New Mexico bishops come out strongly against mass deportations

CNA Staff, Dec 6, 2024 / 09:25 am (CNA).

The Catholic bishops of New Mexico this week articulated a strongly worded statement against a policy of mass deportation of unauthorized immigrants, a policy that President-elect Donald Trump has repeatedly promised to enact. 

“A mass deportation policy will not fix the broken immigration system but, rather, create chaos, family separation, and the traumatization of children,” wrote Archbishop John Wester of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, Bishop Peter Baldacchino of the Diocese of Las Cruces, and Bishop James Wall of the Diocese of Gallup in a statement reported on by the Santa Fe New Mexican. 

“While removing those who cause harm to us is necessary, deporting immigrants who have built equities in our communities and pose no threat is contrary to humanitarian principles and to our national interest,” the bishops continued. 

“We urge the new administration to rethink this proposed deportation policy and instead return to bipartisan negotiations to repair the U.S. immigration system.”

New Mexico shares a 180-mile border with Mexico and relies heavily on migrants to provide labor. There were an estimated 25,000-75,000 immigrants residing in New Mexico illegally in 2022, according to Pew Research Center estimates. 

The New Mexico bishops’ statement follows words last month by fellow borderlands Bishop Mark Seitz of El Paso, Texas, head of the U.S. bishops’ migration committee, who said that if the Trump administration advances immigration measures that violate basic human rights, the nation’s Catholic bishops are prepared to “raise our voice loudly.”

Seitz said the bishops were “concerned” about Trump’s immigration rhetoric on the campaign trail — including Trump’s estimate of “around a million people per year” deported — but that they “don’t want to get ahead” of the administration before it announces its concrete plans.

“We are waiting to see just what exactly takes shape,” Seitz said Nov. 12, speaking to the media at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) fall meeting in Baltimore. 

Seitz said the USCCB recognizes that some immigrants have not entered the country legally but stressed that the U.S. government should distinguish between those who have committed additional crimes from those who, “for the benefit of our country, should be able to remain.”

There are an estimated 11.7 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S. as a whole, according to July 2023 statistics from the Center for Migration Studies. Trump has promised to deport all migrants illegally in the country and said that the plan, which has been criticized as financially unfeasible, “will have no price tag.” The proposal has proven highly controversial within Catholic circles. 

The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that countries, especially wealthier ones, should try to welcome migrants “to the extent they are able” but that nations also have the right to regulate migration.

Experts cited by the National Catholic Register, CNA’s sister news partner, while noting that a policy of mass deportations would be economically disruptive, also warned that it risks creating a “police state” where human dignity and the right to seek asylum is undermined, harming family unity and the common good. 

Others, meanwhile, including Ken Cuccinelli, former acting deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security under Trump, contend that the scale of the prospective deportation program has no bearing on the underlying moral dimension.

“I don’t think the scale really has any effect on the moral question of it,” Cuccinelli, a Catholic, told the Register. 

“Richer nations have an obligation to welcome migrants, and migrants have an obligation to respect the laws and customs of the place to which they are migrating, and the people we are talking about haven’t done that,” said Cuccinelli, referencing the catechism.

Paul Hunker, a Catholic and an immigration attorney who previously served as chief counsel of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Dallas, told CNA this week that he believes it is “quite reasonable” for Catholics to oppose a program of “large-scale arrests by ICE targeting undocumented noncitizens.” 

“Many of these individuals have lived in the United States for years and have deep ties, including children and spouses who are U.S. citizens. Removing such individuals inflicts significant harm on them, their families, and society,” Hunker noted. 

He pointed to a notable dissent from a 19th-century U.S. Supreme Court case upholding the removal of long-term resident noncitizens in which Justice Stephen Field wrote that “a forcible deportation from a country of one’s residence and the breaking up of all the relations of friendship, family, and business there contracted” constitutes a “cruel and unusual” punishment. 

“While this may not fully apply to those who have only recently arrived in the United States, it resonates for most long-term resident noncitizens,” Hunker said. 

For his part, Pope Francis over the summer delivered some of the clearest words in his papacy yet in support of migrants and in rebuke of those who turn away from them. 

“It must be said clearly: There are those who work systematically and with every means possible to repel migrants,” the pope said during a weekly general audience. “And this, when done with awareness and responsibility, is a grave sin.”

Source: https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/260873/new-mexico-bishops-come-out-strongly-against-mass-deportations