It is hard to imagine what our country would look like without the good works that people of faith carry out in the public square. For this, we can thank our strong tradition of religious liberty, which allows us to live out our faith in full.

—Bishop Kevin Rhoades, Chairman of the Committee for Religious Liberty

From its inception as an Ad Hoc Committee, the Committee for Religious Liberty has monitored and responded to threats against the right of people of faith to serve migrants and refugees. The Catholic Church carries out ministries of service and charity in obedience to Our Lord, who has taught us that we will be judged on the basis of how we treated the stranger and the prisoner, the hungry and the thirsty (Matthew 25:31–46).[1] It is for this reason that the Church can be found serving people in need at our country’s borders and beyond. 

Nations have a right to regulate their borders and safeguard the communities within them and also an obligation to accommodate, to the extent they are able, those migrating in order to preserve human life (Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2241). As governments attempt to operate according to these principles and uphold the common good, it is especially important that they respect the basic rights of Christian ministries to serve the vulnerable as Christ has taught us. When a person in need comes before us, we don’t ask for documentation before providing food, clothing, and shelter. Rather, we recognize their inherent God-given dignity and the reality that “[e]very migrant is a human person who, as such, possesses fundamental, inalienable rights that must be respected by everyone and in every circumstance” (Caritas in veritate, 62). Ministry to migrants is not peripheral to the work of the Church. It is central. It institutionalizes those corporal works of mercy which are an expression of the love of Christ. 

A profound commitment to this expression of faith has been exhibited time and again throughout the history of the U.S. Catholic Church, even when anti-Catholic sentiment was more prevalent than it is today. In fact, the first American citizen to be canonized a saint by the Church was Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini, who was herself naturalized after arriving from Italy in 1889. Mother Cabrini devoted most of her life to serving her fellow immigrants and other vulnerable people “in order to communicate the love of Jesus to those who do not know Him or have forgotten Him.” Over one hundred years later, consistent with these same demands of Christian discipleship, the bishops of the United States and Mexico, in their joint pastoral letter from 2003, specifically called for “both a comprehensive network of social services and advocacy for migrant families.”[2]

This backgrounder presents some of the migration-related issues that the Committee for Religious Liberty has engaged over its history.

Lawfare Against Catholic Service to Migrants

In February of 2024, officials from the Texas attorney general’s office arrived at Annunciation House, an independent Catholic ministry in El Paso, and demanded to inspect their records. After Annunciation House sought a court order allowing them time to verify what records could be disclosed, Attorney General Ken Paxton countersued Annunciation House for violation of a Texas business statute requiring that his office be given “immediate” access to the records of any entity registered to operate in the state. The suit sought outright closure of Annunciation House under the same statute. Bishop Rhoades expressed solidarity with ministries to migrants, saying, “As the tragic situation along our border with Mexico increasingly poses challenges for American communities and vulnerable persons alike, we must especially preserve the freedom of Catholics and other people of faith to assist their communities and meet migrants’ basic human needs.”[3]

Weighing Annunciation House’s request for a temporary injunction, the court wrote:

The Attorney General’s efforts to run roughshod over Annunciation House, without regard to due process or fair play, call into question the true motivation for the Attorney General’s attempt to prevent Annunciation House from providing the humanitarian and social services that it provides. There is a real and credible concern that the attempt to prevent Annunciation House from conducting business in Texas was predetermined.[4]

In response to Annunciation House’s argument that Attorney General Paxton’s actions violated the organization’s religious freedom, Attorney General Paxton argued that the charity is not religious, because its work is not focused on evangelization or sacramental ministry, saying “Annunciation House’s members appear to subscribe to a more Bohemian set of “seven commandments,” including commandments to “visit” people when “incarcerated” and “care [for them] when they’re sick.”[5] Of course, these are the traditional corporal works of mercy, which Jesus commands his followers to practice (Matthew 25:35–46).

Attorney General Paxton has appealed the case up to the Texas Supreme Court. Meanwhile, he began investigations of Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley, seeking to depose its staff.

The Secure the Border Act 

The Secure the Border Act (SBA) would restrict religious organizations from accessing federal funding. Specifically, the SBAhas two provisions aimed at organizations serving newcomers. Section 115(b) of the bill presents a clear religious liberty issue. It would defund any organization that “facilitates or encourages unlawful activity, including unlawful entry.” Some Republicans in Congress have made clear that they think the mere provision to migrants of basic humanitarian aid like food, water, and shelter constitutes facilitation of unlawful entry, and that the religious charities’ assistance to migrants encourages them to cross the border illegally in the first place. This bar on funding would apply to all funds from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, including disaster relief programs and grants to help nonprofits make their facilities safe from acts of terrorism and other extremist attacks, even if the religious charity is providing this humanitarian aid entirely out of its own pocket, outside of any government-funded program.

The other section, 115(c), defunds particular programs rather than particular charities. It would zero out any funding from the Department of Homeland Security for “transportation, lodging, or immigration legal services to inadmissible aliens.” Bishop Mark Seitz, chair of the USCCB Committee on Migration, issued a letter opposing the bill, noting: “[T]his legislation contains such a combination of harmful measures that we believe its passage, on the whole, is beyond justification.”[6]

The SBA passed the House in 2023 by a vote of 219-213. It was led in the House by Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart (R-FL-26) and has 21 cosponsors, all Republicans; Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) led in the Senate, with 32 Republican cosponsors. The Senate companion was not acted upon during the 118th Congress. 

Protecting Federal Funds from Human Trafficking and Smuggling Act

Another bill introduced by House Republicans, the Protecting Federal Funds from Human Trafficking and Smuggling Act prohibits any federal funds from being distributed to any non-profit organization unless the organization certifies that it is in compliance with a federal law that imposes criminal penalties on anyone who “encourages or induces an alien to come to, enter, or reside in the United States, knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that such coming to, entry, or residence is or will be in violation of law.” Here, again, some supporters of this bill take the position that the mere expectation that religious charities will meet newcomers' basic human needs induces them to cross the border illegally. The bill would also revoke the tax exemption of any non-profit organization determined by the White House’s Office of Management and Budget to have committed such an offense—which would place a powerful and unaccountable weapon in the hands of future administrations.  This bill was introduced in February 2022 with 21 Republican cosponsors.

The Border Wall in Brownsville

Efforts to construct a barrier on the southern border have met resistance from the Catholic Church in Brownsville. A proposed barrier would have run through land owned by the Diocese, and so the federal government would have had to take the land in order to build the wall or fence. Freedom of the Church means that the Church cannot be impeded by the civil authorities from engaging in her mission. That mission includes ministry to those fleeing violence and poverty. As Bishop Daniel Flores of Brownsville told the Wall Street Journal, “I don’t want to use church property to say that no matter how dire your life is, you cannot be received here. . . . The government is going to have to take the land. The church is not going to give it them.”

Travel Ban

On June 26, 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court decided the case of Trump v. Hawaii, which involved a challenge to President Donald Trump’s Proclamation No. 9645 restricting travel from several predominantly Muslim-majority countries. The Supreme Court in a 5-4 ruling upheld the travel ban.

Bishop Joe S. Vásquez of Austin, chair of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) Committee on Migration, and Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz of Louisville, chair of the USCCB Committee for Religious Liberty, issued a joint statement, saying, “The travel ban targets Muslims for exclusion, which goes against our country’s core principle of neutrality when it comes to people of faith. We are disappointed in the Court's ruling because it failed to take into account the clear and unlawful targeting of a specific religious group by the government. The Catholic Church takes a strong stand against religious discrimination, and we will continue to advocate for the rights of people of all faiths, as well as serve migrants and refugees through our various ministries.”

The USCCB, Catholic Charities USA, and the Catholic Legal Immigration Network had filed a joint amicus brief in Trump v. Hawaii. The Summary of Argument states:

The Proclamation (‘EO-3’), like its predecessors, has both the purpose and the effect of discriminating against Muslims. Prior to issuing the Proclamation, the President repeatedly announced his desire to target Muslims for denial of entry to the United States. And Section 2 of EO-3 does just that, singling out the populations of six overwhelmingly Muslim nations for sweeping immigration restrictions that, for all practical purposes, apply nowhere else in the world. 

Such blatant religious discrimination is repugnant to the Catholic faith, core American values, and the United States Constitution. It poses a substantial threat to religious liberty that this Court has never tolerated before and should not tolerate now. Having once borne the brunt of severe discriminatory treatment, particularly in the immigration context, the Catholic Church will not sit silent while others suffer on account of their religion. In the words of Elie Wiesel, ‘[t]he opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference.’ Elie Wiesel, One Must Not Forget, U.S. News & World Report, Oct. 27, 1986. “This Court should strike down Section 2 of the Proclamation as a violation of the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment.

State-Level Harboring Laws

State governments have passed laws that forbid “harboring” of undocumented immigrants.

For example, in Alabama, in 2011, Catholic bishops worked with Episcopal and Methodist bishops to file suit against a law prohibiting the “harboring” of undocumented immigrants. They explained that the “law makes illegal the exercise of our Christian religion which we, as citizens of Alabama, have a right to follow.” They expressed concern that laws prohibiting “harboring” (when there is knowledge or reckless disregard of the fact that persons are undocumented immigrants) would substantially burden their churches in their mission to serve undocumented immigrants.

Among other things, these church leaders feared that the prohibition on “harboring” would extend to activities like “encourag[ing immigrants] to attend Mass or giv[ing] them a ride to Mass;” “counsel[ing] them in times of difficulty or in preparation for marriage;” and inviting “them to come to Alcoholic Anonymous meetings or other recovery groups at our churches.”

Other states have adopted similar laws that threaten the Church’s ministry to undocumented immigrants, such as Arizona. 

In March 2012, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and several other Christian organizations filed an amicus brief in the U.S. Supreme Court case of Arizona v. United States. The brief discussed how the Arizona law and many state immigration laws like it threaten the Catholic mission to provide food, shelter, and other care to all. In June 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision and found that several of the provisions of the Arizona law were pre-empted by federal immigration law, so these provisions were struck down. 

Government Funding Opportunities

For decades, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Department of Migration and Refugee Services (MRS) has carried out the commitment of the U.S. Bishops to serve and advocate for refugees, asylees, and other forced migrants, immigrants, and other people on the move. Special concern is given to the most vulnerable among these populations, such as the victims of human trafficking. This commitment is rooted in the Gospel mandate that every person is to be welcomed as Christ Himself, and in the right of every human being to pursue the call to holiness.

MRS has developed years of expertise in actively working to end human trafficking and protect those who have been exploited through trafficking. In 2006, MRS’s Anti-Trafficking Services Program (ATSP) began administering a federal program to provide intensive case management to foreign national victims of human trafficking identified in the U.S. and its territories. In 2010, through its network of sub-contracted agencies, ATSP helped survivors of human trafficking from 64 countries, with the largest number of survivors from India, Mexico, Thailand, the Philippines, and Haiti. Survivors had been trafficked on farms, in hotels and casinos, in private homes, in spas, and in other industries for the purposes of forced labor and/or sex trafficking.

In 2011, the federal government changed its funding specifications to require MRS to provide or refer for contraceptive and abortion “services” in violation of Catholic teaching. Consequently, the government refused to award the funds to MRS despite MRS’s earning a far higher objective score from the government’s independent evaluators than two other organizations that were awarded the program. And those two scored so low that they were deemed unqualified.

Religious institutions should not be disqualified from a government funding opportunities based on religious belief, and they do not lose their religious freedom or identity upon receiving such funds. Yet, a federal court in Massachusetts declared that the First Amendment requires such a disqualification—that the government violates religious liberty by allowing Catholic organizations to participate in programs in a manner consistent with their beliefs on contraception and abortion. Fortunately, in 2013, an appeals court vacated this terrible decision. But the possibility of similar suits in the future remains.

Last updated: February 6, 2025