White House says no to Catholic bishops’ call for Christmas pause in immigration enforcement

Florida’s Catholic bishops made an appeal on Monday for a pause in immigration enforcement for the Christmas holidays, but the White House said operations will continue.

The appeal to President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was issued by Miami Archbishop Thomas Wenski and signed by seven other members of the Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops.

“The border has been secured,” Wenski wrote. “The initial work of identifying and removing dangerous criminals has been accomplished to a great degree. Over half a million people have been deported this year, and nearly two million more have voluntarily self-deported.”

“At this point, the maximum enforcement approach of treating irregular immigrants en masse means that now many of these arrest operations inevitably sweep up numbers of people who are not criminals but just here to work,” he continued. “It should be noted that a significant majority of those detained in Alligator Alcatraz have no criminal background.”

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He noted that migrant sweeps sometimes include people with legal authorization to be in the U.S. and that surveys show Americans believe immigration enforcement operations are going too far.

“Eventually these cases may be resolved, but this takes many months causing great sorrow for their families … A climate of fear and anxiety is infecting not only the irregular migrant but also family members and neighbors who are legally in the country,” Wenski said.

“Since these effects are part of enforcement operations, we request that the government pause apprehension and round-up activities during the Christmas season,” he said. “Such a pause would show a decent regard for the humanity of these families. Now is not the time to be callous toward the suffering caused by immigration enforcement.”

The White House did not directly address the appeal for a holiday pause, but did say that enforcement activities would be business as usual.

“President Trump was elected based on his promise to the American people to deport criminal illegal aliens. And he’s keeping that promise,” White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said in a statement to The Associated Press.

Wenski, like many other Catholic leaders, has been an outspoken advocate for treating illegal immigrants humanely.

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In September, he joined other Catholic leaders on a panel at Georgetown University criticizing the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration crackdown for splitting up families, inciting fear and upending church life.

Wenski also cited the contributions illegal immigrants make to the U.S. economy.

“If you ask people in agriculture, you ask in the service industry, you ask people in health care, you ask the people in the construction field, and they’ll tell you that some of their best workers are immigrants,” Wenski said. “Enforcement is always going to be part of any immigration policy, but we have to rationalize it and humanize it.”

Wenski has joined the “Knights on Bikes” ministry, an initiative led by the Knights of Columbus that brings attention to the spiritual needs of migrants held at immigration detention centers, including “Alligator Alcatraz” in the Florida Everglades. He recalled praying a rosary in the scorching heat outside its walls before receiving permission just days later to celebrate Mass inside the facility.

“The fact that we invite these detainees to pray, even in this very dehumanizing situation, is a way of emphasizing and invoking their dignity,” he said.

Last month, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops adopted a “special message” in which they slammed Trump’s mass deportation agenda and the “vilification” of illegal immigrants, expressing concern over the fear and anxiety immigration raids are stoking in communities, as well as the denial of pastoral care in detention centers.

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The special message was endorsed by Pope Leo XIV and Bishop Ronald Hicks, who the pontiff recently named as the next archbishop of New York, replacing conservative Cardinal Timothy Dolan as the leader of the country’s second-largest Catholic diocese. Dolan announced earlier this year he would resign upon turning 75, which is required by Catholic law.

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“I think we have to look for ways of treating people humanely, treating people with the dignity that they have,” Leo said last month. “If people are in the United States illegally, there are ways to treat that. There are courts, there’s a system of justice.”

The pope has previously urged local bishops to speak out on social justice concerns and has suggested that people who support the “inhuman treatment of immigrants in the United States” may not be pro-life.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.