The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops recently took an opportunity to come out publicly against a decision made by the Trump administration to allow Immigration and Custom Enforcement agents to arrest illegal migrants at what are being referred to as “sensitive sites.” It’s a reversal of an old policy left over from the Obama administration that bans ICE from taking illegal migrants into custody at schools, churches, or hospitals.
After the organization put out their take on President Donald Trump’s immigration policy, Vice President JD Vance, himself a Catholic, ripped into them for their stance on the issue during an interview.
According to The Christian Tribune, the USCCB said that the new policy is responsible for turning places of care, healing, and solace into places of fear and uncertainty for those in need.” The group said that it puts “the trust between pastors” and “the people they serve” at risk. During the interview, Vance expressed his view by saying, “As a practicing Catholic, I was actually heartbroken by that statement.” Vance’s conversion to the Catholic faith is rather recent.
“I think that the US Conference of Catholic Bishops needs to actually look in the mirror a little bit and recognize that when they receive over $100 million to help resettle illegal immigrants. Are they worried about humanitarian concerns? Or are they actually worried about their bottom line?” he stated. “If they’re worried about the humanitarian costs of immigration enforcement, let them talk about the children who have been sex trafficked because of the wide open border of Joe Biden.”
Margaret Brennan, who was moderating the debate, asked Vance if the Catholic Church was “actively hiding criminals from law enforcement.” He responded, “I think the US Conference of Catholic Bishops has, frankly, not been a good partner in common sense immigration enforcement that the American people voted for, and I hope, again, as a devout Catholic, that they’ll do better.”
The official statement concerning the policy, released by the Department of Homeland Security reported, “Acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary Benjamine Huffman issued two directives essential to ending the invasion of the US southern border and empower law enforcement to protect Americans.”
“The first directive rescinds the Biden Administration’s guidelines for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) enforcement actions that thwart law enforcement in or near so-called “sensitive” areas.”
The report then stated that, “Criminals will no longer be able to hide in America’s schools and churches to avoid arrest. The Trump Administration will not tie the hands of our brave law enforcement, and instead trusts them to use common sense.” The report continued to blast the Biden admin and their lax border policy. The report concluded, “The Biden-Harris Administration abused the humanitarian parole program to indiscriminately allow 1.5 million migrants to enter our country. This was all stopped on day one of the Trump Administration.”
The vice president went on to say that the president has “empowered law enforcement to enforce the law everywhere, to protect Americans. “This is a very unique country, and it was founded by some immigrants and some settlers. But just because we were founded by immigrants, doesn’t mean that 240 years later that we have to have the dumbest immigration policy in the world,” he said during the interview.
“I don’t agree that all these immigrants, or all these refugees, have been properly vetted. In fact, we know that there are cases of people who allegedly were properly vetted and then were literally planning terrorist attacks in our country,” the VP told the now infamous Margaret Brennan. “We absolutely cannot unleash thousands of unvetted people into our country,” he finished. “I don’t want my children to share a neighborhood with people who are not properly vetted.”
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That last statement is the one we ought to be paying attention to. For Vance, there’s no such thing as “rules for thee, but not for me.” He wants the best country and culture for his children and thus wants the best for all of us and ours too. Remarkable. It shouldn’t be so shocking to hear that from an elected official, but that’s how corrupt the institution has become.
But now Trump’s in office. Let’s get this thing cleaned up.