Roman Catholic Pushback Grows Against Trump's Mass Deportations
Invoking faith and religious liberty, bishops pledge to resist policies they say endanger families, parishes, and the dignity of migrants.
WASHINGTON — From a stage at Georgetown University, under the banners of Catholic social teaching, a panel of bishops, nuns, and scholars offered a blunt assessment of the human toll of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown — and a plan to fight it in the pews, the courts, and the streets.
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“The dreams of immigrants are just collapsing,” said Washington Auxiliary Bishop Evelio Menjivar-Ayala, himself an immigrant from El Salvador who fled civil war as a young adult. He described a pastoral landscape transformed by fear: parents skipping work and Mass, children pulled from school or after-school programs because families “don’t want to risk” exposure to immigration agents. “What I’m seeing in people’s eyes is pain and a deep confusion,” he said. “Where do we go from here if we’re not welcome.”
The Sept. 11 forum, hosted by Georgetown’s Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life, showcased a widening religious front against mass deportations that Catholic leaders argue are tearing apart families, destabilizing parishes, and chilling participation in religious life. Speakers said they will press the administration and Congress on religious-liberty grounds to halt arrests in and around churches and schools, restore clear protections for “sensitive locations,” and rein in tactics they say violate both conscience and community safety.
Miami Archbishop Thomas Wenski, who has ministered outside and inside the Florida detention site nicknamed “Alligator Alcatraz,” accused the administration of “painting all immigrants as lawbreakers.”
“The reality is the law is breaking them,” Wenski said. “The law is inadequate to meet the needs of the nation. The law is antiquated, the law is ineffective and because of the ineffectiveness we have people living in this country for 20 years, 30 years, many with a legal work permit.” He recalled praying a rosary in the Everglades heat with the Knights on Bikes — a Knights of Columbus ministry — and, days later, celebrating Mass inside the facility. “Even in a very dehumanizing situation, prayer emphasizes their dignity. God has not forgotten them.”
That detention center is now the subject of fast-moving litigation. A federal district judge ordered it wound down by the end of October; on Sept. 4, a three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals put that ruling on hold while the administration appeals — another reminder, church leaders said, that policy whiplash is battering families and those who minister to them.
Bishop Mark Seitz of El Paso, who chairs the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Migration, said the church intends to test the administration’s stated commitment to religious liberty. “It is interesting, since the administration has put a large amount of emphasis on all kinds of rights including religious liberty, that we find ourselves in this conflict,” he said. “We’re happy for the opportunity to dialogue on these issues and to point out where we see inconsistencies that are damaging.”
Those inconsistencies, panelists argued, begin with the rollback of the long-standing “sensitive locations” guidance — the policy that, absent exigent circumstances, kept immigration arrests away from schools, hospitals, and houses of worship. Ashley Feasley, a legal expert in residence at Catholic University of America’s Immigration Law and Policy Initiative, said the clearer Obama-era guardrails were rescinded in the first days of Trump’s second term and replaced with a murkier directive. “Within the first few days of the administration they rescinded the policy and put forth a policy that is much less clear,” she said, adding that bishops nationwide are reporting parishioners too afraid to receive the sacraments or even step onto church grounds.
Nichole Flores, a University of Virginia scholar of religion and public life, said confusion is compounded by disinformation about Catholic teaching. “There is really straightforward Catholic teaching on this matter and it is misconstrued, bent and folded in lots of ways that are convenient for various political interests,” she said. The church’s social doctrine, she added, holds both the right of nations to regulate borders and the moral duty to welcome and protect the vulnerable — and prudence must be applied to concrete policies, not abstractions.
On the ground, the fallout is measurable. Los Angeles Archbishop José Gomez told the panel that Mass attendance in parts of his archdiocese has fallen sharply following high-profile raids. “A lot of the priests are telling me… at least 30% of the people attending Mass are not coming anymore,” Gomez said. Parish ministries that serve immigrant families have been disrupted; the archdiocese is directing legal and financial assistance to those detained or at risk of deportation.
The pushback is also ecumenical. A new report produced by the U.S. bishops in collaboration with the National Association of Evangelicals, World Relief, and the Center for the Study of Global Christianity estimates that more than 10 million Christian immigrants in the U.S. are vulnerable to deportation — including people with temporary protections that could be revoked. Nearly 7 million U.S.-citizen Christians live in households with someone at risk, the study says, concluding that one in twelve American Christians is either vulnerable themselves or lives with a family member who is. The authors stress that while deportation can be a tool of law enforcement, indiscriminate removals fracture congregations, destabilize communities, and contravene the biblical mandate to welcome the stranger.
“It’s not only destabilizing the life of the particular immigrant,” Menjivar said of current enforcement practices. “Whole families, businesses, the life of children, whole communities, neighborhoods” are affected — and so is public safety. If people fear that any contact with authorities could lead to deportation, he warned, they will stop reporting crimes or serving as witnesses. “This is not going to help to make our streets, our communities safer.”
Sister Norma Pimentel, who runs Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley’s respite center in McAllen, Texas, spoke of ministering in grim detention settings — and the humanity she sees on both sides of the razor wire. “I saw Border Patrol agents looking at us, and they, too, were moved and were crying,” she said. As she left one facility, an officer told her, “Thank you, sister, for helping us realize they’re human beings.”
Beyond public witness and pastoral care, Catholic leaders are adjusting their own institutional footprint. Earlier this year, the bishops ended a half-century of federal partnerships serving refugees and migrant children after an abrupt halt to funding by the administration — a “heartbreaking” move they said was forced by shifting policies and politics. In dioceses across the country, parishes are expanding “know your rights” trainings, building rapid-response legal networks, and organizing mutual aid for mixed-status families bracing for arrests.
Seitz framed the next steps plainly. “We don’t stop at praying,” he said. “Prayer moves us to action.” That means pressing to restore robust protections for worship and school grounds; pushing for laws that “rationalize and humanize” enforcement, in Wenski’s phrase; correcting misinformation about what the church teaches; and standing visibly with families in crisis.
Menjivar, the Salvadoran American bishop who still recognizes the fear he once felt as a new arrival, closed on a note of hope — and urgency. “For me, it’s very personal because I was a stranger and you welcomed me,” he said. The measure of the church in this moment, he suggested, will be whether it refuses to let fear replace fellowship. “Our communities are suffering,” he said. “We are called to be present.”
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Thank you Pablo Manríquez for your comprehensive coverage of this September 11th Forum at Georgetown University. I agree— the current Trump administration has been “painting all immigrants as lawbreakers” which is decidedly not true. Let us engage in dialogue and non-violent protest— rather than remaining silent bystanders. “Silence is complicity” 🇺🇸🕊️