El Paso bishop calls Catholics to advocate against ‘morally indefensible’ actions toward migrants

U.S. Catholics must advocate for a humane immigration system at a time when the federal government is taking a number of “morally indefensible” actions towards migrants and immigrants, according to Bishop Mark J. Seitz of El Paso, Texas.

“Since Inauguration Day earlier this year, the current administration has taken a number of aggressive actions to restrict migration and to target immigrants already living in our country,” said Bishop Seitz, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops committee on migration. “The scope of these actions is extensive. This includes the effective and total suspension of asylum and international protection at our border, the ending of the U.S. commitment to refugees around the world and the suspension of key areas of humanitarian assistance, both at the border and abroad, including aid intended to mitigate forced migration. Within the country, consistent with campaign promises to enact the largest deportation in America history, the administration is laying down infrastructure to make these promises a reality.”

Bishop Seitz made his remarks on April 22 as part of the annual Cardinal Bernardin Common Cause lecture hosted by the Hank Center for the Catholic Intellectual Heritage in Coffee Hall at Loyola University of Chicago.

He decried the end of the longstanding “sensitive locations” policy, under which immigration enforcement actions would not be undertaken at schools, churches, hospitals and other such places except in emergencies, the detention of immigrants in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and in a prison in El Salvador, the plans for large detention camps in the United States and the creation of new “punitive and restrictive” laws in many U.S. states and cities.

Bishop Seitz said he is especially concerned about cooperative agreements between federal immigration authorities and local and state law enforcement agencies.

“These agreements vitiate community trust when one segment of the population feels they cannot count on law enforcement not to deport them or a close relative or a friend,” he said. “Victims will not call, and everyone will be less safe.”

While the situation has worsened quickly under President Donald Trump, political leaders of both parties have neglected the need for immigration reform for decades, Bishop Seitz said.

“We must find a solution that goes beyond the technocratic, the political, the economic, one that recognizes the historic debt we have as a country, which has generated and generates migration, which has benefited and benefits from the work of migrants, and which is part of a global community,” he said. “Of course, we failed to do this for generations now, and there are repercussions for our country, for our economy, both for our political economy and our moral economy. 
In recent years, our ability to reach comprehensive immigration reform has opened up a space for a racialized politics of exclusion, a recurring and dangerous dynamic in our nation's political history. In the social tinder box in which we find ourselves as a country right now, there must be a credible response of faith.”

At the same time, many, if not most, Americans do not understand the reality of life at the border.

“Most Americans think of the border in binary terms,” he said. “There is a ‘here’ and ‘there’ and a thick, impenetrable membrane between the two. But if you visit the border, you soon realize that isn't really the case at all, despite the steel walls and harsh immigration policies. Reality is much more fluid. We are bound to our community on the other side of the border by ties of history, culture, language and family. People cross every day to be with family, to work, to trade and to worship.”

The area around El Paso, located in southwest Texas just across the border from Ciudad Juarez, has seen waves of migrating people for centuries, since long before the United States was a country.

“What we have learned over the centuries is that migration need not be a threatening reality, but an enriching reality,” he said. “When the movement of people is embraced conscientiously as an opportunity for human encounter, this crossing of paths is deeply fulfilling and charged with meaning. 
This is the culture of encounter that our Holy Father [the late Pope Francis] has underlined so forcefully since the beginning of his pontificate.”

Bishop Seitz, who has been bishop of El Paso for 12 years, said he has seen a vein of deep compassion and hospitality on both sides of the border. Catholics must tap into that.

In the short term, he called for all U.S. dioceses to make efforts to help immigrants know their rights, and to help connect people to legal and human services when they need them. Local Catholic leaders should work with their local government and law enforcement leaders to encourage them to focus on the actual safety of the community, including immigrant members of the community.

Everyone should be involved, he said.

“There is a role for everyone, and we have to include everyone,” Bishop Seitz said. “This is an opportunity to put synodality into practice. There is work in grassroots education, outreach and mutual aid right now, and all our parishes and parishioners can be involved in this work. This work is too fundamental to the church and society to limit it to the ranks of professionals.”

Catholics also must bring their efforts to the attention of the public to offer a counter narrative to the ones that use “dystopian rhetoric” to unfairly cast immigrants as criminals.

“Visible messages of hate and marginalization are in the public square and on social media,” he said. “The public and our people need to see in a clear way that there is a Christian alternative. The way of love cannot be hidden under a bushel basket. It has to be embodied, incarnate in public. In my own diocese, this has meant public processions and vigils and solidarity with migrants over the past several years, as well as concerted efforts to work with our priests so that there is an affirmative message of solidarity and truth coming from the pulpit.”

In the longer term, he said, Catholics must work to restore the narrative of a civic life directed toward the common good. The past three months have seen the end of partnerships between the U.S. government and religious and civic organizations, a flurry of executive orders aimed at reshaping American society and arguments against due process for vulnerable immigrants.

“All of this raises critical questions about the health of our democracy,” Bishop Seiz said. “What we see is that this dysfunctional approach in operation is driven by the deeper crisis of public and social life. On a fundamental level, these are signs that we are losing the story of who we are as a country. This is a crisis of narrative. Are we no longer a country of immigrants? Are we no longer a country that values the dignity of the human person? individual liberties? And with the healthy regard for checks and balances?”

The antidote, he said, is to share the Gospel.

“The Gospel must generate culture,” Bishop Seitz said. “The Good News has to be translated and made real. It must be incarnate our times, not in a notional way, but in a real, tangible way that generates hope for ordinary people, and particularly through an encounter. People need to see Jesus.”