immigrants in the United States have arbitrarily lost their legal status.”
“We are troubled by threats against the sanctity of houses of worship and the special nature of hospitals and schools,” the bishops add. “We are grieved when we meet parents who fear being detained when taking their children to school and when we try to console family members who have already been separated from their loved ones.”
The bishops’ message follows along with remarks made by Pope Leo XIV on November 4.
“[J]ust a couple of days ago we heard Matthew’s gospel, chapter 25, which says, Jesus says very clearly, at the end of the world we’re going to be asked, you know, how did you receive the foreigner?” the pope said. “Did you receive him and welcome him or not?”
“Many people who’ve lived for years and years and years, never causing problems, have been deeply affected by what’s going on right now,” Leo added.
Homan said the narrative expressed in the bishops’ “special message,” if enacted, would create greater risk for both Americans and immigrants attempting to cross the border illegally.
“So according to [the bishops], the message we should send to the whole world is: ‘If you cross the border illegally, which is a crime, don’t worry about it,’” he posed. “If you get … removed by a federal judge, that’s due process, don’t worry about it, because there shouldn’t be mass deportations.’”
“If that’s the message we send the whole world, people are still going to put themselves in harm’s way to come to the greatest nation on earth,” Homan asserted, adding that during the Biden administration – “when there was no immigration enforcement, over 4,000 aliens died making that journey” and “a quarter of a million Americans died from fentanyl.”
At about the midpoint of their “special message,” the bishops include a paragraph in which they state they acknowledge “that nations have a responsibility to regulate their borders and establish a just and orderly immigration system for the sake of the common good.”
“Without such processes, immigrants face the risk of trafficking and other forms of exploitation,” they argue. “Safe and legal pathways serve as an antidote to such risks.”
Homan said the Trump administration is enforcing the law for the purpose of safety.
“We’re going to enforce the law, and by doing that, we’re saving a lot of lives,” he asserted, again emphasizing that a secure border is best for Americans and foreigners.
“One of the reasons no one talks about why we have the most secure border in the history of this nation is because [of] exactly what ICE is doing,” he stressed.
In light of that statement, Lumen-News reached out to the USCCB’s Office of Public Affairs for comment, specifically addressing why the bishops issued no such special message condemning the Biden administration’s encouragement of open borders – especially given the surge in crime, drugs, and human trafficking that occurred in just that four-year period. To date, the USCCB has not responded.
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