The Catholic Church is on a collision course with the Trump administration. And likewise with governments across the developed world that are tightening their borders and carrying out — or at least, threatening — mass deportations of illegal immigrants. In an address on Thursday, Pope Leo XIV denounced “inhuman measures” and “serious crimes” against migrants, even as he granted that “states have the right and duty to protect their borders.”
Two weeks earlier, the pope instructed the American bishops to take a stronger stance in defense of migrants caught in the Trump administration’s dragnet. The pontiff suggested that he would “love” to see a statement from the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, according to one bishop who attended a meeting with him. Another attendee reported that the pope would like to see the US church speak “forcefully and in unity” on migrants’ rights.
Already, many individual US bishops and Catholic groups are doing just that. Yet for such interventions to prove fruitful, the Church must take a more wholistic, nuanced, and, indeed, Catholic approach: one that takes into account not just the needs of people moving out of the Global South, but also the limitations of the Global North; not just the dignity of the migrant, but also that of workers and the poor in recipient countries; not just the threat of Western xenophobia, but the imperative to ensure a decent baseline of cultural cohesion.
To be sure, there is much to object to in Washington’s stance: the White House posting photos on X (formerly Twitter) of “deportation porn” of rows of men being flown out in shackles; the government’s foot-dragging when ordered by the courts to facilitate the return of a man who had been mistakenly deported to El Salvador; the difficulties in getting pastoral care to illegal immigrants being held at the “Alligator Alcatraz” detention center in Florida; and much else of the kind. These are among the excesses for which the Trump administration’s enforcement efforts can justly be criticized.
But with immigration enforcement as in other areas, abusus non tollit usum — the abuse of a thing does not negate its proper use. And when we neglect the proper use in order to avoid abuse, we risk falling into an opposite extreme error.
As the bishops themselves sometimes acknowledge at least in passing, the general policy of enforcing immigration laws is legitimate. And while the Trump administration’s efforts have been excessively harsh at times, the surge in illegal immigration under President Joe Biden was so massive that any attempt to reverse it was bound to seem draconian by comparison. It is contrary to reason and justice to speak as if only Trump’s critics have a moral leg to stand on.
It is also contrary to the Church’s own longstanding teaching. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that prosperous nations are obliged “to welcome the foreigner in search of the security and the means of livelihood which he cannot find in his country of origin.” But it qualifies this by adding that such nations are obliged to do so only “to the extent they are able.”
And the Catechism goes on to say: “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 Church acknowledges, then, that a nation may put conditions on immigration, that it need not take in all those who want to enter it, and that those it does allow in must follow the law.
The Catechism reflects the longstanding teaching of the popes. For example, Pope Pius XII, while commending the United States for its generosity toward immigrants, observed in 1946 that “it is not surprising that changing circumstances have brought about a certain restriction being placed on foreign immigration. For in this matter, not only the interests of the immigrant but the welfare of the country also must be consulted.”
The economic needs of its own citizens are among the considerations a government may weigh when determining how many immigrants to let in. In a 1996 address, Pope St. John Paul II affirmed that “illegal immigration should be prevented” and that “the supply of foreign labor is becoming excessive in comparison to the needs of the economy, which already has difficulty in absorbing its domestic workers.” Likewise, in a 2011 address, Pope Benedict XVI acknowledged that host countries also have a “legitimate concern for security and social coherence” so that “states have the right to regulate migration flows and to defend their own frontiers” and “immigrants … have the duty to integrate into the host country, respecting its laws and its national identity.”
And in a 1988 document from the Pontifical Commission on Justice and Peace, we read that “it is up to the public powers who are responsible for the common good to determine the number of refugees or immigrants which their country can accept, taking into consideration its possibilities for employment and its perspectives for development, but also the urgency of the need of other people.” Overly heavy migration waves, the document warns, can lead to “rejection,” especially when “another culture is perceived as directly threatening the identity and customs of the local community that receives them.”
“It is contrary to reason and justice to speak as if only Trump’s critics have a moral leg to stand on.”
Note that the Church here explicitly affirms that it is not churchmen, but rather “the public powers who are responsible for the common good” who have the right and responsibility to determine how many immigrants to let in. Note, too, that the Church acknowledges that in making this determination, public authorities may take account of economic considerations, as well as those having to do with social and cultural cohesion.
The legitimacy of this concern for national identity is something that has been affirmed repeatedly in the Catholic tradition. In his book Memory and Identity, first published in 2005, John Paul II affirmed that the duty of patriotism is an extension of our obligation to honor our parents, and writes: “Patriotism is a love for everything to do with our native land: its history, its traditions, its language, its natural features. It is a love which extends also to the works of our compatriots and the fruits of their genius. Every danger that threatens the overall good of our native land becomes an occasion to demonstrate this love.”
Several popes have been quite frank about the social problems that can develop when a minority cultural group fails to assimilate to the larger culture in which it resides. For example, in the encyclical Pacem in Terris, Pope St. John XXIII observed that “these minority groups, in reaction, perhaps, to the enforced hardships of their present situation, or to historical circumstances, frequently tend to magnify unduly characteristics proper to their own people. They even rate them above those human values which are common to all mankind, as though the good of the entire human family should subserve the interests of their own particular groups.” He went on to call for such groups to associate themselves more closely with the majorities among whom they live, and not to harness their identity to separateness.
Pope Francis, too, acknowledged the problem. In a 2016 press conference, he noted that while “hearts must not be closed to refugees … those who govern need prudence … A political price can be paid for an imprudent judgement, for accepting more than can be integrated.” Non-integration, Francis warned, leads to migrants becoming “a ghetto. A culture that does not develop in relationship with another culture, this is dangerous.”
Most recently, Pope Leo XIV, in an address in which he praised Italy’s generosity to migrants, immediately went on to underscore “the importance of constructively integrating those arriving into the values and traditions of Italian society.”
Yes, there are yahoos and jingoists who go beyond a healthy love of country to a sinful hostility towards people of other nations. But it is unjust and uncharitable to accuse all of those who are concerned about the cultural cohesion and economic needs of their own country of harboring this dishonorable motivation.
For its part, the Church has treated immigration as it does every other major question of public policy: not just a matter of individual rights and dignity — though these are indeed important — but also of duties to the common good of the whole. Thought of this way, the Catholic position on immigration doesn’t lend itself well to simplistic “pro” or “anti” posturing.
The truth is that there are two, equally Catholic sides in the debate over immigration. One side thinks that the imperative to welcome the migrant is what most needs emphasis today. The other thinks that preserving law and order, and the economic wellbeing and cultural identity of the nation is what is currently most urgent. Both can appeal to moral premises rooted in the Catholic tradition. Their dispute is about how best to balance the various relevant considerations under contemporary circumstances — a matter of prudential judgment about which reasonable people can disagree.
In the 21st century, that prudential determination must take into account new realities: such as the fact that many of today’s newcomers are economic migrants relying on strained asylum systems to get through borders; and the fact that developed economies are already bereft of high-wage, reliable manufacturing jobs, pushing many native-born workers into service sectors buffeted by even cheaper migrant labor; and the identitarian turmoil wrought by decades of high migration and failed assimilation.
The bishops have a pastoral obligation to acknowledge the concerns of both sides, rather than speaking as if only one side is truly Catholic. It is precisely when people think their legitimate concerns are not being taken seriously that they are most tempted to fall into extremism. In his essay “A Defense of Patriotism,” G. K. Chesterton warned that when a nation does not cultivate a sober “patriotism of the head and heart,” it will sink instead into a thuggish chauvinism “of its fists and its boots.”
The remedy to this excess is not to retreat to the opposite error, but to insist on holding the middle ground — the true patriotism described by St. John Paul II as a part of the Fourth Commandment to honor father and mother. “What we really need for the frustration and overthrow of a deaf and raucous jingoism,” advised Chesterton, “is a renascence of the love of the native land. When that comes, all shrill cries will cease suddenly.”