Published February 6, 2025
Our country’s immigration system is a colossal mess. Few would argue otherwise. It is the responsibility and duty of the federal government to resolve that mess, both for the sake of the nation and her citizens and out of genuine concern for the safety and well-being of migrants and refugees. The failures of the Biden administration in this regard are a major reason that the new Trump administration can claim an electoral mandate on immigration.
The Catholic Church has long played a role in providing basic assistance to immigrants who come to the United States. So adept is the Church at this work that the federal government has turned to her for help in providing the sort of humanitarian assistance many migrants and refugees require.
The federal government, by law, allocates large sums of money to facilitate, in a safe and ordered way, the relocation of refugees, migrants, and unaccompanied minors entering the United States. To accomplish this massive undertaking (again, by law) the federal government partners with non-governmental organizations and local institutions. These organizations and institutions have the local presence and expertise to carry out this work – work that would otherwise require a massive increase in the federal workforce or simply go undone.
The federal government grants a portion of the billions of dollars it spends annually resettling refugees and migrants to the care of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, which in turn distributes those funds to regional affiliates and local organizations where the money is needed and where our laws mandate that it be spent. In recent years, the grants have totaled as much as $130 million.
As the laws establishing these grants require, persons assisted and resettled through these grants have been vetted by the federal government before entering the United States. In other words, the migrants and refugees who are the direct beneficiaries of these grants are, by definition, entering the United States legally.
For the Church to be untrustworthy in its management of these federal funds or for the Church to use the funds in violation of federal law, would constitute a gross breach of the public trust and dereliction of moral duty. The same would be the case if the Church were to use these funds as a means of self-enrichment.
Which brings us, as you might have foreseen, to remarks made by Vice President Vance last month in an interview on CBS News’ “Face the Nation.” Vance clearly insinuated that the USCCB’s federally funded work with migrants is driven not by humanitarian concerns but by greed:
I think that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops should look in the mirror a little bit and ask themselves: When they receive over $100 million to help resettle illegal immigrants, are they worried about humanitarian concerns? Or are they actually worried about their bottom line? We’re going to enforce immigration law.
The vice president suggested, without evidence, that these grants are being used to resettle illegal immigrants, contrary to both the federal requirements of the grants and the USCCB’s statements on the matter. Add to this the insinuation that the USCCB participates in federal programs for the resettlement of immigrants in order to pad its bottom line, when the USCCB consistently spends more on these programs than it takes in, and Vance’s remarks take on an ill-informed and reckless character.
There are any number of fair questions to be asked about where the USCCB gets its money and how it spends it. And there are good reasons for the government to want to know how its grants are being spent. But it’s odd to suggest, as the vice president did, that the Church is somehow blameworthy for carrying out that work according to the federally mandated form and purpose of those programs.
If our immigration laws have been poorly conceived, poorly written, and poorly enforced, that is, in the first instance, a State problem not a Church problem. The Church didn’t write our immigration laws, Congress did. It is one thing to expect the Church to abide by those laws; it is another thing to blame her for doing so.
Of course, the Church has always carried out the work of caring for migrants. It did so before Congress established the sort of public-private partnerships we see today. Should those laws change, or should the federal dollars dry up, the Church would be bound in charity to continue to carry on that work as best she can with whatever resources she could muster.
For all the disagreements – sharp at times – between the bishops and the administration on this issue, there remains room for common ground.
Bishop Michael Burbidge of Arlington has written an excellent pastoral statement in which he succinctly encompasses the Church’s commitment to defend the dignity of all persons with her commitment to the common good. The brief letter is worth reading in its entirety, but it concludes with this reminder:
Catholic teaching does not support an open border policy, but rather emphasizes a commonsense approach where the duty to care for the stranger is practiced in harmony with the duty to care for the nation.
The obligations of charity must not be abstracted from the real bonds of family, Church, society, and nation. This has been too often ignored, forgotten, or dismissed in certain circles. Millions of American citizens feel they have been told by their own government to take a back seat to newcomers only to be scolded as unwelcoming or even un-Christian for complaining of the injustice. The new administration has tapped into this frustration. J.D. Vance certainly seems to understand it.
And therein lies a contribution the Church is uniquely able to make, as Bishop Burbidge suggested. She can continue to teach, by word and example, how the duty to care for the stranger is practiced in harmony with the duty to care for the nation.
Whether that lesson will be learned remains to be seen, but it is sorely needed.
Stephen P. White is a fellow in the Catholic Studies Program at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. Mr. White’s work focuses on the application of Catholic social teaching to a broad spectrum of contemporary political and cultural issues. He is the author of Red, White, Blue, and Catholic (Liguori Publications, 2016).
