WASHINGTON (RNS) — Some 40-plus Catholic Democrats in Congress have issued what amounts to a theological rebuke of House Speaker Mike Johnson’s scriptural defense for President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda, outlining a series of religious principles as a deadline looms for lawmakers to fund the Department of Homeland Security.
The group’s Friday (Feb. 13) statement, led by Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro and shared first with Religion News Service, lists a series of ideals drawn from Catholic social teaching that the lawmakers say they consider when approaching immigration issues.
“First, we affirm that people have the right to migrate to sustain their lives and the lives of their families,” the statement reads. “Sacred Scripture consistently reminds us of our obligation toward the vulnerable and displaced. Jesus himself identifies with the migrant when he says, ‘I was a stranger and you welcomed me.’”
The statement refers to Pope Leo XIV’s first apostolic exhortation, “Dilexi Te,” noting that the pontiff argues the Catholic Church “knows that in every rejected migrant, it is Christ himself who knocks at the door of the community.”
The statement also says a nation has the right to “regulate its borders and to control immigration,” but doing so “is never a license for cruelty, indifference, or dehumanization.” It adds: “Border enforcement must be governed by justice and mercy.”
The lawmakers then pivot to a critique of U.S. …