Immigrants: Our Neighbors, Friends and Fellow Believers
When I was a boy, we children sometimes asked one another: “What are you?” It wasn’t a question about our sex or what position we played in baseball or soccer; it was a question about where our family had come from. “I’m Irish,” someone would answer. “My family came from Italy,” another would chime in. “I’m half English and half Polish,” a third would say. We were aware that our families had come from other countries – sometimes our parents or our grandparents or other ancestors farther back in time.
We children were aware of a truth that some Americans today have forgotten: we are all immigrants or the descendants of immigrants. African Americans, whose ancestors were brought here in chains, have made strenuous efforts to discover their origins on the African continent. Even our indigenous tribes, here for millennia, came from immigrants who crossed over to the Americas from Asia. So important has immigration been in our country’s history that a major exhibit at the Smithsonian Institution, our national museum, during our Bicentennial in 1976 was entitled “A Nation of Nations.”
Why do people leave their homeland, where they know the language, the climate, the culture and their land’s history and have multiple ties to family and friends? Sometimes because of threats to their safety. A woman in my last parish had a small store in El Salvador. The local gang told her they would protect her if she gave them half her profit. She said she didn’t want their protection and refused their demand, so they killed her brother. She closed her store and came to the United States. Can you blame her?
Sometimes there is religious persecution. Thousands of Christians have left Iraq and Syria because they are persecuted for their faith. A priest in Iraq, a friend of a priest who served with me a few years ago, was murdered by Islamic State terrorists in his church. Many of the parishioners fled the country. Can you blame them?
Extreme poverty can prompt an exodus from all that is familiar. The Great Famine in Ireland in the middle of the 19th century caused many to leave their homeland, including my great grandparents, Thomas and Mary Farrell. They were afraid of starving to death, so they saved and borrowed money to pay for passage to the US. Can you blame them?
There is great concern today over illegal immigration. Contrary to what many assume, most immigrants – 77% – are in this country legally. Of all foreign-born residents, 49% have become US citizens, 24% have permanent residency (“green cards”), 4% have legal temporary residency and 23% are undocumented or illegal. Another way to look at it is that about 14.3% of all people living in this country now are foreign-born; but those here without government permission are about 3.5% of the total population. (See Pew Research Center bulletin for September, 2024.)
The Catholic Church recognizes the right and the duty of governments to regulate their borders to protect their citizens and promote their well-being. So, the federal government has the duty to bring order to its borders and has every right to expel murderers, rapists, drug cartel members and dealers, human traffickers, terrorists and others who harm or could harm our people.
At the same time, the government’s right is not absolute. God said to the first human beings, representing our entire race: Fill the earth and subdue it [Genesis 1:28]. God gave the earth to the whole human race; national borders are a secondary human creation. Second, people have a right to go elsewhere if they are living in intolerable conditions. So, governments, especially those in large, rich countries like the United States, should exercise their responsibility humanely and be generous in responding to those who, in distress, must leave their homelands.
When immigrants arrive here, we Catholics try to meet their needs for food, clothing, lodging and other necessities. God says to us: You shall not molest or oppress an alien, for you were once aliens yourselves in the land of Egypt [Exodus 22:20]. In our situation, that means: “Treat the immigrant fairly and with compassion; your ancestors were immigrants, too.” The child Jesus was a refugee in Egypt, fleeing King Herod [Matthew 2:13]. The adult Lord says to us: I was a stranger and you welcomed me, hungry and you fed me, naked and you clothed me [Matthew 25:35-36]. Our initial concern as Catholics is not the immigrant’s legal status but his human need. We will listen to our Lord and welcome the stranger.
Vice-President Vance recently criticized us bishops for helping to resettle refugees. Consider this: the federal government investigates those applying for refugee status and, for those it approves, it contracts with groups such as Catholic Charities to get them settled in our country. The government pays for these services – often in arrears –but the funds received do not cover all of the cost; the Church loses several millions of dollars each year to help resettle refugees. We do it as an act of mercy, following the Lord’s teaching [Catholic News Agency, February 3, 2025].
As I have pointed out before, the fundamental problem is that immigration to this country is a very lengthy and cumbersome process. Someone wanting to marry a US citizen often must wait three years to get a visa to enter the United States. While foreign professionals with advanced degrees or exceptional talents can enter more quickly, ordinary people who just want to work to provide food for themselves and their families must often wait fifteen years (See Stilt, April 10, 2024). You could starve to death or be put in jail for your political or religious beliefs by then. People in desperate situations take the risk of coming here without legal papers.
The way forward, which we Catholic bishops have been advocating for decades, is to reform the immigration process so that it is simpler and more expeditious. It is instructive that in the period of greatest immigration, the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the government’s process for allowing in immigrants was much quicker and easier to follow. At that time, Ellis Island in New York Harbor received millions of immigrants, of whom 98% were admitted. The sick were hospitalized and admitted when they got well. Only anarchists, prostitutes and the insane were excluded. (Brochure of the National Park Service at Ellis Island.) Like the householder who can bring out of his storeroom both the old and the new (Matthew 13:52), our civil government should consider past practice and adapt accordingly.
The current presidential administration has adopted some policies with regard to immigration that are acceptable in Catholic teaching: a reasonable approach to putting order at the nation’s borders, deporting true criminals. But any policies that would separate parents from their children or deny American citizenship to children born here or engage in massive deportation efforts, which will not only hurt ordinary immigrants but the US economy as well, should be abandoned. A basic medical principle is: Do no harm. The government should apply that principle in its immigration policies.
What are you? You are an immigrant or the descendant of immigrants. Show respect and fraternal welcome to those coming to our shores today. You will honor your God and your ancestors.
Sincerely in Christ,
+Mark E. Brennan
Bishop of Wheeling-Charleston