A deep divide has opened between the Catholic Church’s consistent teaching on immigration and the instincts of many US Catholics shaped more by partisan identity than by the Gospel.

Catholic teaching on migration begins with the foundational truths that undergird the Church’s entire social doctrine. Every person is created in the image of God and possesses inherent dignity. All belong to one human family. The goods of the earth exist for all. From these principles flow long-standing teachings: people have a right to migrate when life or basic flourishing becomes impossible; nations may regulate their borders for the common good; and such regulation must always uphold human dignity, protect families, and never treat human beings as disposable. These teachings are not optional. They are deeply rooted in the tradition, shaping magisterial teaching for generations, from Pius XII’s Exsul Familia to Pope Leo XIV’s message for this October’s World Day of Migrants and Refugees, as well as his comments regarding the immigration crisis in the United States and elsewhere.

Immigration in the Catechism

The Catechism of the Catholic Church expresses the doctrinal framework clearly. The first paragraph of number 2241 teaches:

The more prosperous nations are obliged, to the extent they are able, to welcome the foreigner in search of the security and the means of livelihood which he cannot find in his country of origin. Public authorities should see to it that the natural right is respected that places a guest under the protection of those who receive him.

The Catechism pulls no punches: welcoming the foreigner is obligatory for the “more prosperous nations.” By most global standards of economic strength, no country is more prosperous than the United States, suggesting that we have more responsibility to welcome immigrants than elsewhere. Historically, we are a nation of immigrants. We should remember that. And we should also remember that Church leaders think the global community can do more for people fleeing their homelands in search of opportunity and security.

It is also important to note that the Catechism teaches that immigration is a natural right. In other words, the right to migrate is intrinsic and part of natural law. Sadly, the rhetoric used by many of those who support the current US president’s deportation and detention policies reveals no regard for this basic human right. For Catholics to engage in this dehumanizing rhetoric — referring to undocumented migrants with terms such as invaders, criminals, vermin, rapists, and illegals — reflects a profound misunderstanding of the Church’s teaching on human dignity. But even when defamatory terms aren’t used, support for mass deportation policies is simply contrary to the common good and Catholic social doctrine.

Cardinal Michael Czerny, whose family immigrated to Canada from Czechoslovakia when he was a child, has spoken about our Christian duty to welcome migrants. In an interview with Nicole Winfield of the Associated Press in February, he affirmed the Catechism’s teaching that governments are expected to take in migrants to the limits of their capacity. He added, “I don’t think that is any country except perhaps Lebanon, and maybe one or two other exceptions who are really over the limit … I think it’s incumbent on us first of all as human beings, as citizens, as believers, and in our case, as Christians.” Czerny likely cites Lebanon because it has taken in a population of Syrian refugees equal to around one-third of its own citizen population.

Even if one believes that Czery’s assessment is too optimistic, it is absurd to claim that the US does not have the capacity to take in more immigrants. The real solution to our broken immigration system — one that the US bishops have championed for decades — is not mass deportation but comprehensive immigration reform.

This is particularly relevant to the second paragraph of the Catechism’s teaching:

Political authorities, for the sake of the common good for which they are responsible, may make the exercise of the right to immigrate subject to various juridical conditions, especially with regard to the immigrants’ duties toward their country of adoption. Immigrants are obliged to respect with gratitude the material and spiritual heritage of the country that receives them, to obey its laws and to assist in carrying civic burdens.

Many Catholic apologists have attempted to use this paragraph to justify the detention and deportation policies of the Trump administration. Some will attempt to argue that simply crossing the border illegally is a failure to respect the laws of their new country. Such pundits fail to notice that the teaching is about obeying the laws of the country that receives them. If a country does not grant someone in a desperate situation the means to legally enter, then they are not respecting that person’s right to migrate.

Aquinas teaches that in a situation of immediate and grave necessity, a person may take what is needed to preserve life and that such an act “is not theft properly speaking” because “In cases of need all things are common property” (Summa Theologiae II–II, q.66, a.7). Catholic tradition consistently applies this principle beyond the theft example: the Catechism directly cites Aquinas and affirms that “appropriating” another’s goods in urgent necessity is morally legitimate (CCC 2408).

By this logic, when a person crosses a border illegally when they are in a desperate situation and no lawful pathway is realistically available, their act is morally analogous to Aquinas’s starving person taking bread: the action may violate civil law, but it does not constitute a moral offense against justice, because the preservation of life precedes the claims of property or political boundaries. This is not sentimentality — it is the natural-law reasoning the Church has affirmed for centuries.

Further, the Catechism’s affirmation that nations can make immigration “subject to various juridical conditions” does not imply that mass deportation, family separation, or refusing entry to those who have a legitimate right to migrate are morally acceptable from a Catholic perspective.

The Catechism acknowledges that governments may regulate immigration for the sake of the common good, but it does not present deportation, mass removal, or punitive enforcement as moral ideals. Regulation is framed as a responsibility ordered toward human dignity. Earlier magisterial documents such as Exsul Familia echo this same truth: while states may structure immigration policy, they may never set aside the image of God in the migrant seeking safety or stability.

The Scandalous Dissent of US Catholics from the Magisterium

Sadly, a widening gap has emerged within Catholic life in the US. While Pope Leo XIV and nearly all US bishops continue to present a unified, doctrinally grounded teaching on immigration, many Catholics — especially those aligned with conservative political identity — reject or downplay it. This is not a mild disagreement over prudential details. Increasingly, it reflects a refusal to receive the Church’s teaching at all.

Survey data reveals a stark divide. A 2024 CARA report found that 43 percent of US Catholics say immigration should be decreased. A synthesis of the same data shows that about half of US Catholics favor expanding construction of walls along the US–Mexico border. A 2024 Pew survey found that 64 percent of white Catholics believe the situation at the border constitutes a “crisis.” Taken together, these attitudes diverge sharply from the moral framework articulated by the bishops. And these are not Catholics on the margins — they are the donors, volunteers, and daily communicants who form the backbone of parish life. Their rejection of magisterial teaching is a crisis at the Church’s center.

Meanwhile, the teaching authority of the Church has spoken with exceptional unity. Earlier this month, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) issued a rare “Special Message on Immigration” during their plenary assembly in Baltimore. It passed 216–5 — only the third special message in more than a decade. The bishops denounced “a climate of fear and anxiety” surrounding immigration enforcement and lamented “the vilification of immigrants.” They reaffirmed long-standing Catholic teaching: the dignity of migrants, the importance of family unity, the right to migrate, and the need for a path to citizenship for long-term undocumented residents. They also stated explicitly: “We oppose the indiscriminate mass deportation of people.”

What stands out is the bishops’ near-unanimity — an uncommon occurrence in today’s polarized Church. The US hierarchy is often portrayed as fractured on liturgy, ecclesiology, and public witness. Yet on immigration, bishops across the theological and pastoral spectrum have spoken with one voice. Their consensus is not partisan. It reflects the deep roots of this teaching in the Gospel.

Pope Leo XIV affirmed this unity directly. In comments to reporters on November 19, the pope praised the USCCB statement and criticized the “extremely disrespectful” treatment of long-term undocumented migrants in the US. In the first months of his papacy, Pope Leo has reaffirmed the four verbs that shaped Pope Francis’s approach to immigration — welcome, protect, promote, and integrate — and urged has Catholics to defend the dignity of migrants and refugees. He has also affirmed Pope Francis’s February 2025 letter to the US bishops, which further underscored that the US bishops’ teaching is fully in continuity with the universal Magisterium.

Some of the strongest episcopal witnesses have come from bishops often associated with the conservative wing of the Church. Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone of San Francisco publicly backed the Special Message, consistent with his February letter to the faithful on immigration. Just days before the Baltimore meeting, Archbishop Alexander K. Sample of Portland issued a pastoral statement calling for solidarity with immigrants and reminding Catholics, “It does not matter whether some of our brothers and sisters have proper documentation or not. They are our brothers and sisters in the body of Christ, and have a human dignity that comes not from government, but from our loving God.” The witness of these archbishops — along with almost every other member of the USCCB — makes clear that Catholic social teaching on immigration is not a “left-wing” issue. It is a matter of our faith and our fidelity to the Gospel.

Yet within the broader Catholic media ecosystem, resistance to this teaching is widespread. Influential commentators, online personalities, and even some clergy dismiss the bishops’ statements as political, naïve, or ideologically compromised. Some frame the Church’s defense of migrants as “globalism” or “Marxism.” Others insist that immigration is purely a prudential issue on which Catholics may freely disagree. Still others portray the USCCB as a bureaucratic NGO rather than the collective voice of the successors of the apostles.

White House “border czar” Tom Homan put it bluntly, saying, “The Catholic Church is wrong.” Far-right Catholic author Chris Manion attempted to correct Homan’s statement by claiming immigration is a “prudential” matter. He argued on his Substack, “the Catholic Church isn’t wrong … Unfortunately, the bishops are.”

Father Jerry Pozorsky backed up this notion, writing in Catholic World Report, “the bishops’ statement contributes to the confusion regarding the distinction between fallible pastoral judgments and the Church’s enduring doctrinal authority.” He argued, “Taken at face value, the statement claims an authority that exceeds its jurisdiction. That is unjust.”

Luma Simms of the Ethics and Public Policy Center wrote a scathing rebuke of the bishops, asserting, “Any perceived undignified or inhumane treatment during the deportation process pales in comparison to the evil that flourishes by advocating for leniency toward illegal entry.”

These narratives distort Catholic teaching. While Catholics may legitimately debate the means of immigration policy, the underlying moral principles — human dignity, the unity of the human family, the preferential option for the poor, the right to migrate when necessary, and the duty to treat migrants humanely — are not optional. They are rooted in Scripture, tradition, and the natural law. To dismiss them as political is to sever the Church’s teaching from its theological foundations. What is more just and fitting than Catholic bishops, united with the pope, crying out on behalf of people who are suffering as a direct consequence of dehumanizing policies that trample on their rights and dignity?

This selective reception mirrors older patterns of dissent. In the decades after Humanae Vitae, some Catholics attempted to remain “faithful” while rejecting the Church’s teaching on contraception. Today, many Catholics on the right attempt the same maneuver with the Church’s social teaching on migration. The logic is identical: elevate the teachings that align with one’s partisan commitments and reject the ones that challenge it. Pope Leo captured the contradiction when he remarked that someone who supports inhumane treatment of immigrants is not truly pro-life.

The growing gap between the Magisterium and a large portion of the US Catholic laity poses a profound challenge. If Catholics feel free to disregard a near-unanimous episcopal and papal teaching simply because it conflicts with their partisan instincts, then the meaning of magisterial authority is weakened. A Church where the faithful choose their doctrines according to political tribalism cannot remain a communion for long.

The Challenge for Catholics

In every age, the Gospel reveals the blind spots of its people. For Catholics in the US today, immigration is one such place. The Church’s teaching is not the intrusion of politics into religion. It is the Gospel applied to the vulnerable. The migrant at the border is not a symbol or a statistic. Each one is a human person bearing the face of Christ. For this reason, welcoming the stranger has been a consistent Christian practice from the early Church onward. Matthew 25 leaves no room for abstraction: “I was a stranger and you welcomed me.”

The way forward begins with conversion. It calls each of us to examine our consciences honestly, to ask whether our political instincts have overshadowed our fidelity to Christ, and to allow the Church — not the party, the pundit, or the algorithm — to shape our priorities. It invites bishops, priests, and laity alike to rediscover the Church as mater et magistra — mother and teacher — not as a spiritual lifestyle brand that baptizes our preferred positions.

In this polarized era, the unity of the bishops on immigration is not merely an administrative achievement. It is a sign of hope. It shows that the Church, at her best, transcends the categories of left and right. And it challenges every Catholic — whatever his or her political leanings — to recognize the face of Christ in the stranger. In welcoming him, we welcome Jesus himself.

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Image: “ICE ERO Dallas Targeted Enforcement Oper” (Public Domain) by usicegov