An Examination of Conscience for Immigration Enforcement, Part 1
"I confess to you my brothers and sisters."
According to Bishop Michael Pham of San Diego, Pope Leo XIV’s first episcopal appointment in the United States, an attorney responsible for representing the US government in immigration cases approached the bishop in the restroom of the federal courthouse in San Diego and told him that he had a conflicted conscience regarding his work. Bishop Pham, along with several Catholic priests and other faith leaders, was present at the courthouse to accompany immigrants there for court hearings, not least because Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents nationwide have begun waiting in courthouse hallways, arresting and detaining people as they leave their hearings. The government attorney likely felt conflicted about his role in implementing the Trump administration’s “mass deportation” policies which have significantly ramped up in recent weeks. Bishop Pham did not reveal what he told the attorney in response, but the encounter demonstrates not only the power of conscience to shine through in dark circumstances, but also the potential of the Church, here represented by Pham, as a guide for those struggling with their consciences.
This anonymous federal attorney is not the first to experience the pangs of conscience. In early April, Erez Reuveni, a US Department of Justice attorney, was responsible for arguing for the US government in the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Salvadoran immigrant deported to El Salvador and imprisoned in that country’s notorious Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) despite a judge’s ruling that Abrego Garcia could not be deported to El Salvador. Rather than try to justify the US government’s actions and argue that Abrego Garcia could not be returned to the US, Reuveni admitted to the judge in the case, Paula Xinis, that the government had made an error in deporting Abrego Garcia and that the DOJ had not provided him with an adequate explanation for why Abrego Garcia could not be returned. For admitting the truth—and avoiding potential censure for deceiving the court—Reuveni was placed on administrative leave and eventually fired by US Attorney General Pam Bondi. Reuveni’s commitment to the truth stands in contrast to the actions of the federal attorneys in the case of several Venezuelans likewise deported to El Salvador and detained in CECOT; these attorneys repeatedly obfuscated the facts regarding the deportation flights that left for El Salvador despite a judge’s order that the detainees must be allowed to stay in the US pending judicial review of the case. Needless to say, they are still employed at the DOJ.
Reuveni is not the only federal attorney involved in Abrego Garcia’s case to make professional sacrifices. When the US government finally orchestrated Abrego Garcia’s return to the US earlier this month (belying their earlier argument that they could not), the Department of Justice immediately charged him with human smuggling based on a 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee that at the time did not lead to any criminal charges. Ben Schrader, the chief of the criminal division at the US Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Tennessee, resigned over the questionable circumstances of Abrego Garcia’s indictment. Among other things, the case was only opened in April, when Abrego Garcia’s deportation and detention in El Salvador was being challenged in court, and the indictment is based on the testimony of witnesses facing charges themselves—in some cases worse than those with which Abrego Garcia is charged—and who received favors in return for their testimony.
It is also not only attorneys who are wrestling with their consciences. In April, I recounted the story of Melanie Krause, the former acting commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, who resigned rather than sign on to an agreement for the IRS to share taxpayer data with the Department of Homeland Security to assist with immigration enforcement. I am not aware of any instances where ICE, Customs and Border Protection (CBP), or Border Patrol personnel have resigned or refused orders as a matter of conscience, but I would not be surprised if there are not a few law enforcement personnel who have experienced pangs of conscience similar to those of the attorney who reached out to Bishop Pham.
In that April article, I pointed to the US Catholic bishops’ 1983 pastoral letter The Challenge of Peace, which focuses particularly on the ethics of the development and potential use of nuclear weapons, where the bishops state that the Church should be a Community of Conscience. This means that the Church must encourage its members to be disciples of Christ willing to make sacrifices for the sake of faithfulness, form members’ consciences with moral teachings, foster spiritual conversion, create opportunities for prayer and discernment, and promote penance for social evils and our participation in them.
The pastoral letter also calls for examination of conscience from those who are involved in the manufacture and potential use of nuclear weapons: those employed in the defense industry, scientists, military personnel, and government officials, among others. I summarized the letter’s treatment of this issue here. I believe that it would be helpful for the US Catholic Church today to call for a similar examination of conscience for those involved in some way in implementing immigration policy. As I noted this past week, in recent statements the US bishops have now unequivocally made clear that, on the whole, the Trump administration’s immigration policies are seriously immoral and have created a “profound social crisis,” in the words of Archbishop Timothy Broglio, the President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), speaking on behalf of all the bishops. Given that context, the Church ought to offer guidelines so that Americans can evaluate their own participation in fomenting or perpetuating this crisis. Here I wish to offer a sketch of what this examination of conscience might look like. In this first part, I will identify those groups the members of which are most likely to encounter ethical dilemmas in making or implementing immigration policy. In a second part published tomorrow, I will list some of the actions related to immigration enforcement that should require an examination of conscience and consider some of the responses such an examination might inspire.
Just as The Challenge of Peace addressed several groups whose professional responsibilities involve them in the manufacture of or preparations to use nuclear weapons, it is useful to consider all those who are involved in the making or implementation of immigration policy.
Perhaps the most important group who may face questions of conscience are officers in the law enforcement agencies directly involved with immigration enforcement, most notably ICE (which is responsible for enforcement in the interior of the US), CBP (which is primarily responsible for enforcement at ports of entry), and the Border Patrol (which is responsible for enforcement along the US border in between ports of entry). These law enforcement officers engage in frequent, direct contact with immigrants and have been involved in some of the most controversial practices associated with recent Trump administration policy, including conducting arrests and detentions while in plainclothes and using unmarked vehicles and the previously mentioned courthouse arrests.
Other law enforcement officers are involved in immigration enforcement, as well, however. For example, state and local police departments may be asked to cooperate with federal agencies in immigration enforcement, and some law enforcement officers have taken heat for refusing to participate in these arrangements. Likewise, the Trump administration has conscripted members of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), and the US Marshals Service into immigration enforcement, an area typically outside their responsibility. Local officers and these federal agents face difficult questions about whether their involvement in immigration enforcement detracts from their other law enforcement responsibilities and hinders their ability to work constructively with the immigrant community to investigate crimes.
In addition to the law enforcement officers tasked with enforcing immigration policy, those individuals who staff detention centers should also undertake an examination of conscience. With the exception of a small number of short-term detention centers run by CBP, ICE is responsible for most of the immigrant detention centers in the US. Even so, as of 2023 over 90 percent of the individuals detained in these centers are held in privately-run centers managed by companies who contract with ICE, like GEO Group and CoreCivic. Those who staff these centers should ask themselves if they are willing to participate in the mass detention of immigrants, the majority of whom have no criminal record other than immigration offenses or traffic stops. The recent surge in arrests conducted by ICE has also led to overcrowding in immigration detention centers, many of which are already under resourced. These factors, together with a lack of training for employees in private detention centers, have contributed to inhumane conditions where detainees are forced to sleep on the floor, have inadequate access to medical care, or insufficient access to food and water, and also to cases of abuse by detention center staff.
The government attorneys responsible for litigating immigration cases, or for defending executive branch policy against court challenges, also face ethical questions, as the examples cited above illustrate. Immigration cases are typically handled by lawyers from the Office of the Principal Legal Advisor, part of the Department of Homeland Security, and the Department of Justice. In some cases, these attorneys may be required to appeal to their consciences if they are expected to conduct themselves in a way that violates their professional ethics, such as lying to the court or prosecuting a case that is without merit or that is politically motivated. But as the example of the attorney who approached Bishop Pham illustrates, these lawyers also face the more typical dilemma of being on the front lines of enforcing immigration policies that are often unfair to immigrants seeking a better life and sometimes involve the denial of adequate due process.
One group that is often overlooked is immigration judges, but they play a crucial role in the immigration enforcement process. They decide whether asylum seekers have met the criteria for asylum and whether a person who has been arrested by ICE should be deported or be allowed to stay in the US, among other things. Fulfilling this role should require a well-formed conscience. In addition, the immigration court system has an enormous backlog of thousands of cases, and immigration judges have faced pressures from the Trump administration to expedite the process, often at the expense of due process. As of March, nearly a 100 immigration judges and other court staff had resigned or retired, in part in response to the pressures created by this backlog.
The executive branch officials responsible for making immigration policy have the immense responsibility of conscientiously crafting policy that is just and promotes the common good while protecting the dignity of all persons. Those responsible for the Trump administration policies specifically called out by the US bishops as being unjust then carry a serious burden on their consciences. These include White House officials like Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, who is most responsible for crafting the administration’s immigration policy, and “Border Czar” Tom Homan, as well as Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and the other officials of that department.
Finally, the lawmakers in Congress have a responsibility to pass legislation reforming the nation’s immigration system, but also a responsibility to investigate and challenge any abuses carried out by the executive branch. In his recent statement, Archbishop José Gomez of Los Angeles insists that one of the root causes of the current crisis is the failure of Congress to pass meaningful immigration reform that offers generous opportunities for legal immigration without neglecting border security. So far, the Republican-led Congress has also failed to exercise any meaningful oversight of the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement efforts.
One might also add that state legislators and executives also have a responsibility to exercise conscience by proposing and implementing just and fair immigration policies. Also, this is not an exhaustive list of those who may be involved in activities related to immigration enforcement and who may face a moment of conscience; for example, I already mentioned the former acting commissioner of the IRS, and one might also include the US State Department officials responsible for managing the visas of international students, for example, considering the heavy-handed policies that have been implemented in that regard. Nevertheless, I think this list includes those who are most likely to encounter ethical dilemmas in their daily responsibilities.
This may seem like an inconclusive place to pause, but for the sake of readers’ attention spans, I will resume tomorrow with a discussion of the sorts of ethical dilemmas faced by the members of the groups just mentioned and a list of the sorts of actions related to immigration enforcement that should call forth an examination of conscience. I’ve already hinted at some examples above. I will also consider some of the ways that individuals who experience a conflict of conscience can respond to their situation.
Have you been responsible for making or enforcing immigration policy and experienced a conflict of conscience? If you are willing, please share your story in the comments. Are there other groups or individuals I failed to consider but that you think should also be included in the list above? Let me know in the comments.
Agree with you that Catholic Church leadership needs to advocate more forcefully against Trump’s migration policies. Perhaps an American Pope will help provide a countervailing moral force to correct the schism within the US Conference of Bishops, with some like Dolan cow-towing to Trump. If the hierarchy is duplicitous, the flock will reflect it as well.