Posted on 11/16/2025 6:45:32 PM PST by ebb tide
Tom Homan, the Trump administration’s border czar, responded to the nation’s bishops this week after they issued a statement in solidarity with migrant families who they said live in fear of “indiscriminate mass deportation.”
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) approved the statement by a vote of 216–5 at its Fall Plenary Assembly in Baltimore, Maryland. The bishops warned against rhetoric that “vilifies immigrants” and cited reports of parents avoiding school drop-offs, parishioners skipping Mass, and families remaining indoors because they fear detention.
“So according to them,” Homan said when a reporter asked about the bishops’ statement, “the message to the world is: if you cross the border illegally, which is a crime, don’t worry about it. Don’t worry about it because we shouldn’t have mass deportations.”
“I’m saying it not only as the Border Czar, I’ll say it as a Catholic, I think they need to spend time fixing the Catholic Church.”
In their Special Pastoral Message, the first such message in more than a decade, the bishops said they are witnessing “a climate of fear and anxiety” in immigrant communities. While affirming that nations have the right to regulate their borders, the bishops urged policymakers to protect due process, family unity, and access to worship.
“We oppose the indiscriminate mass deportation of people,” the message stated.
In a separate letter to Pope Leo, the bishops said that some migrants now avoid attending church altogether because they fear being questioned or detained. They pledged to continue advocating for “secure and orderly borders” balanced with protections for vulnerable families.
“We support secure and orderly borders and law enforcement actions in response to dangerous criminal activity, but we cannot remain silent in this challenging hour while the right to worship and the right to due process are undermined,” the letter stated.
Homan, a Catholic, countered the bishops’ concerns by arguing that the administration’s strict enforcement policies prevent deaths along the border and curb cartel operations. He pointed to fentanyl overdoses, smuggling networks, and the risks migrants face when entering the country without authorization.
“Secure borders save lives,” Homan said. “I wish the Catholic Church would understand that.”
Homan went on to argue that religious institutions enforce strict limits on access to their properties and that governments should be able to do the same at their borders. “You can’t enter your facility without getting arrested… the penalty for entering your facility is much worse than ours,” he said.
The exchange comes amid widening divisions within the Catholic Church over the Trump administration’s border enforcement policies.
CatholicVote released a new report this week meant to serve as a guide to Catholics who wish to apply Catholic social teaching to the issue. The document argues that strong immigration enforcement can align with Church teaching, and that both justice and concern for the vulnerable on both sides of the Southern border should play a role in forming policy.
Steve Skojeck has some interesting thoughts on the frankenbishops' real motives in promoting the violations our nations sovereign borders:
The frankenbishops are fully in cahoots with the demoncrats soley for the money.
Fixed it.
I like Homan more with every passing day. And I believe he’s right. One should always clean up one’s own backyard before opining on the backyards of otehrs.
The Hispanic population is a huge part of the catholic population. Of course the church is going to support the illegals. As a Catholic I agree with Tom Homan. The Pope should be concerned with shepherding his flock not immigration.
Bishops for human trafficking!
The deportations are quite discriminate; they’re deporting illegal immigrants.
great answer by Homan.
These “religious” leeches get rich off of illegal immigrants. - The churches have become enemies of the country. We should start taxing them.
Where is the Catholic Church when it comes to standing up to the drug cartels? Where is the Catholic Church when it comes to human trafficking, including child trafficking across our borders? Etc. etc.
There is a sacred and spiritual Catholic Church. It’s just not the one these bishops represent.
I immediately was outraged when I saw the soundbites of those Bishops about immigration policy.
Trying to make myself believe it is wrong for me to go to war with all Catholics for this travesty, any more than blaming the local people for the pedophile cases and for covering for Biden and Pelosi to let them promote abortions while hugging them at the Vatican.
I’m a sweet, kind, compassionate man but it may be time to go to war against people who undermine my values.
Probably 3 or 4 times I posted the details on the 40 foot Vatican Wall, the newly intensified Vatican laws against anyone trying to sneak in to emigrate, the Swiss Army and other forces that will shoot to kill if someone crossed the border of Vatican City and refuses to surrender, and the other hypocritical ways the Catholic bosses feel cozy and safe while taking quill in hand to write insults to us.
It ain’t about S.Americans baby. Dumbass. There are are millions of otm in the U.S. and they don’t like us.
The Catholic Church and its minions weren’t worried about deportations when they helped Nazi war criminals escape from Europe through the ratlines.
Total Estimated Funding for Religious NGOs for Migrant/Refugee Services
I am a Catholic and I agree 100% with you. It is infuriating. Take down that wall Pope Leo!
Oh, please.
Is THAT why Rome's chief rabbi converted to Catholicism in 1945? Because Rome was helping Nazis? 🙄
Bishops like these are one reason I’m a lapsed Catholic.
“parishioners skipping Mass”= parishioners skipping the offering plate
Good job Homan. The wheat is being separated from the chaff.
Acts 17:26 From one man He made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and He determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their lands.
In August 1948, Austrian Bishop Alois Hudal took delivery of 5,000 visas for distribution by his branch of the PCA to "anti-communist fighters" from the ranks of Austrian and German soldiers. All they had to do was take their new identity papers to the Red Cross, and they'd receive travel papers. How do you think Adolf Eichmannn got to Argentina?
Eichmann's name was changed to Roberto Klement. His Red Cross passport number 100940 was issued in Genoa on June 1, 1950. Thanks to his landing permit, he qualified for a travel document, but still needed a reference to prove his bonafides in order to get the passport. A Franciscan priest, Father Eduardo Domiter was linked with a former Captain of German Intelligence, called Reinhard Kops who had fled from Austria to Rome at the end of the war. Bishop Hudal appointed Kops to process applications for immigration to Argentina and installed him in the DAIE (Delegación de Asociaciones Israelitas Argentinas: Central Organization of Argentinian Jews) office in Genoa. Once Eichmann got his landing permit, and his refugee passport, he went to the Argentinian Consulate in Genoa, where a visa was stamped on his travel papers. He was issued an identity certificate that he would need for his ID card in Argentina. Once he had his medical exam at the DAIE, he was ready to leave Europe. Once Eichmann was settled in Argentina, his wife had him declared dead. She took back her maiden name, but their two sons remained Eichmanns. She got travel papers for the three of them, and moved to Argentina to be with her husband, where she remained until he was apprehended.
That's also how Josef Mengele got to South America. And our own CIA hired known Nazi war criminals to spy on our "enemies." They helped Klaus Barbie "The Butcher of Lyon" and his family to escape Europe and settle in South America. The CIA even lied about Barbie's whereabouts when French officials were looking to prosecute him for war crimes. They eventually caught up with him. By then the CIA had dropped him like a hot potato because the search for Barbie was heating up. Unfortunately, by the time the French took custody of him, they had ended the death penalty. He was sentenced to life imprisonment, and died 4 years later.
The information I provided is all documented. All you have to do is pick up a book or two that provide sources, to find the facts.
He probably no longer felt safe as a Jew. Many Jews who had survived the holocaust fled Europe and headed to Palestine after the war, for the same reason...they no longer felt safe in Europe.
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