Among Donald Trump’s most alarming, repeated and ambitious commitments as a candidate was to arrest and deport up to 12 million undocumented immigrants. Many are Mexican and have been in the United States for more than 10 years.
Now he is laying the groundwork to remove those immigrants from their homes, jobs and communities. It would be a “bloody story,” he said. One voice that has been largely absent in loudly criticizing this extreme and un-Christian plan, I am sorry to say as a Catholic, is the American Catholic Church’s.
In November the head of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops migration committee, Bishop Mark Seitz of El Paso, Texas, said that the bishops were prepared to “raise our voice loudly” but that “we are waiting to see just what exactly takes shape.”
Mr. Trump said in November after his victory that he would declare a national emergency and use the U.S. military to accomplish his deportation plan. A top aide has said that “vast holding facilities” would serve as “staging centers” for immigrants as they wait to be flown to other countries.
What more do we need to know? Church leaders should speak out now, and forcefully. So should priests across the country in their Sunday sermons. Twenty percent of American adults describe themselves as Catholics; one-third of them are Hispanic.
So far, what little church leaders have said has been, at best, muted on the national stage. Pope Francis’ secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, said shortly after Mr. Trump’s election that the church was “for a wise policy toward immigrants and therefore one that does not go to these extremes.”
But perhaps that may change. The pope recently named Cardinal Robert W. McElroy of San Diego as the archbishop of Washington. He is a prelate known both as a critic of the first Trump administration and as a leader who shares Francis’ deep commitment to the well-being of migrants.
What Cardinal McElroy has said so far is promising. At a news conference on Jan. 6, he said that a country has a right to control its borders but added:
At the same time, we are called always to have a sense of the dignity of every human person. And thus, plans which have been talked about at some levels of having a wider indiscriminate massive deportation across the country would be something that would be incompatible with Catholic doctrine. So we’ll have to see what emerges in the administration.
Had the church raised more red flags during the campaign, perhaps the incoming Trump administration might have seen a political advantage to moderate the policy, for example by excluding long-term residents and their families from deportation.
As Mr. Trump prepares to take office, the church must be fully engaged and vigorously oppose his plans, down to the level of the parish.
Anxiety is widespread. The Times reported last week that public schools serving migrant children face the challenge of persuading parents “to send their children to class when some are so anxious about deportation that they are reluctant to separate from their children for even part of the day.”
And the House passed a measure last week that would target undocumented immigrants charged with nonviolent crimes for deportation. On Monday the Senate, where the measure has bipartisan support, passed a motion to proceed and allow debate to begin.
I was gratified to read a recent report from Religion News Service that along the U.S. side of the border with Mexico, Catholic leaders are gearing up to help parishioners facing deportation, such as by providing legal help and working to build trust between migrants and police. I have no doubt that the Roman Catholic Church will vigorously denounce mass deportation if and when it begins. But why wait? Undocumented immigrants will be subject to horrific pain and suffering if Mr. Trump follows through on his intentions. Over six million households are said to have at least one undocumented person.
The American Catholic Church has long made caring for immigrants a hallmark of its ministry. It continues to do so. The Trump deportation plan is a matter of profound moral significance that should engage us all. The Catholic Church must speak out against it with a clarion voice.
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