Just 10 days into his second term, President Donald J. Trump signed the Laken Riley Act into law. According to The Associated Press, the law will require law enforcement to detain undocumented immigrants accused of theft and violent crimes.
The law, which won bipartisan support in Congress, broadens the list of charges that would lead to deportation. It is named after Laken Riley, a 22-year-old Augusta University nursing student who was violently murdered by an undocumented immigrant.
“She was a light of warmth and kindness,” Mr. Trump said during a signing ceremony that included Ms. Riley’s parents and sister. “It’s a tremendous tribute to your daughter what’s taking place today, that’s all I can say. It’s so sad we have to be doing it.”
In his first week in office, the Trump administration deported more than 4,000 people to Mexico. Colombia agreed to accept deported migrants after Mr. Trump threatened the country with crippling tariffs. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has initiated a nationwide immigration crackdown.
Pope Francis called Mr. Trump’s plans to carry out mass deportation a disgrace. “It doesn’t work,” the pope said in a television interview on Jan. 20. “Problems are not resolved this way.” Catholic leaders in the United States have likewise criticized Mr. Trump’s executive actions targeting migrants.
But what does the Catholic Church teach about deportation? To begin with, the church recognizes the right of sovereign nations to defend their borders. In some cases, that may include deportations.
“The church is not against deportations per se, but there are several conditions that need to be in place,” according to Kevin Appleby, a senior fellow for policy and communications at the Center for Migration Studies in New York.
For example, the church insists on due process, Mr. Appleby said, and the proceedings should be transparent.
“An immigrant should have the ability to defend their presence in the country, and they can appeal a wrongful decision against them,” he said. “They should also be able to access legal representation to navigate the system.”
Expedited removal, which had been in force in the border regions but which the Trump administration expanded to cover the entire country, allows migrants to be deported without first seeing an immigration judge. According to Mr. Appleby, this limits the ability of migrants to fight deportation.
“It gives law enforcement the ability to bypass the courts and send someone home based on their own judgment,” he said.
Further, Mr. Appleby said, migrants should not be unduly detained, often need not be shackled, and family should be given notice and opportunity to find legal representation.
“Catholic teaching holds that immigration enforcement efforts should be targeted, proportional and humane,” Kristin E. Heyer, a theology professor at Boston College, said in an email to America. Both migrants and citizens should be subject to the legal consequences of their crimes.
“Enforcement mechanisms, including deportations, should focus on genuine dangers and attend to responsibilities to uphold the God-given dignity of all human persons,” she said. “Even in cases of the deportation of migrants who may pose well-founded threats to society, it is important to bear in mind the Catholic tradition upholds a preferential option for the vulnerable, not a preferential option for the innocent.”
In immigrant communities, she said, fears of deportation often deter immigrants from attending medical appointments or reporting domestic violence. Ms. Heyer pointed to the previous Trump administration, during which then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions “framed expanded prosecution procedures for immigrants in terms of threats of law and order.”
The administration’s discourse focused on drug cartels, human smuggling networks and document forgery, she said, a focus that linked immigrant presence to violence in suburban areas.
“Depravity and violence are their calling cards, including brutal machete attacks and beheadings,” Mr. Sessions said in remarks in the border city of Nogales, Ariz., in 2017. “It is here, on this sliver of land, where we first take our stand against this filth.”
Americans seem more influenced by fear than by facts about immigrants’ positive contributions to society, Ms. Heyer said.
“Law-and-order rhetoric, hyperbolized and decontextualized crime reports, and a security-first philosophy cast migrants as dangerous threats in ways that distort reality and dehumanize immigrants,” she said. “Using deportation practices as means of influencing trade and other international relations reduces migrants to pawns on a chessboard, as Pope Francis has decried. Pursuing the common good—including justice for citizens and migrants alike—demands comprehensive attention to root causes, asylum rights, porous borders and human rights that do not depend on citizenship status.”
In an interview on Jesuitical, Kelly Ryan, the executive director of Jesuit Refugee Services USA, expressed her hope that I.C.E. would “prioritize terrorism and very serious crimes” under the leadership of border czar Tom Homan.
“Those people should be removed from the United States. I think all Americans would agree on that,” she said. “If we can keep with [deporting] those [who have committed crimes], I think that would make the American public happier. The idea that the sort of people who overstayed a visa 20 years ago and are deeply embedded in the community, pay taxes and so on—I think there’s less sympathy for removing those people.”
Still, the deportation of violent criminals has at times led to greater problems. Mara Salvatrucha, known simply as “MS-13,” is a gang that traces its origins to Los Angeles. The MS-13 rival gang, “18th Street,” or “Barrio-18,” also originated in L.A. The deportation of gang members to El Salvador, it has been argued, further destabilized the country.
“Deporting a violent gang member who’s committed a murder or a violent crime is not inconsistent with Catholic teaching,” Mr. Appley said. “The church wouldn’t say it’s wrong to do that. But the church also has the position that we have to look at other countries to help stabilize them. How can we address some of these issues in a sending country where there is a lack of a justice system and rampant corruption and the rule of law is weak?”
For years, the U.S. bishops have deplored a lack of legal avenues for legal migration and have called for comprehensive reform. The church is well positioned to offer alternatives to the Trump administration’s plans for mass deportation.
“You’re always going to have situations where an illegal immigrant commits a violent crime,” Appley said, noting statistics indicating immigrant communities are safer. “And in those situations, the church would say, provided due process, that person needs to be removed from society.”
Mr. Appleby said that the right of a sovereign nation to serve the common good of its population can at times be in tension with the universal common good, which the church recognizes for the global community. But there are other paths forward.
Mr. Appleby admitted that the continued presence of undocumented immigrants is problematic, but the church does not focus on deportation as the solution.
“The church would support legalizing a large number of the immigrants that Trump wants to deport,” he said. “The church’s answer is, ‘Let’s integrate immigrants, make them pay their debt to society through a fine, and put them on a path to citizenship.’”
