U.S. Catholic Bishops Have No Credibility On Immigration

Earlier this week, Anna Gallagher, executive director of the Catholic Legal Immigration Network Inc. (CLINIC) crooned: “As we enter the Advent season, we remember that the Holy Family themselves were migrants seeking safety.” It is a recurring motif to validate the resistance of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) to curtailment of illegal immigration.

In November, the USCCB prepared for Advent by declaring war on the Trump administration with a “Special Pastoral Message on Immigration.” The insurrectionist tenor of this rare “special message” places the globalist conceits — and monetary interests — of the hierarchy ahead of the just laws of their own country.

Larded with scriptural citations isolated from historical context, the declaration erases distinctions between lawful immigration and waves of illicit, unvetted migrants. The term illegal does not appear. This is a calculated omission for emotional effect. Inaccurate wording disguises the USCCB’s self-interested opposition to the deportation of illegal immigrants by suggesting that immigration itself is under siege. The fear-mongering is deliberate.

Our bishops censure “the indiscriminate deportation of people.” But there is nothing indiscriminate about the process. The only people subject to detention by ICE are illegal aliens who have broken our immigration laws by choice.

Moreover, in May 2025, the Department of Homeland Security established generous protocols for travel assistance to aid self-deportation: a one-way ticket to a chosen destination, a $1,000 stipend, plus the opportunity to apply legally. Still, the USCCB hyperventilates about “vilification of immigrants,” “conditions in detention centers,” and “lack of access to pastoral care.”

“We are disturbed when we see among our people a climate of fear and anxiety around questions of profiling and immigration enforcement. . . . Catholic teaching exhorts nations to recognize the fundamental dignity of all persons, including Immigrants,” the message states.

The bishops confer the endearment “our people” on illegal aliens but withhold it from taxpayers who subsidize mass migration. They offer lip service to secure borders and lawful immigration, but their hearts are elsewhere.

Where was concern for “dignity of all persons” and “access to pastoral care” during the Covid lockdown? Walmart stayed open while dioceses closed churches and restricted sacraments and funerals. There was no talk of “accompaniment” to the terminally ill in nursing homes. They died alone, deprived of any human touch. And often without the solace of last rites.

While liquor stores were deemed essential but churches not, the USCCB raised no challenge. But now, emboldened by Pope Leo’s distaste for immigration enforcement, it fights for open borders. Leo seconded the hostilities by denouncing U.S. policy toward illegal migrants as “extremely disrespectful.”

Promoting Law-breaking

The USCCB promotes a secularized version of love of neighbor that encourages law-breaking by “the poor” — a collective abstraction endowed with quasi-sacramental aura. In the Judeo-Christian moral system, neighbors do not steal from each other. But ideologues of a fabricated “preferential option for the poor” rephrase the battle cry of liberation theology as social justice. Only one side is obliged to act as neighbor. The other is entitled to take what it can.

The bishops were silent when then-President Joe Biden dismantled controls on illegal entry and invited mass migration through the southern border. They keep mum about the burden on border towns and cities flooded with foreign nationals claiming benefits that overwhelm local infrastructure and drain resources away from citizens.

Deflecting Scrutiny

Pontificating on “immigrant rights” deflects scrutiny into negligence by such bodies as USCCB’s Refugee Resettlement Program that works in concert with Catholic Charities’ Migrant and Refugee Services.

Our bishops have not accounted for the $449 million in taxpayer funds granted to the USCCB and Catholic Charities to monitor the safety of an alleged 450,000 minors (numbers vary) released to supposed sponsors. These “children” (the legal term for any minor under 18) fell off the radar. This July, Stephen Miller, White House deputy chief of staff, stated that 90 percent of the addresses recorded for them were “fake, false, or abandoned.”

That our migrant epidemic is an orchestrated phenomenon is evident to everyone who witnessed caravans of illegal immigrants arriving in numbers calculated to disable border patrol. The USCCB, Catholic Charities, and their nexus of affiliates share culpability — however unintended — in the criminal predation that accompanied these organized and cartel-led caravans.

NGO Enablers

Among Catholic nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) enabling illegal immigration, the USCCB has been a prime mover for decades. Add Catholic Charities, Caritas, Catholic Relief Services, and the Campaign for Human Development and their sub-contractors. The roster of facilitators is as elaborate as the Gaza tunnel system.

To illustrate: CLINIC, founded by the USCCB in 1988, is the largest nonprofit web of activist migration programs in the country. It maintains more than 400 Catholic and community-based immigration law providers in 49 states, offering legal representation and training defense lawyers in strategy before the courts. It boasts some 3,000 employees and serves about a half-million migrants a year.

The United Nations, too, is involved. In 2022, the Center for Immigration Studies reported that the U.N. Refugee Agency, which receives billions in U.S. taxpayer money, offers cash to U.S.-bound migrants, in addition to other assistance. It partners with Catholic NGOs, chiefly Catholic Charities and the International Catholic Migration Commission, which collaborates with the Vatican.

Catholic social services are not designed to solve the refugee problem. Rather, the labyrinth of NGOs enticing illegal migrants provides a framework for the trafficking industry.

In October, according to the latest available financial disclosure for 2023, the USCCB received more than 50 percent of its total revenues and more than 80 percent of its unrestricted revenue from the U.S. government. Unrestricted funds can be funneled anywhere, including back to the Vatican via Peter’s Pence.

That fund has a history of diverting monies from its charitable mission to bridge shortfalls in the Holy See’s budget. In July 2024, the Lepanto Institute marked Peter’s Pence as “Not Safe” for Catholic donations. Months later, the newly elected Leo solicited for the fund. (“Support the first steps of Pope Leo XIV. Donate to Peter’s Pence.”)

When diocesan agencies are federally funded, the USCCB has an incentive to maintain the migration pipeline. J.D. Vance was not wrong to wonder if the USCCB worried less about humanitarian concerns than “about their bottom line.”

Historical Differences

The social and economic realities of mass migration contradict the USCCB’s facile theologizing on open borders. Annexing of religious language is meant to convince the faithful that current sanctuary policy for illegals follows biblical precedent. It does not. It is agitprop that erases critical differences between today’s illegal aliens and the documented aliens and foreigners in biblical times. Guarded borders, writs of passage, and rules for expulsion were in effect in Abraham’s day. History subverts analogies between the Holy Family and today’s illegal migrants. Egypt garrisoned its borders. The Holy Family quite likely had to stop at a military post to request passage.

Yes, our own families came marked as “alien” on ship manifests. But they were legal aliens. They had waited in line in their native country for permission to enter. And they did not arrive in a welfare state. Entry was granted on condition that they would not become a burden on the public good.

USCCB dependence on government grants leaves American Catholics facing a crisis of authority. It pins them between deference to ecclesial leadership and respect for the just laws of an ordered nation. Thus does trust erode in the moral jurisdiction of our shepherds.

Maureen Mullarkey is a painter and a critic. A member of the International Association of Art Critics, she writes on art and its intersection with religion and politics. Her essays have appeared in The Nation, The Hudson Review, Arts Magazine, Art & Antiques, The Weekly Standard, and The American Arts Quarterly. She was a columnist for The New York Sun during its life as a print publication. Currently, she is a senior contributor to The Federalist and keeper of the weblog Studio Matters. She is represented by George Billis Gallery, NYC. Follow her on Twitter, @mmletters.