“I’m a lifelong Catholic. I’m saying it as not only a border czar. I’ll say it as a Catholic. I think they need to spend time fixing the Catholic Church in my opinion.”
Border czar Tom Homan strongly opposed the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) “special message” on immigration, saying the statement would encourage people to make a dangerous trek to the United States.
Homan told EWTN News on Nov. 14 that the “Catholic Church is wrong. I’m sorry. I’m a lifelong Catholic. I’m saying it as not only a border czar. I’ll say it as a Catholic. I think they need to spend time fixing the Catholic Church in my opinion.”
The bishops approved the message on immigration at the 2025 Fall Plenary Assembly in Baltimore on Nov. 12. “We oppose the indiscriminate mass deportation of people,” the message said.
More than 95% of the American bishops voted to support the message. The bishops said in the message they “are bound to our people by ties of communion and compassion in Our Lord Jesus Christ” and “are saddened by the state of contemporary debate and the vilification of immigrants.”
The bishops’ message cited Scripture such as Luke 10:30-37, referring to the good Samaritan who “lifts us from the dust,” and Matthew 25, in which “we see the One who is found in the least of these.” Floor debate on the measure included bishops’ discussion of “the One” referring to the face of Jesus Christ as seen in the migrant.
“The Church’s concern for neighbor and our concern here for immigrants is a response to the Lord’s command to love as he has loved us (John 13:34),” the statement said.
Homan said: “So according to [the bishops] the message we should send to the whole world is: ‘If you cross the border illegally, which is a crime, don’t worry about it. If you get … removed by a federal judge, that’s due process, don’t worry about it, because there shouldn’t be mass deportations.’”
He added: “If that’s the message we send the whole world, people are still going to put themselves in harm’s way to come to the greatest nation on earth.”
