By CatholicVote | Created at 2025-01-15 18:07:42 | Updated at 2025-01-15 21:11:37
3 hours ago
Did you catch the JD Vance interview on FOX?
The Vice President-elect offered one of the clearest – and most Catholic – arguments for addressing illegal immigration I’ve heard.
There’s no doubt that Americans handed the incoming Trump-Vance administration a mandate when it comes to immigration: Solve the border crisis.
But the big question remains: how?
Catholics in America are clearly conflicted over this. As a body, we share the same goals for the border crisis. We want peace. We want to welcome legal migrants to this great nation. We want to offer help to legitimate refugees.
But we disagree – passionately – on the means to get there.
The Catholic Church does not offer a specific policy solution – nor does it forbid particular policies like deportation. No one has a monopoly on the “right answer” to the chaos and suffering the Biden-Harris open border has unleashed on our country.
While the Church doesn’t dictate immigration policies, it does offer guidance. The Catechism affirms that nations have the right to regulate borders and enforce laws for the sake of the common good.
As Vance put it, “President Biden has left us an absolute dumpster fire at the southern border.”
We aren’t even in a place to be negotiating legal immigration policies until we shut down the tsunami of illegal immigration.
He made it plain: there are hundreds of thousands – maybe over a million – illegal immigrants who have committed acts of violence.
They have to go. And nothing in Catholic social teaching forbids their deportation.
In fact, Christian charity demands it.
It’s not compassionate to look the other way while cartels traffic small children.
It’s not merciful to let gangs overrun neighborhoods.
It’s not just to allow violence to go unchecked in the name of “welcoming the stranger.”
A country that can’t enforce its most basic laws soon won’t be in a position to practice compassion, charity, or mercy for anyone. Because there won’t be any country left.
American citizens get it. Now even our elected representatives are finally starting to wake up to this basic fact of civil society.
The USCCB’s latest report on “Catholic Elements of Immigration Reform” actually prescribes what JD Vance is calling for: enforcement that is “targeted, proportional, and humane.”
Even Democrats are cosponsoring bills to jumpstart this process. The bipartisan Laken Riley Act – named for the young nursing student murdered by an illegal alien with a criminal history – passed the Senate last week with an astounding 84-9 vote.
Even Chuck Schumer voted for the bill.
The bill has come due at the border… and thank God America’s politicians are waking up and putting party politics aside to address the humanitarian crisis at our southern border.
They’re starting to realize what we’ve been saying all along: their first responsibility is to the American people.
It’s about time.
