But having spent seven years as the Catholic bishop on Arizona’s border with Mexico, I have been privileged to look often into the face of the immigrant, including those seeking asylum. What I have encountered is indeed what Levinas would term a radical, unyielding demand for reverence and compassion. What I have experienced is also consistent with the Catholic faith, which teaches that every human person possesses infinite and transcendent dignity.
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In the Catholic tradition, we judge ourselves as a community of faith by the way we treat the most vulnerable among us. The treatment of migrants poses a particular challenge to the consciences of policymakers, immigration enforcement officers, residents of border communities and providers of legal aid and social services, many of whom share our Catholic faith. But as a people largely comprised of immigrants, at one point in our family’s history or another, the current inadequacies of our immigration system—and the pain it inflicts on people and communities—should give each one of us reason to pause and reflect—and to demand something better. We cannot remain silent in the face of policies that result in human suffering, family separation or the cruel treatment of the undocumented immigrant.
After all, would many of us present-day descendants of immigrants be here right now if the U.S. immigration system treated our ancestors in the same way it treats people today?
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The acknowledgment that our immigration system is broken is by now a time-worn statement. While I presume the good intentions of those who wish to address the issue, I would propose that a legitimate immigration system does not begin with mass deportations that lack any consideration of individual circumstances, including family ties. It cannot be founded on the dismantling of programs that have proven successful in aiding vulnerable people, with the foreseeable result being the starvation, extreme poverty or death of those with no voice. Moreover, while the lawful arrest of those engaged in criminal activity is appropriate, the criminalization of people based solely on their undocumented status undermines our moral obligations and falls tragically short of the noble history of our nation.
https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2025/06/11/migration-deportations-bishop-weisenburger-250899On that Bill:
Archbishop Wenski of Miami:
Most undocumented immigrants are not criminals. Many have temporary protections, such as TPS (Temporary Protected Status), parole, or pending asylum applications.
Some — including Haitians, Cubans, Venezuelans and Nicaraguans — entered under special humanitarian visas. Others arrived legally on student or visitor visas and later fell out of status by overstaying their visas. DREAMers, brought to the U.S. as children, have only been granted “deferred departure” and still have no pathway to legal permanent residence.
Rather than spend billions on mass deportation efforts targeting people who are already contributing positively to our nation, it would be both more financially prudent and morally just to halt enforcement-only policies and expand legal pathways to permanent status for non-criminal immigrants.
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Otherwise, this legislation will fund a mass deportation campaign that could tear apart families, disrupt industrie, and undermine communities.
Read more at:
https://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/op-ed/article308048865.html#storylink=cpyArchbishop Wester of Santa Fe:
Trump’s ‘big beautiful bill’ betrays the poor. The church must oppose it.
The U.S. House of Representatives recently passed a budget reconciliation bill that is contrary to Catholic social teaching. The bill is now waiting to be debated in the Senate. It should be strongly opposed.
Moreover, the church and the bishops of the United States should lead the way in speaking against this bill and calling on Catholics to work for its defeat. Because of its overall effects on those who are most in need, passing this budget would be a moral failure for American society as a whole. Unless the church opposes it in the clearest possible terms, we will squander the credibility of our witness to the Gospel and Christ’s command to care for the “least of these.”
Known as the One Big, Beautiful Bill Act, the legislation is anything but beautiful, at least from the perspective of Catholic teaching. It basically steals from the poor to give to the rich, and it will leave millions of low-income U.S. citizens struggling to survive. It also funds a mass deportation campaign that will separate immigrant families and profoundly harm children, including U.S.-citizen children. And that is just the tip of the iceberg.
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The list goes on. The cruelty of this bill is historic.
This bill violates several principles of Catholic social teaching. The first is the preferential option for the poor, which teaches that the most vulnerable should claim the attention and assistance of the rest of the society. The second is the principle of solidarity, in which all people are interconnected and the powerful should be advocates for the marginalized of society. And perhaps the most important principle is the advancement of the common good, so that all members of society are given a chance to thrive and become full members of the community.
https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2025/06/03/trump-big-beautiful-bill-catholic-250830
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