Vance vs. the bishops on immigration, Part I

By Phil Lawler ( bio - articles - email ) | Jan 28, 2025

Less than a week after the Inauguration, the Trump administration is fully engaged in debate with the US bishops: a debate that seems likely to stretch over the next four years. The subject is immigration; the main protagonists (for now) are Vice President Vance and the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB).

Each side has scored some points, but the Trump team has taken an early lead in the contest, and is likely to maintain that lead, for two reasons. First, Trump and Vance are skillful politicians, with a keen sense for public opinion; the bishops are not. Second, Trump and Vance have strong public support, particularly within their own base, and they know it. The bishops don’t have that support, and apparently don’t know it.

Vance’s opening salvo

In a widely circulated Face the Nation interview with Margaret Brennan on Sunday, Vance seized the offensive when he was asked about the US bishops’ opposition to Trump’s immigration policies:

Because as a practicing Catholic, I was actually heartbroken by that statement. And 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? We’re going to enforce immigration law. We’re going to protect the American people.

The USCCB shot back quickly, answering Vance (without mentioning his name) in a statement released that same day. (This particular Sunday was not to be a day of rest for the embattled bishops’ conference.) The USCCB defended its refugee-resettlement program against the charge that undesirable immigrants are involved, insisting: “Every person resettled through [the program] is vetted and approved for the program by the federal government while outside of the United States.”

But actually Vance had already answered that argument on Face the Nation:

Well, Margaret, 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. That happened during the campaign if you may remember. So clearly, not all of these foreign nationals have been properly vetted—

Here we have a clear difference of opinion. The USCCB says the refugees are adequately vetted; the Vice President says they are not. Since ultimately this is a political question, it will be decided in the political arena. And Trump won the election.

Does the USCCB encourage illegal immigration?

However, the tension between the White House and the USCCB reaches beyond the question of asylum for refugees. Refugees are—or should be—legal immigrants. But the bishops’ conference has been consistently and bitterly critical of the Trump administration’s plans to curb the massive flow of illegal immigrants. In a briefing statement on migration policy the USCCB concedes: “Most of today’s unauthorized immigrants are fleeing poverty in their home countries, not political persecution. As a result, they do not qualify for asylum.”

So while the USCCB is heavily involved in resettling refugees (more on that subject below), why is the bishops’ conference so keenly interested in other aspects of immigration policy? Vice President Vance appears concerned that the bishops are encouraging immigrants to ignore legal restrictions, and unguarded statements by some Church leaders have definitely created the impression that Catholic agencies are ready and willing to help immigrants test the limits of the law.

The USCCB briefing statement does nothing to allay such suspicions. The paper refers to “unauthorized” rather than “illegal” immigrants: a subtle distinction, deflecting attention from the fact that these immigrants have not complied with American law. And the sympathetic approach to these “unauthorized” immigrants is evident when the paper says that “the large majority of those unauthorized in the country today would have preferred to enter lawfully if they could have. In fact, some 98 percent of those surveyed indicated that they would prefer to live and work lawfully, rather than in unauthorized status.”

Why is it that these immigrants could not enter legally? The USCCB statement goes on to explain that the current immigration system allows only a relatively small number of legal entries. Here the USCCB has a valid point:

Over the past several decades, the demand by U.S. businesses for low-skilled workers has grown exponentially, while the supply of available workers for low-skilled jobs in the United States has diminished.

Today the US issues only 5,000 “green cards” for guest workers each year, the USCCB points out, while there are many thousands of employers looking for workers, and 300,000 illegal immigrants reportedly looking for work.

Notice how the argument has shifted away from the pressing needs of refugees fleeing from persecution, to focus on workers wanting better jobs and employers looking for low-skilled workers. The USCCB declares that current immigration policies are “non-responsive to our country’s need for labor.” Are the bishops really ready to align themselves with the cold-hearted business moguls who see mass immigration as a convenient source of cheap labor—of workers who will perform menial jobs for wages that native Americans would not accept?

If that is the bishops’ best case for eased immigration standards, it is an economic argument, or perhaps a political argument. It is not the sort of moral argument on which bishops ordinarily speak with authority.

The “bottom line”

Vice President Vance introduced an even less attractive argument with his surmise that the bishops might be “worried about their bottom line.” Immigration—more specifically, refugee resettlement—is big business for the USCCB. But the bishops do not profit from that business, at least not financially.

In recent years the USCCB has received more than $120 million annually from the federal government for refugee programs. That figure, high as it is, understates the overall level of government support for Catholic immigration programs, since most dioceses have their own local offices for refugees, with separate funding. During the Biden administration, federal funding for the USCCB programs soared by several hundred percent.

However, the USCCB reports that the costs of those refugee programs exceeded the revenues from Uncle Sam. So despite over $450 million in federal support during the Biden years, the “bottom line” for those programs was written in red ink: an uncomfortable situation for the USCCB, which is already facing budget deficits.

Still it would be a mistake to assume that for an organization doing contract work for the government, the “bottom line” can be measured purely in dollar figures. Obeying the bureaucratic imperative, the USCCB refugee services seek to expand their work, lobbying for broader responsibilities and greater federal support. And along the way the USCCB officials find allies who count on their support to ensure the continued flow of the nearly $3 billion that federal agencies have awarded in grants to Church-related organizations involved in work with immigrants.

Here, by introducing what appears at first to be an unfair and invalid argument, Vance is actually pointing out a very serious problem. Insofar as he hints that the bishops enjoy a financial profit from their immigration programs, he is demonstrably wrong. But by raising that question he calls attention to a serious imbalance in the US bishops’ conference. Today more than half of the USCCB revenue comes in the form of government grants, and more than half of the USCCB expenses go into programs that carry out the government’s policies.

So it is predictable that the USCCB will lobby energetically in support of the programs that furnish those revenues. But what does that lobbying have to do with the work of the Catholic Church? Government contractors do what the government wants done; he who pays the piper calls the tune. As successors to the Apostles and teachers of the Catholic faith, the bishops should be carrying out works of charity, not filling government contracts.

Next: Why have the US bishops chosen this battle?