UNHOLY ACTIONS

Catholic Clergy Warn Trump Ahead of State of the Union Speech

The bishops condemned the Trump administration for immigration policies that are “detrimental to human rights.”

America’s top Roman Catholic leaders issued a sharply worded statement condemning the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement as “detrimental to human rights” and urging policy changes.

The statement, released Tuesday—the day President Donald Trump, 79, is scheduled to deliver his State of the Union address, which is expected to partly focus on his hard-line immigration agenda—emphasized that the clergy are “concerned” about “recent and ongoing immigration enforcement activities against individuals and families who are without legal status in our country.”

The signers, who included bishops from states that border Mexico and Canada, as well as Rhode Island and Kentucky, outlined eight policy recommendations that would help “to create an immigration system which ensures public safety, protects human rights, encourages economic growth and justice, and upholds our heritage as a nation of immigrants.”

In response to a request for comment, a White House spokesperson told the Daily Beast: “President Trump was elected based on his promises to secure the border and deport criminal illegal aliens,” adding that “the American people overwhelmingly support his law-and-order agenda.”

The call for change comes as polls show that 58 percent of Americans believe the president has gone “too far” with his deportation policies, and follows deadly enforcement operations in Minneapolis in which federal immigration agents were involved in the deaths of two U.S. citizens.

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“From our perspective as pastors, we have found that members of our flock have decided not to attend Mass or access the sacraments of the Church because of the fear of immigration enforcement,” the bishops wrote, suggesting that “sensitive locations”—such as places of worship, schools, and health-care facilities—should be protected from immigration enforcement operations.

The concern comes as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in January detained 5‑year‑old Liam Ramos, a preschooler in Minnesota, along with his father during an enforcement action that drew national attention to the impact of current immigration tactics on families.

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The clergy also urged the Trump administration to honor the right to apply for asylum at the border, not target law‑abiding immigrants, keep immigrant families together, restore due process in the immigration system, stop the use of tactics by ICE that incite fear in communities, enforce humane detention standards, and fund reintegration programs for deportees.

“Congress should repair the US immigration system by placing hard-working immigrants and their families on a path to citizenship and by improving access to the legal immigration system,” the statement read.

The list of policy recommendations is not the first time America’s Catholic bishops have issued a statement condemning the president’s immigration policies, a position also highlighted by Chicago-born Pope Leo XIV.

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In November, the bishops issued a special message on immigration, where they stated they were “disturbed” and “saddened” by the fear and anxiety caused by Trump’s aggressive immigration enforcement agenda, and felt compelled “to raise our voices in defense of God-given human dignity.”

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The November statement was the Church’s first special statement in 12 years.

That same month, the first American pope doubled down on his criticism of Trump’s efforts to root out illegal immigration in the country, calling the administration’s treatment of immigrants “extremely disrespectful.”

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“We believe that immigrants and their families who are contributing to the common good should not be targeted for removal,” the bishops said in their Tuesday statement.

The letter comes as Vice President JD Vance, who converted to Catholicism in 2019, reportedly admitted behind closed doors that one of his first official statements—where he claimed the Church was only speaking out against Trump’s policies to profit from immigrants, following the bishops’ criticism of the president’s executive order allowing immigration raids at schools and churches—was “not true.”

According to DHS data, fewer than one in seven people arrested by ICE since Trump returned to office had charges or convictions for violent crimes, despite Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem claiming the agency is targeting “the worst of the worst” criminals.

“While we acknowledge the right and duty of a sovereign nation to enforce its laws, we also believe that those laws should be upheld in a manner that protects the God-given human dignity and rights of the human person,” the bishops wrote.

The Daily Beast has contacted DHS and the White House for comment.

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