Vice President JD Vance has said that US Catholic bishops must “do better” in their attitude to immigration laws, claiming that they care more about their financial “bottom line” than refugees.
It comes a week after the US Conference of Catholic Bishops condemned some of Trump’s executive orders. President of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio, said the administration’s policy on allowing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials to make arrests in places of worship was “deeply troubling and will have negative consequences, many of which will harm the most vulnerable among us”.
JD Vance joined Margaret Brennan on CBS’ Face the Nation, where she asked the Ohio Republican whether he would “personally support the idea of conducting a raid or enforcement action in a church service, at a school”.
Vance replied: “As a Catholic… I think that the U.S. 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?
“I think the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has, frankly, not been a good partner in commonsense immigration enforcement that the American people voted for, and I hope, again, as a devout Catholic, that they'll do better."
The US Conference of Catholic Bishops is one of 10 agencies which receive federal funding to assist refugees, provided they qualify for federal assistance.
Among these refugees are people resettled through the US refugee admissions programme, noncitizen children, and victims of human trafficking and torture.
Bishop Mark J. Seitz of El Paso, chairman of the USCCB’s Committee on Migration said: “Preventing any access to asylum and other protections will only endanger those who are most vulnerable and deserving of relief, while empowering gangs and other predators to exploit them.
“Likewise, indefinitely halting refugee resettlement is unmerited, as it is already proven to be one of the most secure legal pathways to the United States.”
Vance’s comments come a week after the Bishop of Washington, Mariann Edgar Budde asked Donald Trump to “have mercy” on immigrants – to which the president hit back, saying she was “not good at her job”.