Two American cardinals and the Vatican’s ambassador to the U.S. decried what they described as mass deportations tied to the federal government’s immigration crackdown in Minnesota, while urging reconciliation and what they called humane solutions for migrants caught in the enforcement surge.
Speaking Friday in St. Paul, Cardinal Robert McElroy of Washington addressed growing concerns about immigration enforcement during a Mass for migrants that he celebrated with other Catholic leaders in the Twin Cities. McElroy described the winter’s enforcement surge as “almost a siege” unfolding “literally the heartland of our country,” and he urged the church and the broader community to act as peacemakers on an issue he said has polarized public life.
McElroy said Catholic teaching supports the nation’s right to control its border and, in these cases, to deport people who have been convicted of serious crimes. He then argued that the broader push—what he described as seeking to deport millions of men and women and children, including families who have lived in the U.S. for decades—conflicts with Catholic faith and with basic human dignity.
McElroy joined Cardinal Joseph Tobin of Newark, New Jersey, and Cardinal Christophe Pierre, the apostolic nuncio to the United States, along with Archbishop Bernard Hebda and dozens of other bishops for the Mass. The service was held in the chapel of the University of St. Thomas, where the clergy were attending a conference.
Pierre said in remarks at the Mass that he was “very proud, personally” to see the church “be on the side of those who suffer.” He added that Pope Leo XIV agreed with the U.S. bishops’ support for migrants.
Hebda used his homily to describe what he called the fear that migrant communities faced when they were too afraid to come to church during this winter’s immigration crackdown in the Twin Cities. He referenced “ masked men ”—describing them as a reference to federal law enforcement—and said that violence erupted as enforcement activity intensified.
Hebda also urged Catholics in the pews—including seminarians, members of the college community and school principals—to practice kindness and focus on peace. He preached that “That ministry of reconciliation has to be ours, in the Twin Cities and around the world,” framing reconciliation as a task for the church’s daily work.
The Mass unfolded against a backdrop of heightened tensions around immigration enforcement in Minnesota. The state drew national attention as an enforcement surge brought thousands of federal officers into daily confrontations with activists and protesters, and earlier in the year two U.S. citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, were killed in Minneapolis.
In the immediate aftermath of the fatal shootings, Hebda highlighted the need “to lower the temperature of rhetoric” and “to rid our hearts of the hatreds and prejudices that prevent us from seeing each other as brothers and sisters.” In that message, he said that the need for those changes applied “for our undocumented neighbors” as much as for “the men and women who have the unenviable responsibility of enforcing our laws.”
Friday’s remarks returned to that theme of praying for everyone affected by the turmoil, extending concern beyond migrants and those assisting them to the federal enforcement personnel as well. McElroy referred to “the ICE men and women, too,” as the leaders said they all need to engage in healing and reconciliation, which Hebda and the other prelates said would take time.
Asked whether Catholics—many of whom voted for President Donald Trump in 2024—might view advocacy for migrants as involving the church in politics, Tobin and the other prelates said religion and politics both should be oriented toward the good of society. Tobin said the first allegiance is to God alone, but he added that Scripture exhorts people to do no harm to the foreigner and to welcome the stranger as part of loving one’s neighbor.
The prelates also connected their stance to earlier papal teaching. They said advocacy for migrants was a priority for the late Pope Francis, who criticized U.S. border policies that Trump supported when Trump was still a presidential candidate a decade ago, and they said that under Leo, the Catholic Church has continued to call for humane treatment of immigrants worldwide and for immigration reform in the United States.
Hebda previously said in January that the longer the country refuses to grapple with immigration policy in political life, the more divisive and violent it becomes. In additional remarks, McElroy and Tobin, alongside Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago, criticized the Trump administration in a January statement, saying U.S. military action in Venezuela, threats over Greenland and cuts in foreign aid risked bringing “vast suffering” rather than peace.