Congress has, after much debate and delay, passed a sprawling budget bill, colloquially termed the “big beautiful” bill. Among other expenditures, the bill devotes roughly $46.5 billion to new segments of the border wall, along with another approximately $120 billion to other Department of Homeland Security and immigration-enforcement infrastructure, including the expansion of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE). 

Currently, approximately 706 miles of the roughly 1,954-mile U.S.-Mexico border is covered by a wall, fence or other form of barrier, including parts of the Rio Grande River. 

The new bill would allocate funding for a significant expansion amounting to 701 miles of primary wall, 629 miles of parallel secondary fencing, 141 miles of vehicle and pedestrian barriers, and 900 miles of river barriers, similar to those deployed by Texas in the Rio Grande in 2023.

Supporters tout the allocation of funds as one more concrete phase in President Donald Trump’s response to a decades-long problem at the southern border with Mexico. Meanwhile, critics see an enforcement-only strategy that treats vulnerable people as problems to be walled off.
Among the latter are a number of Catholic bishops whose recent statements, though stemming from differing diocesan experiences and practical realities, converge on a core moral judgment: A policy that predictably increases human suffering is contrary to both the Gospel and the social teaching of the Church on human dignity and rights. 

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2241, affirms a nation’s right to regulate its borders and safeguard the communities within them, when it states, “Political authorities ... may make the exercise of the right to immigrate subject to various juridical conditions.”

According to the Catechism, nations may also require that immigrants fulfill certain civic duties and laws, when it teaches, “Immigrants are obliged to respect with gratitude the material and spiritual heritage of the country that receives them, to obey its laws and to assist in carrying civic burdens.” 

Yet Catholic teaching includes more than this. The Catechism also states, “The more prosperous nations are obliged, to the extent they are able, to welcome the foreigner in search of the security and the means of livelihood which he cannot find in his country of origin. Public authorities should see to it that the natural right is respected that places a guest under the protection of those who receive him” (2241).

 

Deterrence by Danger Is Immoral

On June 26, Cardinals Robert McElroy of Washington, D.C., and Joseph Tobin of Newark, New Jersey, joined 18 other bishops and numerous faith leaders in signing a letter urging Congress to reject the measure, warning that the wall “will drive migrants into the most remote regions of the border and lead to an increase in migrant deaths.”

The new letter repeats that a wall “would hurt the local environment … and force desperate asylum-seekers … to increasingly rely on human smugglers.” The principal concern is the fatal displacement sure to follow.

In an interview with CNN July 3, Cardinal McElroy doubled down.

“It’s right to be able to control our borders. However, what’s going on now is something far beyond that,” the cardinal said. “It is a mass, indiscriminate deportation of men and women and children and families which literally rips families apart and is intended to do so.”

“This is simply not only incompatible with Catholic teaching; it’s inhumane and is morally repugnant,” he added.

 

Echoing Bishop Seitz
Cardinal McElroy’s pressing concerns echo what Bishop Mark Seitz of El Paso, Texas, chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Migration, stated in 2023.
“We have long opposed the construction of a wall spanning the entire U.S.-Mexico border, especially with the dangers it poses to human life and the environment.”

The bishops in 2023 called the earlier Secure the Border Act, which had parallel provisions for detention and criminalization as well as funding for a border wall, “incompatible with Catholic social teaching” and inconsistent “with our nation’s broadly bipartisan commitment to humanitarian protection.”

Bishop Seitz concluded, “No combination of legal pathways or harsh enforcement measures will suffice. … Only … addressing root causes and promoting integral human development throughout the Americas, combined with an overhaul of our immigration system, will we be able to achieve the conditions necessary to sustainably reduce irregular migration.”

 

Colorado and Arizona Bishops Weigh In

Similarly, the bishops from Colorado, while condemning an open-border policy, noted that waiting for temporary or permanent immigration applications to be approved “takes years and is expensive,” which is “not conducive for families who need to migrate quickly to sustain their lives.” They encouraged government officials to “welcome the stranger” as well as taking responsibility to “ensure the safety and well-being of local communities.”

Two bishops from Arizona, Bishops John Dolan, of Phoenix, and Edward Weisenburger, formerly of Tucson but now shepherd of Detroit, likewise expressed their “grave concern” over the “mistreatment of undocumented persons who are our neighbors” at the end of 2024. They joined with a group of 10 Christian leaders in publishing a column in the AZ Central newspaper, which stated, “while we recognize the lawful right of nations to monitor and control their borders, we also recognize that in many ways our current U.S. immigration laws do not uphold individuals’ rights to a dignified life, family unity, and safety.”

 

Secure Borders — and Care for the Immigrant

Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York had weighed in earlier in the year, calling the United States a “nation with a proud legacy of welcome to immigrants” that also “needs safe, secure borders.” At the same time, he insisted the Church “should not be blasted for simply obeying the Bible and caring for those immigrants” who seek to navigate what he labeled a “clumsy, fractured” immigration system.

Los Angeles Archbishop José Gomez framed the bill within a politics prone to instrumentalize and dehumanize the most vulnerable. In a June 17 essay for Angelus News, he wrote: “We may agree that the previous administration in Washington went too far in not securing our borders and in permitting far too many people to enter our country without vetting. But the current administration has offered no immigration policy beyond the stated goal of deporting thousands of people each day. This is not policy, it is punishment, and it can only result in cruel and arbitrary outcomes.”
Archbishop Gomez noted in his op-ed, “The last reform of our immigration laws was in 1986.” He added, “It is time for a new national conversation about immigration, one that is realistic and makes necessary moral and practical distinctions.” 

On the same day as the interfaith letter, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) addressed senators directly. A letter from Archbishop Timothy Broglio, the conference’s president, builds on a letter from May and provides a more mixed response than that of the 20 bishops who signed the interfaith letter. It praises parts of the bill, such as its provisions that “support parental choice in education” and cuts to federal funding for Planned Parenthood, yet also offers a heavy critique of portions of the bill that “harm the poor and vulnerable,” such as cuts to food-assistance programs and health care.

In a statement accompanying the letter, Archbishop Broglio said the bill “takes from the poor to give to the wealthy … and fails to protect families by promoting an enforcement-only approach to immigration.”

The Challenge of Immigration

Three bishops from the border state of New Mexico added their voices to those of their brother bishops. In their letter, Archbishop John Wester of Santa Fe, Bishop Peter Baldacchino of Las Cruces and Bishop James Wall of Gallup point out that the U.S. immigration system is currently “broken and in need of reform,” adding, “many who arrive to our nation are forced to migrate because of oppression and persecution [as] ... victims of smugglers, human traffickers, and drug cartels. They suffer severe economic hardship and simply want to support their families with dignity.” 

Since the preeminent pillar of Catholic social teaching is the dignity of the human person, the bishops therefore decry a plan to mass deport those who have “built equities in our communities and pose no threat ... to humanitarian principles and to our national interest.” They urge lawmakers to instead prioritize “bipartisan negotiations to repair the U.S. immigration system.”

In 2019 in Brownsville, Texas, a proposed wall section was set to slice through diocesan property. Brownsville Bishop Daniel Flores told The Wall Street Journal in forceful terms, “I don’t want to use church property to say that no matter how dire your life is, you cannot be received here. ... The government is going to have to take the land. The church is not going to give it to them.” The wall, he insisted, would hinder the Church’s ministry and witness to Christ the refugee.

The bishops together make clear that border security and human dignity are not opposing goals, but complementary responsibilities. While the official stance of the USCCB is in opposition to a fortified wall on our southern border, the bishops of the United States support humane enforcement of the nation’s laws, while respecting the rights of migrants. They call on Congress to reform what has long been deemed a fractured system, leaving many of the root causes of immigration untouched. 

Whether Congress heeds that counsel will determine not only the fate of millions, but also its moral credibility in the years ahead.