One of America’s most senior Catholics has accused the Trump administration of waging “war” on immigrants—and warned the U.S. that “we are losing our soul as a nation.”
Cardinal Robert McElroy, 72, the archbishop of Washington, accused Donald Trump’s government of deliberately stoking “suspicion, division, cruelty, and violence” towards undocumented migrants since the president, 80, returned to the White House, reports PunchUp.
McElroy said Americans had initially been told immigration enforcement would focus on securing the border and removing serious criminals. Instead, they have watched “indiscriminate raids” targeting workers and others across the country that have amounted to “a war on every undocumented immigrant in our land.”
His no-holds-barred comments came during a homily at Mass held Sunday at the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle to mark the World Day of Migrants and Refugees, as first reported by Christopher Hale’s Letters from Leo Substack.
McElroy blasted the Trump administration’s deadly immigration operation in Minneapolis, Minnesota, last January for the deaths of American citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti, both 37, who were shot by federal agents wearing face coverings.
He added: “We could not believe that the mask had become the new symbol of American justice. We said it is unacceptable for our government, in our name, to send poorly trained troops en masse into the streets of our cities to crush the growing opposition to the wholesale war on so many innocent people.”
McElroy also cited the case of five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos, who was detained in the city with his father by ICE in nearby Columbia Heights that month, which was reported extensively by the Daily Beast.
He said, “In the release documents, the judge included pictures of Liam alongside two verses from the Gospel: the first verse was ‘Let the little children come unto me and do not hinder them, for it is to just such as these that the Kingdom belongs.’ The second verse in the judge’s order was brief: ‘Jesus wept.’”
He added: “Jesus weeps all across our nation for the children who have been arrested, detained, and transported to far-off centers with terrible living conditions and cut off from their families.”
McElroy used the parable of the Good Samaritan to accuse Americans of witnessing the treatment of immigrants and choosing to look away. He also attacked the administration’s moves against the “more than one million” migrants who previously held legal protections. “These refugees never broke any law,” he said, and are being deported because “the bigotry that has often tarnished American immigration history is rampant once again in our nation.”
The White House has defended its immigration crackdown as a public-safety and border-security operation and says more than 400,000 migrants charged with or convicted of crimes have been deported during Trump’s second term.
McElroy, who was appointed archbishop of Washington by Pope Francis in January 2025, ended by urging Catholics to oppose what he described as wrongdoing carried out in their name. “We are losing our soul as a nation,” he said.
The White House and the Department of Homeland Security have been contacted for comment.
Tom Latchem exposes the secrets, scandals, and stories that powerful people and institutions want to keep under wraps. Follow all of his reporting at PunchUp on Substack.
