Bishops' migration chair calls for solidarity with migrants: 'Statements alone are not enough'

BALTIMORE (OSV News) -- Bishop Mark J. Seitz of El Paso, Texas, urged the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Nov. 11 to take further steps to show solidarity with migrants in remarks at their annual fall plenary assembly in Baltimore.

Bishop Seitz, who has chaired the conference's Committee on Migration, said that "since January, the Trump administration has remained committed to the president's campaign promise of mass deportations."

His remarks Nov. 11 came as a growing number of bishops have acknowledged that some of the Trump administration's immigration policies risk presenting the church with both practical challenges in administering pastoral support and charitable endeavors, as well as religious liberty challenges.

"This has been accompanied by policy changes that are intimidating and dehumanizing the immigrants in our midst, regardless of how they came to be here," Bishop Seitz said. "The repeated rhetoric about an approach to enforcement focused on terrorists, dangerous criminals and those with final orders of removal has largely been contradicted by several actions: This includes the detention of those attending their immigration court hearings, the targeting of international students and even the circumvention of protections for unaccompanied children, among others."

"This unyielding commitment to mass deportation," Bishop Seitz argued, as well as "curtailing legal immigration," and deportations to "third countries completely unfamiliar to them," make clear "this is just the beginning."

"As pastors devoted to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, we know statements alone are not enough," Bishop Seitz said.

The migration committee, its staff and its partners are among those working on a new effort "to actively support our immigrant brothers and sisters consistent with the conference's identity," he said.

The initiative, titled "You Are Not Alone," will focus "on four thematic areas of ministry, emergency and family support, accompaniment and pastoral care, communications and church teaching, and fourthly, solidarity through prayer and public witness," he said.

"While we hope this initiative will support new and expanded efforts throughout the country," he said. "We know our church has been accompanying newcomers throughout the country, newcomers to this land, since before our country's founding."

Referring to his recent meeting with Pope Leo XIV, Bishop Seitz added, "As our Holy Father himself stated clearly last month, the church cannot be silent."

Bishop Seitz did express optimism about resolving a backlog in visas for immigrant religious workers.

"With the attention being given to this situation by the Secretary of State (Marco) Rubio and others, we are hopeful to see positive developments in the very near future, we're very optimistic," he said.

In comments to OSV News after his speech, Bishop Seitz added, "Well, you know, there have been a lot of times when we were very hopeful, but I don't think I've heard this level of optimism before, and their hope is that within a week, we might get a new rule that will allow them to shorten tremendously, the amount of time they have to stay outside the country."

Catholic social teaching on immigration seeks to balance three interrelated principles: the right of persons to migrate in order to sustain themselves and their families, the right of a country to regulate its borders and immigration, and a nation’s duty to conduct that regulation with justice and mercy.