Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Nov 14, 2025 / 15:13 pm (CNA).
Border czar Tom Homan strongly opposed the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) “special message” on immigration, saying the statement would encourage people to make a dangerous trek to the United States.
Homan told EWTN News on Nov. 14 that the “Catholic Church is wrong. 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 Catholic Church in my opinion.”
The bishops approved the message on immigration at the 2025 Fall Plenary Assembly in Baltimore on Nov. 12. “We oppose the indiscriminate mass deportation of people,” the message said.
More than 95% of the American bishops voted to support the message. The bishops said in the message they “are bound to our people by ties of communion and compassion in Our Lord Jesus Christ” and “are saddened by the state of contemporary debate and the vilification of immigrants.”
The bishops’ message cited Scripture such as Luke 10:30-37, referring to the good Samaritan who “lifts us from the dust,” and Matthew 25, in which “we see the One who is found in the least of these.” Floor debate on the measure included bishops’ discussion of “the One” referring to the face of Jesus Christ as seen in the migrant.
“The Church’s concern for neighbor and our concern here for immigrants is a response to the Lord’s command to love as he has loved us (John 13:34),” the statement said.
Homan said: “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. If you get … removed by a federal judge, that’s due process, don’t worry about it, because there shouldn’t be mass deportations.’”
He added: “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.”
“We saw during the Biden administration, when there was no immigration enforcement, over 4,000 aliens died making that journey” and “40 million Americans died from fentanyl,” Homan said. Homan said he wants the Catholic Church to understand that secure borders save lives.
U.S. bishops acknowledged the need for secure borders in their special message, writing: “We recognize that nations have a responsibility to regulate their borders and establish a just and orderly immigration system for the sake of the common good.”
Homan said: “We’re going to enforce the law, and by doing that, we’re saving a lot of lives. 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.”
“ICE has sent a message to the whole world: ‘Don’t give your life savings to come to [the] country, because you’re not gonna be released. You’re not going to cross [the] border illegally. You’re going to be prosecuted,’” Homan said.
President Donald Trump expanded use of deportations without a court hearing this year and ramped up federal law enforcement efforts to identify and arrest immigrants lacking legal status. The administration set a goal of 1 million deportations this year.
Besides criticizing the bishops’ opposition to indiscriminate mass deportation, Trump administration officials also have condemned an “activist judge” who issued a temporary restraining order mandating cleanliness and hygiene standards as well as adequate legal representation at a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Illinois. Court records, advocacy groups, and detainees’ reports have included claims about the stench of sweat, urine, and feces at U.S. immigration facilities, worm-infested slop, and an insufficient supply of menstrual products.
‘Worst of the worst’
Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement to CNA: “DHS is targeting the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens — including murderers, rapists, gang members, pedophiles, and terrorists. 70% of illegal aliens ICE arrested across the country have criminal convictions or pending criminal charges just in the U.S. This statistic doesn’t account for those wanted for violent crimes in their home country or another country, INTERPOL notices, human rights abusers, gang members, terrorists, etc. The list goes on.”
McLaughlin said: “We are a nation of laws, and, as America’s largest law enforcement agency, DHS is committed to enforcing those laws, all of which are just. Lawbreakers should unquestionably be living in a ‘climate of fear and anxiety,’ that they will be caught and sent home.”
In San Bernardino, California, Bishop Alberto Rojas granted a dispensation in July from the obligation to attend Sunday Mass for those within the diocese who fear deportation. The Diocese of Nashville, Tennessee, similarly indicated in May that “no Catholic is obligated to attend Mass on Sunday if doing so puts their safety at risk.”
Pope Leo XIV on Nov. 4 said: “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 invited authorities to allow pastoral workers to attend to the needs of detainees.
He reminded that “Jesus says very clearly … at the end of the world, we’re going to be asked … how did you receive the foreigner? Did you receive him and welcome him or not? And I think that there’s a deep reflection that needs to be made in terms of what’s happening.”
If you value the news and views Catholic World Report provides, please consider donating to support our efforts. Your contribution will help us continue to make CWR available to all readers worldwide for free, without a subscription. Thank you for your generosity!
Click here for more information on donating to CWR. Click here to sign up for our newsletter.
Legal immigration is consistent with Catholic Teaching.
Illegal immigration, since it violates a country’s laws, is immoral.
What’s not to understand?
Catechism of the Catholic Church 2241:
The more prosperous nations are obliged, TO THE EXTENT THEY ARE ABLE, to welcome the foreigner in search of the security and the MEANS OF LIVELIHOOD which he cannot find in his country of origin. Public authorities should see to it that the natural right is respected that places A GUEST under the protection of those who receive him.
POLITICAL AUTHORITIES, for the sake of the common good for which they are responsible, may make the exercise of the right to immigrate SUBJECT TO VARIOUS JURIDICAL CONDITIONS, especially with regard to THE IMMIGRANTS’ DUTIES TOWARD THEIR COUNTRY OF ADOPTION. IMMIGRANTS ARE OBLIGED TO RESPECT WITH GRATITUDE THE MATERIAL AND SPIRITUAL HERITAGE OF THE COUNTRY THAT RECEIVES THEM, TO OBEY ITS LAWS AND TO ASSIST IN CARRYING CIVIC BURDENS.
The capitalized parts seem to escape episcopal attention. I’m not sure they are the best judges of capacity for starters:
These are the American Dioceses that are in have been in bankruptcy.
Diocese of Buffalo, NY
Archdiocese of New Orleans, LA
Diocese of Santa Rosa, CA
Diocese of Albany, NY
Diocese of Oakland, CA
Diocese of Ogdensburg, NY
Archdiocese of San Francisco, CA
Archdiocese of Baltimore, MD
Diocese of Sacramento, CA
Diocese of San Diego, CA
Diocese of Burlington, VT
Diocese of Fresno, CA
Diocese of Alexandria, LA
Concluded Cases (chronological order by date of filing)
Archdiocese of Portland, OR
Diocese of Tucson, AZ
Diocese of Spokane, WA
Diocese of Davenport, IA
Diocese of San Diego, CA (voluntarily dismissed)
Diocese of Fairbanks, AK
Diocese of Wilmington, DE
Archdiocese of Milwaukee, WI
Diocese of Gallup, NM
Diocese of Stockton, CA
Diocese of Helena, MT
Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, MN
Diocese of Duluth, MN
Diocese of New Ulm, MN
Diocese of Great Falls Billings, MT
Diocese of Winona-Rochester, MN
Archdiocese of Santa Fe, NM
Archdiocese of Agana, Guam
Diocese of Rochester, NY
Diocese of Harrisburg, PA
Diocese of St. Cloud, MN
Diocese of Syracuse, NY
Diocese of Rockville Centre, NY
Diocese of Camden, NJ
Diocese of Norwich, CT
That’s too simplistic. Yes, illegal immigration should not be tolerated. The next questions deal with what a nation’s immigration policies should be. How many legal immigrants should be allowed in every year? Should preference be given to certain cultural, religious and ethnic groups? It is pretty clear that no Western nation ought to be bringing in Muslims, for example. You could “solve” the illegal immigration crisis by implementing the open borders system that the bishops and Pope want and that Angela Merkel imposed on Germany starting in 2015. The immigration debate also almost completely ignores the rights and interests of native populations. The tacit assumption is that the cultural, economic, security, political and environmental costs to the host countries and their native populations should be borne without complaint.
Immigration is a very complex issue, with many different dimensions. You would never know that if you only followed contemporary church statements on it, loaded as they are with platitudes and appeals to emotion. Most of the larger related Catholic discussion is not much better.
Matthew 23:13 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! .
Vatican Promises Stiff Penalties for Illegal Aliens Crossing its Border
https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2025/01/16/vatican-promises-stiff-penalties-for-illegal-aliens-crossing-its-border/
Jesus is pretty clear on marriage too. Why no special message to James Martin?
Homan makes good points.
Does the federal government offer oodles of money for assisting newlyweds?
It’s a strange world where government officials do a better job of enunciating common sense than do our bishops.
We know one thing: Tom Holman hasn’t been profiting over importing slave labor into the USA like our bishops have.
Tom Holman hasn’t been creating cobditions where women are being raped; our bishops have.
Tom Holman hasn’t been importing illegal aliens who murder our cirizens; our bishops have.
Tom Holman hasn’t been trafficking in children as sex toys; our bishops have.
Tom Holman hasn’t destabilized our social fabric by importing millions upon millions of illegals who consume resources they are not entitled to; our bishops have.
Our bishops weren’t able to stop clergy from molesting our children but they think they occupy the high moral ground on immigration; they don’t.
I would humbly suggest two points that weigh on my mind:
1. The horrific illegal immigration mess created by the disgusting Biden administration had, in all justice and righteousness,to be addressed and corrected.
2. The methods and practices the Trump administration has employed to deal with this admittedly huge problem—no due process, inhuman conditions in detention facilities, separation of family members, sending Hispanic immigrants to war-torn African countries, etc.—does not manifest justice and righteousness.
What specific evidence do you have for your assertions in point 2? They sound like NPR talking points. What proof do you have that this is what’s happening?
The evidence if you wish to see it is publicly available. Check out the AI overview of this topic. Better yet, see William’s comment below.
So that would be a “no.”
The USCCB has all of the credibility of a bureaucracy that appoints a sexually perverted man as its Secretary General (btw in charge of the USCCB policy making on “protection of minors,” etc).
Per this recent reminder:
https://www.pillarcatholic.com/p/pillar-investigates-usccb-gen-sec
The US has a right to deport illegal aliens, but it also has an obligation for humane treatment of them. Family separation, sleeping on concrete floors,etc, should not happen. Finally, there should be a path to citizenship for those who have been here 2o years, paid taxes, not been arrested, etc. We need sensible immigration law, which Congress seems unable to enact.
There is already a path to citizenship for people who have been here for 20 years. They should avail themselves of that process. No amnesty or special treatment. And no one is sleeping on concrete or separating children. Holman has made it clear that fa.klues will be deported together.
You may know that anyone arrested for a crime is separated from his family.
This is true.
Do you object to the family separation caused by a citizen of a crime? Correctional facilities are filled with inmates who caused their separation.
When will the Bishops object to the far less tender policies of Mexico or the Vatican?
How about the family separation caused by domestic courts that do nothing to prevent the frustration of visitation by non-custodial parents (usually the father).
Where was this Episcopal missive when the FBI brown shirts sent a small army to arrest Mark Houck in front of his children and then used the obnoxious “FACE” Act to legally harass him?
It seems like a sizeable number of Bishops is have traded in their Catholic Mission to be part of the Anti- American Deep State.
The Trump administration is not engaging in indiscriminate mass deportation. They are only deporting those non-citizens who entered illegally, or remained illegally.
As far as poor conditions go, yes, I expect there are some poor conditions, and it would be much better to have better conditions. Also, when was the last time the USCCB complained about the conditions in federal prisons and NYC, Washington D.C., and California prisons? California prisons have a higher death rate, and have for some time. Overcrowding is rife. Have they issued any official joint statements regarding the women’s prisons for US citizens where rapist men are placed with women (usually victims of rape, domestic abuse or both), or the lack of provided menstrual products in women’s prisons? Their attention seems to be directed, not to the most vulnerable, but to the most politically useful.
Poor conditions anywhere are wrong. Full stop. They are not more acceptable because the people detained are non-citizens, and they are not less wrong because U.S. prisons elsewhere are also failing. If anything, the widespread problems you cite point to a systemic issue with how this country confines human beings.
The claim that deportations are not indiscriminate also doesn’t hold up in practice. Many people targeted entered through lawful processes the United States itself created—presenting at ports of entry, applying for asylum, completing required paperwork, and remaining in the country while their cases are pending in backlogged systems. That constitutes lawful presence, even if it is routinely mislabeled as “illegal” for political purposes.
Pointing to poor conditions in California prisons, federal facilities, or women’s prisons does not rebut concerns about immigration detention. It is whataboutism. Multiple injustices can exist at the same time, and addressing one does not require silence about others. In fact, the problems you raise reinforce the argument that the U.S. has a broader incarceration and detention crisis.
Immigration detainees are also uniquely vulnerable: many are held under civil, not criminal, authority; many lack meaningful access to counsel; many face indefinite confinement; and many are separated from families. Calling attention to these conditions is not political opportunism—it is a basic moral response.
If human dignity is the standard, then it must apply consistently. No group should be subjected to inhumane conditions, regardless of citizenship, race, or political usefulness.
Thank you for saying this.
Tom Homan’s criticism of the bishops isn’t a disagreement over policy, it’s a misrepresentation of what they actually said.
The bishops did not oppose immigration enforcement. They opposed indiscriminate mass deportation. That word matters. It was chosen deliberately, debated, voted on, and approved by an overwhelming majority. There is no ambiguity here and no reasonable reading in which their statement encourages dangerous migration or promotes open borders.
To respond as if the bishops are naïvely advocating compassion without concern is to argue against a position they did not take. It reframes a precise moral claim into a caricature so it can be dismissed. That isn’t engagement; it’s distortion.
What makes this especially troubling is that the bishops are addressing a reality that is already documented: people are being detained and removed in ways that fail to adequately distinguish between violent criminals, longtime residents, families, and asylum seekers. Calling that “indiscriminate” is not emotional language, it is a factual description of how certain policies operate in practice.
Homan’s suggestion that the Church is “wrong” implies that recognizing this reality somehow reflects moral confusion. It doesn’t. It reflects attention to facts and to human consequences. You don’t have to be Catholic to understand that opposing indiscriminate actions is not the same as opposing law, order, or border security.
The bishops are not inventing a problem. They are naming one. Twisting their words into something easier to attack avoids the real question they raise: whether enforcement can be carried out in a way that is lawful and humane. Dismissing that question doesn’t answer it.
“They opposed indiscriminate mass deportation.” And there is no distortion in characterizing a policy that does not involve the premise of the accusation?
There’s nothing “indiscriminate” about removing illegals, so drop the intemperate high school histrionics.
Being or remaining here unlawfully subjects one to enforcement. Quite frankly, the present effort is inadequate. This is a result of President Autopen implementing Cloward-Piven.
The claim that episcopal opposition to enforcement is limited is laughable. USSCB pronouncements are largely open borders zealotry that rivals that of Charles Koch.
The entire enterprise- and it is an enterprise-is devoted to encouraging, excusing and normalizing invasion. It starts with deceptive language such as “undocumented” and vacant metaphors such as “out of the shadows”. Would any rational person would make the claim that an unlicensed driver was “undocumented”? Edward Bernays must lament such cloddish attempts at propaganda in hell.
Worse, this is too much brazen duplicity to be a mere example of “Belloc’s “knavish imbecility”, so there must be a reason for it. The most obvious candidate, as always, is filthy lucre.
In the most recent year available (2023), The USCCB received approximately $129.6. That buys a lot of silver for pieces in lots of thirty, even at today’s prices.
None of their “programs” seem to be directed at to making their clientele appreciative of the country or its culture and traditions, economically independent, obedient to the law or disposed of “carrying civic burdens”.
Meanwhile churches continue to close or consolidate and the flock wanders. Mass attendance is pitiful. It’s so bad that Cardinal Dolan has been reduced to imploring people to name their children after saints as if that’ll stem the tide of Auroras, Destinys, Harpers, Jades, Madisons, Princesses, Sierras…
Before anybody feigns indignity about the suggestion of mass episcopal malfeasance in response to the incurrence of favor or disfavor by temporal power, follow Father Peter Morello, PhD’s advice to know your Catholic history.
English Bishops made a libidinous, murderous glutton their idol five centuries ago and launched a “smells and bells” counterfeit that subsumed the entire country, ripped Ireland in half and created “priest holes”, only so the apostate “bishops” could save their privileges and posteriors. You think this crop is any less craven?
In all of the pearl clutching, sanctimonious screeds about the f-bomb launching taillight kicking Pretti or those that fetishize the invaders, I’ve yet to see any of the same authors write a single word about Jocelyn Nungaray-the 12-year old girl raped, strangled and tossed into a ditch or Laken Riley, raped, murdered and discarded or any of the lesser known victims of the “undocumented”. The indifferent, resigned silence screams bloody murder.
Whether these rants are due to intellectual or emotional incontinence, the moral disorders of rash judgement or pathological altruism or cheap rage porn partisanship, the authors have the blood of those victims on their hands as accessories.
They are also complicit the takeover of places such as Dearborn-where in the words of the Islamic mayor-you aren’t “welcome” if you question his decrees.