Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair
As a Catholic-educated youth from the Midwest, now in my eighties, I am appalled by the President’s current policy of mass deportation. I view the nationwide ICE raids and harsh treatment of detainees as sorely lacking in the social justice of religious teaching.
Operating without moral limits, the indiscriminate deportation of undocumented immigrants proceeds apace, with cruel and humiliating treatment of those apprehended and deported. Young men handcuffed and shackled are forced onto planes heading to the Guantanamo prison or to third countries, where they are incarcerated under undisclosed conditions. Others are held in one or another of the many for-profit “detention centers” scattered about the United States. The ICE roundups target not only criminals and gang members, but also undocumented foreign-born residents who have resided peacefully and productively in the U.S. for years or even decades.
ICE raids, detentions and mass deportations now underway utterly disregard religious principles regarding the treatment of migrants and immigrants. In the Old Testament, Leviticus Chapter 19 enjoins followers to “treat the alien who resides with you no differently than the natives born among you.” In the New Testament, Matthew, Chapter 25, God says to the righteous “I was a stranger, and you welcomed me.” In the Holy Quran, Verse 17:70 asserts that everyone’s God-given human dignity must be respected.
In his February 10 letter to the Bishops of the United States. Pope Francis stressed the “infinite and transcendent dignity of every human person.” Referring to the mass deportations in America, he said, “The rightly formed conscience cannot fail to …express its disagreement with any measure that… identifies the legal status of some migrants with criminality.” While acknowledging a nation’s right to “keep communities safe from those who have committed violent or serious crimes,” the Pope warned that an immigration policy “built on the basis of force, and not on the truth about the dignity of every human being, begins badly and will end badly.”
In its January 2025 Statement, which draws from Catholic social teaching on migration, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) proposed the following six elements of immigration reform:
1. Enforcement efforts should be targeted, proportional, and humane.
2. Humanitarian protections and due process should be ensured.
3. Long-time residents should have an earned pathway to citizenship.
4. Family unity should remain a cornerstone of the U.S. system.
5. Legal pathways should be expanded, reliable, and efficient.
6. The root causes of forced migration should be addressed.
Based on such principles and especially on the inherent dignity of every human person, faith-based immigration reforms would limit deportations to convicted criminals, drug traffickers, and gang leaders; and assure humanitarian protections for detainees, expand pathways to legal status or citizenship (especially for long-term residents), promote family unity, and address the root causes of forced migration (such as violence or economic crisis). As the Bishops Conference document states, “a country’s rights to regulate its borders and enforce its immigration laws must be balanced with its responsibilities to uphold the sanctity of human life, respect the God-given dignity of all persons and enact policies that further the common good.”
Faith-based immigration reform would also relieve the terrible fear and anxiety that now afflict our immigrant population–anxieties that keep children out of school, prevent their parents from reporting crime, and discourage medical and court appointments.
Fortunately, there is in the legislative pipeline a bill that would address at least three important principles of faith-based reform: legal pathways, asylum reform, and humanitarian concerns. The bipartisan Dignity Act of 2023 would greatly strengthen enforcement efforts at the U.S.-Mexico border. At the same time it would create new options for obtaining lawful status for many or most of the 12 million documented immigrants now in our country. The bill’s Dignity Program would offer deferral from removal for seven years and employment and travel authorizations for those who comply with the conditions. Some elements of the program would even create a pathway to citizenship.
The Dignity Act of 2023 falls short of some biblical principles in its emphasis on immigration ceilings, its strict application requirements, and its failure to define humanitarian standards for the so-called “Humanitarian Campuses.” Despite the bill’s shortcomings, the USCCB called the Dignity Act of 2023 “a welcome step in the right direction.”
Let’s hope that a more welcoming Dignity Act will one day replace today’s cruel ICE raids and mass deportations. Faith-based immigration reform would recognize the dignity of each person, whether immigrant or asylum-seeker.
