A person detained is taken to a parking lot on the far north side of the city before being transferred to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Chicago on Oct. 31, 2025. / Credit: Jamie Kelter Davis/Getty Images
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Dec 2, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).
Catholic bishops in the United States have expressed unified disapproval of the "indiscriminate mass deportation of people" as the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) reported over 527,000 deportations and another 1.6 million self-deportations since Jan. 20.
Several Catholics in the Trump administration, such as Vice President JD Vance and Border czar Tom Homan, have invoked their faith to defend the heavy crackdown on migrants who do not have legal status in the country after the bishops' message of dismay.
Caring for immigrants is a clear command in Scripture. Catholic teaching on the matter of mass deportations is somewhat nuanced, with obligations on wealthy countries to welcome immigrants and responsibilities for immigrants to follow the laws of the nations receiving them. The Catholic approach to immigration in recent decades has underscored mercy and respect for the migrants' human dignity and prudence on the part of public officials to safeguard the common good, with an emphasis on a response to migrants that "welcomes, protects, promotes, and integrates."
While Catholic teaching affirms human dignity and the right to migrate when necessary, debate has centered on the means of immigration policy.
When is a deportation policy 'intrinsically evil'?
If something is "intrinsically evil," it means that it is immoral under any circumstance and for any reason, regardless of one's motivation or the intended consequence of the action. That term is reserved for actions themselves that can never be morally justified.
As St. John Paul II explained in his 1993 encyclical Veritatis Splendor, an "intrinsically evil" act is one that, by its very nature, is "incapable of being ordered to God" because the act is in conflict with "the good of the person made in his image."
He cites Gaudium et Spes, the pastoral constitution on the Church in the modern world issued by the Second Vatican Council in 1965, to offer some examples of intrinsic evils.
Although the council itself does not use the term "intrinsically evil," he references the council's description of actions that are "opposed to life itself," which include "murder, genocide, abortion, euthanasia, or willful self-destruction." It also lists, among other things, action that "insults human dignity," such as "subhuman living conditions, arbitrary imprisonment, deportation, slavery, prostitution, [and] the selling of women and children."
Neither John Paul II nor the council elaborate on the meaning of "deportation" in this context in those specific documents. Although, in his 1991 encyclical Centesimus Annus, the Holy Father spoke about deportations within the context of forced removal of people during World War II: "As a result of this violent division of Europe, enormous masses of people were compelled to leave their homeland or were forcibly deported."
Joseph Capizzi, dean of the School of Theology and Religious Studies at The Catholic University of America, told CNA the context appears to refer to deportations that are both "arbitrary" and "without due process," like during World War II.
"The context was, of course, mass deportations of people absent any due process and their treatment as movable property, or chattel," he said. "That is by definition treating those humans as subhuman, offending their God-given status by their creation in his image and likeness."
In relation to "subhuman living conditions" being intrinsically evil, Capizzi said all people "must be treated as humans" regardless of legal status. No person, he said, can be treated "with cruelty" or "absent basic human regard."
Father Thomas Petri, OP, a moral theologian and former president of the Dominican House of Studies, told CNA that deportation, as an enforcement of immigration law, "in and of itself can't be intrinsically evil."
"There is going to be prudential debate and prudential discussion on what constitutes immoral, evil deportation," Petri said.
"Even if there's disagreement on who should be deported, when the deportation happens, it should happen in a way that doesn't undermine the dignity of those being deported," he said.
"Even when there is justified deportation, … those who are being deported [must be treated] … humanely, respecting human dignity, which includes the natural rights to food, human living conditions [and] … access to religion," Petri said.
"Anything that contradicts or harms their human dignity is certainly grave," Petri said.
When can governments limit immigration?
The Church has consistently encouraged nations to welcome the stranger, in line with Christ's command in Matthew 25:35, and has also recognized the government's need to protect the common good.
In 1988, the Pontifical Commission for Justice and Peace issued a document called "The Church and Racism," which addressed the subject.
For immigrants and refugees, the commission said governments must ensure their "basic human rights be recognized and guaranteed." Such people could be "victims of racial prejudice" and are at risk of "various forms of exploitation, be it economic or other."
The document also acknowledged that public powers are "responsible for the common good" and must "determine the number of refugees or immigrants which their country can accept." The governments should consider "possibilities for employment and its perspectives for development but also the urgency of the need of other people."
Another concern is a need to avoid "a serious social imbalance" that could be created "when an overly heavy concentration of persons from another culture is perceived as directly threatening the identity and customs of the local community that receives them."
Pope Pius XII made similar observations when addressing American officials in 1946, saying then: "it is not surprising that changing circumstances have brought about a certain restriction being placed on foreign immigration" and "in this matter not only the interests of the immigrant but the welfare of the country also must be consulted."
Such restrictions, he said, should still never forget "Christian charity and the sense of human solidarity existing between all men, children of the one eternal God and Father."
The Catechism of the Catholic Church sums up the Church's position, teaching that prosperous nations have an obligation, "to the extent they are able, to welcome the foreigner." The immigrant has an obligation "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."
"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," it adds, without touting mass deportation as a moral ideal.
Capizzi said governments must "protect an actual common good." For immigration law, he said this means "sometimes by allowing immigrants in to assist, and also by limiting immigration to allow immigrants' integration into the host nation, and to protect the nation's work force."
Enforcement, he said, can occur after a person has unlawfully entered, but cases that require deportation should inspire more prudence.
Petri said the primary concern comes "when you're talking about [people] who have been in this country for 20 years."
"There is a moral difference between deporting hard and violent criminals and deporting, say, a husband and a wife who have just tried to make a living," he said.
