Hartford’s archbishop is one of 216 Catholic bishops in the U.S. speaking out on immigration. Archbishop Christopher Coyne said last week’s statement was only the first step.
“We were given the statement ahead of time, and we were asked for some feedback. Initially, the feedback that came forward, not only in our region, but in other regions, is that we didn't think the language was strong enough. The language started out with things like, ‘we're concerned’ or ‘we've observed these things,’ but we all felt that it had to be more direct,” Coyne said.
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops statement, which passed on a 216-5 vote with three abstentions, condemns the Trump administration’s methods in recent deportations.
“We are disturbed when we see among our people a climate of fear and anxiety around questions of profiling and immigration enforcement. We are saddened by the state of contemporary debate and the vilification of immigrants,” the statement said. “We are concerned about the conditions in detention centers and the lack of access to pastoral care.”
Faith leaders also call for “meaningful reform of our nation’s immigration laws and procedures.”
Coyne said the work will continue, whether or not that call is heeded.
“[Immigrants] are afraid to go to jobs because they're afraid of getting round up. And so they're facing food insecurity, and we're trying to help them with that,” Coyne said. “We're trying to tell them: Get documents together that say — if something happens, they do get arrested or picked up — who's going to take care of their children.”
Coyne said the Archdiocese of Hartford and dioceses across the country will be offering “know your rights” programs, aiming to educate priests and staff.
But what can a Catholic sitting in the pews do, in this call to love thy immigrant neighbor?
“I would encourage them to write to their governmental representatives and to speak,” Coyne said. “Not necessarily against the laws as they are written, but the way they're being enforced.”
The nonpartisan think tank Migration Policy Institute estimates that, as of 2023, about 45% of immigrants in Connecticut, or more than 267,000 people, are non-citizens. That includes some of the state’s large Latino population.
Across the U.S., Latinos make up 36% of Catholic adults, and Coyne says there are many other followers of the faith with immigration concerns.
“When you take in the other language groups, like the Brazilians, the Portuguese, the Haitians, and all those that are dealing with questions of immigrant status, it's a significantly large population of our people,” Coyne said.
Pope Leo XIV, who is from the U.S. but spent decades as an American immigrant in Latin America, had previously called out recent immigration enforcement across the country. After the recent statement by U.S. bishops, he doubled down.
“When people have lived good lives — many of them for 10, 15, 20 years — treating them in a way that is, to say the least, extremely disrespectful, and with instances of violence, is troubling," he told journalists this week.
NPR reports the Trump administration’s border czar, Tom Homan, responded to the statement by saying: “A secure border saves lives. We're going to enforce the law, and by doing that, we save a lot of lives."
