Church warns Trump on illegal immigrants

US bishops are sending warning shots across the bow of the incoming Trump administration, warning the new president and his team that any effort to implement his campaign promise to deport the estimated 10 million undocumented migrants will be met with resistance from Catholic church leaders, writes Michael Sean Winters.

“During the past months the spectre of a massive deportation campaign aimed at ripping more than 10 million undocumented immigrants from their lives and families has realistically emerged as potential federal policy,” Bishop Robert McElroy told a conference on immigration meeting at the University of San Diego. “We must label this policy proposal for what it is – an act of injustice,” he said. The bishop predicted “widespread opposition” to mass deportations.

Archbishop Gregory Aymond of New Orleans said that any immigration reform effort should make family reunification one of its principal goals.“The bottom line is families should remain intact,” he insisted.

Fr Clete Kiley, who is Cardinal Blase Cupich’s delegate at the labour union UNITE HERE, told the Tablet: “The threat to detain and deport a single family member is a threat to the whole fabric of the extended family, and to our parish communities.”