The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops Has Issued an Extraordinary Rebuke of the Trump Administration’s Anti-Migrant Policies

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), the organization that includes all the Catholic Bishops in America, issued an extraordinary and unprecedented rebuke of the policies of a sitting President of the United States. The body of over 200 Bishops, in whose Dioceses reside tens of millions of Catholics – the largest Christian denomination in America – voted nearly unanimously for a statement criticizing the immigration polices of the Trump Administration. In their statement and a video that featured readings of the statement by Bishops, including conservative ones, they observed profiling, the creation of a climate of fear, and dehumanizing and violent language. The USCCB, particularly cited a loss of access to pastoral care by migrants and refugees caused by the Trump policies, as well as the policy of arrests at churches, and hospitals and schools. The Catholic Church operates many hospitals and schools across America. The conference of American Bishops noted the loss of legal status of some refugees, meaning that their legal permission to stay in America had been taken away. The USCCB urged comprehensive immigration reform in the statement that considers both security and the scriptural and moral obligation to fellow human beings, which they said are not contradictory goals. Trumpists responded with their usual whataboutism, complaining that the Bishops had not made such a statement against the abortion policies of previous Administrations, as if to imply the Bishops were partisan or ideological, but the Bishops had repeatedly and consistently expressed a pro-life message. Trumpists also made their typical cynical ad hominem arguments against the Bishops, falsely claiming that these shepherds were concerned primarily for the loss of money, and not for the spiritual, moral and material wellbeing of their flocks. As I have posted, the Catholic Church, the Episcopal Church and other religious and secular non-profit organizations had been contracted by the U.S. to provide for the needs of migrants, particularly for integrating refugees, but the Trump Administration cut off the funding, even declining to pay for services already rendered. But the Catholics and other Christians were motivated to provide for the refugees in the first place for religious reasons and the payments were not for profit. Thus, the Trump Administration’s policies decrease religious freedom in multiple ways, by diminishing the ability of churches and religious organizations in carrying out their spiritual vocations to care materially for those in need, by denying pastoral care to migrants, and by intimidating migrants from attending religious services at places of worship without fear of being arrested, even if they are refugees legally permitted to stay. It is necessary for all Americans to continue to speak out against the un-Christian, un-American and non-conservative anti-migrant policies of the Trump Administration, and to encourage Congress to enact comprehensive immigration reform.