Catholic experts respond to Pope Francis on repelling migrants being ‘a grave sin’

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Sep 4, 2024 / 06:00 am

Pope Francis delved into the perennially fraught issue of immigration policy last week when he criticized “those who systematically work by all means to drive away migrants,” saying that “this, when done knowingly and deliberately, is a grave sin.”

The Holy Father has often spoken out about the plight of millions of migrants across the globe. Though his most recent remarks specifically involved the migrant situation in the Mediterranean, his words were also seen as controversial in the U.S. because of their severity and because of their timing in the middle of an American presidential election in which the issue looms large.

CNA spoke with several of the country’s leading Catholic immigration experts and advocates to get their reactions. Here’s what they had to say.

The bottom line: ‘We need to create legal pathways’

The pope said: “We can all agree on one thing: Migrants should not be in those seas and in those lethal deserts.”

U.S. Catholic immigration experts and advocates on all sides of the political spectrum agree that the current legal landscape endangers both migrants and border communities. Experts also agree that the U.S. needs to prioritize fixing the situation by creating legal pathways for migrants hoping to enter the country.

“The crucial part of what the pope said is that we need to create lawful pathways so that people don’t have to undertake these dangerous journeys, and with respect to that, I concur,” Andrew Arthur, a former U.S. immigration judge, told CNA.

How to accomplish that goal is where the disagreement begins.

Arthur, currently a resident fellow in law and policy at the Center for Immigration Studies, believes that “if the intention is to recognize the humanity in those people, but at the same time, in the course of doing so, to ameliorate the harm that they are suffering, simply opening the doors and letting them all in isn’t the answer.”

He noted that “as anybody who actually knows anything about the subject will tell you,” the trek to arrive at the U.S. southern border, for example, is “deadly in every way you can imagine.” 

“A majority of people who are smuggled to the southwest border are abused physically in some way; just fewer than a third of all women coming illegally are sexually abused,” he said. “So, it’s incumbent on governments, including this one, not to create an ‘attractive nuisance’ that encourages people to undertake a deadly trek to this country.”

“Pope Francis here is really saying: If you attempt to repel these people, you’re going to make them suffer, you’re going to make it more likely that they’re going to die. And there is logic to that argument,” Arthur went on. “So together with our international or regional partners, it’s incumbent upon the United States to craft a policy to ensure the people are safe but also to ensure that the laws are enforced.”

“The United States has the right, as a sovereign nation, to put restrictions on the number of people and which people it allows in each year, and nobody would dispute that. And I don’t think the pope and his statements are disputing them,” Arthur said. 

Message to U.S. Border Patrol agents: ‘You’re doing good work’

In the view of Paul Hunker, a former ICE counsel turned immigration attorney in Dallas, the U.S. currently “does not allow enough legal immigration.”

“One of the points Pope Francis has been making, and I totally agree with it, is that welcoming the stranger is not only something in justice and charity we should do, but it’s good for our country,” Hunker said.

“Our system needs a big reform of its immigration laws to facilitate a lot more legal immigration,” Hunker told CNA.

“Our immigration laws can make it really hard for someone who may have a small immigration violation to get their green card, even if they’ve been married many years, even if they have a lot of kids. Sometimes they can’t get it at all because of past illegal entrance or immigration problems,” he explained.

However, Hunker said he did not think the pope was making “a categorical statement about border protection and border walls in general.” 

“I would tell my friends in Border Patrol that you’re doing good, noble work, and I don’t think Pope Francis would say otherwise,” he said. “I think what the pope is saying is something that I’ve written and talked about: We need a system that allows people to present their claims … This doesn’t mean everyone should be let into the country, but we need to have a system to allow people to make those claims and claim protection.”

The pope’s message was a ‘Gospel-based cry for humanity’

Dylan Corbett, executive director of an El-Paso-based Catholic nonprofit the Hope Border Institute, called the pope’s message a “deep, Gospel-based cry for humanity and compassion for people who need to migrate.”

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“This is the voice of Peter, calling the world’s attention to God present in those who are displaced because of poverty, war, and violence,” Corbett said.

Corbett said he recently accompanied several bishops from North and Central America and the Caribbean to visit the Darien Gap, a key crossing point for migrants from Central America traveling northward.

“I was inspired by the commitment and moral urgency of the bishops, who were clearly transformed by the humanity and hope of people migrating there. These are people who have been completely abandoned by governments and the international community,” Corbett said. 

“As a faith community, our response to migration in our day is part of how we live the Gospel of Jesus Christ, God who calls us to compassion, and to build a world worthy of his love for the poor,” he said. “For those with the privilege and responsibility to vote, we bring the demands of the Gospel when we go to the voting booth, we bring the suffering of the poor, the needs of families and the unborn, and we bring our hopes and aspirations for a more just world.”

Not so black and white

Edward Feser, a Catholic philosopher and professor at Pasadena City College, told CNA that the pope’s comments “must be read in light of the long-standing teaching of the Church.”

“As St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas taught, though we have duties to all our fellow human beings, our strongest and most immediate obligations are to those who are closest to us, such as our own families and countrymen,” he said. “Hence, when nations enforce their immigration laws, there is nothing in this that is necessarily at odds with Catholic teaching. On the contrary, the catechism backs them up on this.”

Feser explained that the catechism states that nations are obliged to take in immigrants “to the extent they are able” and that nations may put “juridical conditions” on immigration. 

However, Feser said there are sometimes “cases where a nation should forgo its right to deport those who enter it illegally,” such as in cases that would break up families or return migrants to dangerous conditions in their home countries.

“Governments should take account of this when formulating and enforcing policy,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean that deportation as such is wrong, but only that governments must be careful about the manner in which it is carried out.