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Tom Homan: Pro-illegal immigrant bishops ‘need to spend time fixing Catholic Church’

November 15, 2025 | | Print Article

Tom Homan had a special message of his own in response to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ statement on immigration, as both border czar and a lifelong Catholic.

“The Catholic Church is wrong.”

Conservatives often find themselves having to make the technical correction against open border zealots that it is not immigration that is widely opposed, so much as it is illegal immigration. Now, after the USCCB issued a Special Pastoral Message in line with Pope Leo’s seeming rebuke of President Donald Trump’s mass deportation efforts, Homan challenged the Church to fix itself and let the government handle enforcing its national sovereignty.

Speaking from outside the White House Friday, the border czar was asked about the message on immigration which he summarized, “So, according to them, the message which is sent to the world is: if you cross the border illegally, which is a crime, don’t worry about it. If you get ordered removed by a federal judge after due process, don’t worry about it cause their shouldn’t be mass deportations.”

“Is that the message we send the whole world?” Homan asked.

As the bishops gathered for the Fall Plenary Assembly in Baltimore, Maryland, this week, the message had been approved with a vote of 216 in favor, five opposed, and three abstaining, in the anonymous process.

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“As pastors, we the bishops of the United States are bound to our people by ties of communion and compassion in Our Lord Jesus Christ. We are disturbed when we see among our people a climate of fear and anxiety around questions of profiling and immigration enforcement,” began the first such message from the USCCB since 2013 over the inclusion of a contraception mandate in the Affordable Care Act.

“We are saddened by the state of contemporary debate and the vilification of immigrants. We are concerned about the conditions in detention centers and the lack of access to pastoral care. We lament that some immigrants in the United States have arbitrarily lost their legal status,” continued the statement that favored all familiar talking points about the border crisis. “We are troubled by threats against the sanctity of houses of worship and the special nature of hospitals and schools. We are grieved when we meet parents who fear being detained when taking their children to school and when we try to console family members who have already been separated from their loved ones.”

“Secure borders save lives,” asserted Homan. “I wish the Catholic Church would understand that.”

He was quick to remind that the sovereign state of the Vatican heavily enforces its borders within the confines of Rome as part of a mic drop that ended, “I’m saying it not only as the border czar, I’ll say it as a Catholic. I think they need to spend time fixing the Catholic Church.”

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As for the bishops’ message, which voiced opposition to “indiscriminate mass deportation” and prayed for the “end to dehumanizing rhetoric and violence, whether directed at immigrants or at law enforcement,” its reliance on Church teaching about dignity lacked details about Church teaching specifically regarding immigration and sovereign rights.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church details, “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.”

It goes on to state, “Political authorities, for the sake of the common good for which they are responsible, may make the exercise of the right to immigrate subject to various juridical conditions, especially with regard to the immigrants’ duties toward their country of adoption. 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 [emphasis added].”

Amid the criticisms of the Church, which had taken no such stance against draconian lockdowns that robbed the faithful of access to the Eucharist and equally remained silent during President Joe Biden’s administration as anti-Christian Marxist ideologies permeated all areas of society, it’s worth noting that the USCCB had filed suit against the State Department earlier in the year after funding had been cut off for refugee resettlement, leading to the termination of cooperative agreements with the government.

Reacting directly to the video message from the bishops, The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh called out their past silence, “I don’t recall the bishops making any sort of video like this to condemn the Biden White House for supporting, funding, and facilitating the mass slaughter of children in the womb. I also can’t remember seeing any video with solemn condemnations of the Biden White House and its support for the castration and sexual mutilation of children.”

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“That’s in spite of the fact that Biden is actually ‘Catholic’ and he was actively engaged in activities that are explicitly condemned as mortally sinful by the Church,” he went on. “Trump is neither Catholic nor is he doing anything, policy wise, that contradicts Church teaching. Deportations certainly do not. And yet the bishops suddenly find their voice and their courage for this issue. Very strange indeed.”

In response, Daily Wire contributor and Holy See Press Office-accredited investigative journalist Bree A Dail reminded that the USCCB is under investigation for the alleged use of taxpayer funds to incentivize and facilitate illegal immigration, “placing our homeland security at risk and encouraging unprecedented levels of human trafficking and smuggling.”

Kevin Haggerty
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