A Catholic Defense of Enforcing Immigration Laws

The Trump administration’s ongoing efforts to enforce U.S. immigration laws have been controversial, not least in Catholic circles. On one hand, Vice President J. D. Vance has defended the administration’s restrictive immigration policy by appealing to the theological notion of the ordo amoris (or order of charity), according to which our strongest obligations are to those closest to us, such as our fellow citizens. But others note that the Church’s Catechism teaches that a prosperous nation is obliged “to welcome the foreigner in search of the security and the means of livelihood which he cannot find in his country of origin” (2241). In a February letter to the American Catholic bishops, Pope Francis indicated his “disagreement” with the administration, and appeared to criticize the vice president for an “ideological” distortion of the ordo amoris (while refraining from mentioning Vance by name).  

Yet while progressive Catholics conclude that Vance and other Catholic defenders of administration policy are flatly at odds with Church teaching on immigration, I will argue that that is not the case. In fact, the progressives rely on simplistic platitudes and selective quotations from authoritative documents. But when the entirety of the Church’s teaching is taken into account, it is clear that—within certain clearly defined boundaries—there can be reasonable disagreement about the contours of immigration policy among faithful Catholics. Indeed, it is clear that Vice President Vance is not only well within those boundaries, but is in fact on much stronger ground than those who advocate a virtually “open borders” position in the name of Catholicism.

The Nation in the Ordo Amoris

In order to properly understand and apply Catholic teaching on the moral stakes at issue in debates over immigration policy, it is absolutely crucial to be aware of the importance that Catholic social teaching attaches to the nation and national identity. Secular Western political thought since the Enlightenment tends to conceive of human beings either as atomized individuals, or as mere cells in a single collectivist blob. It is blind to the middle-ground social formations of the family, the local community, and the nation. But the Church has always insisted that it is precisely in these intermediate orders that our nature as social animals finds its primary expression.

In his book Memory and Identity, Pope St. John Paul II gave eloquent testimony to this traditional theme. He noted the modern Western tendency toward “supranational structures [and] internationalism” and “reservations” about the notion of “national identity as expressed through culture,” to the point that “modern Western European countries have arrived at a stage which could be defined as ‘post-identity’” (pp. 66 and 86). In opposition to these trends, the pope wrote:

Yet it still seems that nation and native land, like the family, are permanent realities. In this regard, Catholic social doctrine speaks of “natural” societies, indicating that both the family and the nation have a particular bond with human nature, which has a social dimension. Every society’s formation takes place in and through the family: of this there can be no doubt. Yet something similar could also be said about the nation. (p. 67)

In particular, says John Paul II, the nation and the cultural heritage defining it cannot be replaced by political institutions or mere legal ties between citizens. For these in fact presuppose the nation, which is the more fundamental social reality:

The term “nation” designates a community based in a given territory and distinguished from other nations by its culture. Catholic social doctrine holds that the family and the nation are both natural societies, not the product of mere convention. Therefore, in human history they cannot be replaced by anything else. For example, the nation cannot be replaced by the State, even though the nation tends naturally to establish itself as a State. . . . Still less is it possible to identify the nation with so-called democratic society, since here it is a case of two distinct, albeit interconnected orders. Democratic society is closer to the State than is the nation. Yet the nation is the ground on which the State is born. (pp. 69–70)

So essential is the nation to human well-being that patriotism or love of one’s nation is a moral duty implicit in the Ten Commandments. John Paul writes:

If we ask where patriotism appears in the Decalogue, the reply comes without hesitation: it is covered by the fourth commandment, which obliges us to honor our father and mother. It is included under the umbrella of the Latin word pietas, which underlines the religious dimension of the respect and veneration due to parents. . . .

Patriotism is a love for everything to do with our native land: its history, its traditions, its language, its natural features. It is a love which extends also to the works of our compatriots and the fruits of their genius. Every danger that threatens the overall good of our native land becomes an occasion to demonstrate this love. (pp. 65–66)

Accordingly, the Catechism too teaches that that the fourth commandment “extends to the duties of . . . citizens to their country, and to those who administer or govern it” (2199), and that “the love and service of one’s country follow from the duty of gratitude and belong to the order of charity” (2239). By no means does this entail hostility toward other nations or indifference to their needs. Such jingoism or chauvinism would be a vice of excess where love of one’s nation is concerned. Still, a radical cosmopolitanism that eschews any special regard for one’s own nation would be a vice of deficiency. Patriotism is the middle ground between these vices.

Patriotism does entail, however, that one’s strongest obligations are to one’s own nation, just as one has stronger obligations to one’s own family than to other families. This is where the notion of the ordo amoris comes in. St. Thomas Aquinas expounds it as follows:

Augustine says, . . . “Since one cannot do good to all, we ought to consider those chiefly who by reason of place, time or any other circumstance, by a kind of chance are more closely united to us.” . . .

Now the order of nature is such that every natural agent pours forth its activity first and most of all on the things which are nearest to it. . . . But the bestowal of benefits is an act of charity towards others. Therefore we ought to be most beneficent towards those who are most closely connected with us. Now one man’s connection with another may be measured in reference to the various matters in which men are engaged together; (thus the intercourse of kinsmen is in natural matters, that of fellow-citizens is in civic matters, that of the faithful is in spiritual matters, and so forth): and various benefits should be conferred in various ways according to these various connections, because we ought in preference to bestow on each one such benefits as pertain to the matter in which, speaking simply, he is most closely connected with us. . . .

For it must be understood that, other things being equal, one ought to succor those rather who are most closely connected with us. (Summa Theologiae II-II.31.3)

Note that Aquinas teaches that, all things being equal, we have stronger obligations to “kinsmen” and “fellow-citizens.” This is exactly the point Vice President Vance was making.  Note too that this by no means entails that we have no obligations to others, nor does it entail that we are not social animals by nature. On the contrary, the ordo amoris is a consequence of our social nature—because as John Paul II notes, it is precisely in the contexts of the family and the nation that our social nature is most immediately developed.  

Apparently intending to counter the use Vance made of the notion of the ordo amoris, Pope Francis’s letter says that “the human person . . . [has] a constitutive relationship with all” and is not a “mere individual, relatively expansive, with some philanthropic feelings.” But Vance said nothing that implied otherwise, and certainly Aquinas does not. The point is not that we don’t have duties to people of all nations, but merely that one’s first duty is to his own nation, just as it is to his own family. As Aquinas goes on to say, there can certainly be particular cases where the needs of strangers trump those of people closer to us. But “it is not possible to decide, by any general rule, which of them we ought to help rather than the other, since there are various degrees of want as well as of connection: and the matter requires the judgment of a prudent man” (Summa Theologiae II-II.31.3).

Immigrants in the Ordo Amoris

Let us turn, then, to what the Church has to say about immigration and immigrants. We can begin with what the Catechism states—including the parts that progressives tend not to quote, which I have put in boldface:

The more prosperous nations are obliged, to the extent they are able, to welcome the foreigner in search of the security and the means of livelihood which he cannot find in his country of origin. Public authorities should see to it that the natural right is respected that places a guest under the protection of those who receive him.

Political authorities, for the sake of the common good for which they are responsible, may make the exercise of the right to immigrate subject to various juridical conditions, especially with regard to the immigrants’ duties toward their country of adoption. Immigrants are obliged to respect with gratitude the material and spiritual heritage of the country that receives them, to obey its laws, and to assist in carrying civic burdens. (2241)

The Catechism does teach that nations ought to welcome immigrants—and this makes perfect sense given that we do indeed have obligations to people of other nations, who are part of the common human family of which all nations are members. In fact, this is just a further extension of the ordo amoris. But precisely because it is, the Catechism also puts qualifications on the obligation to accept immigrants. It is not absolute. Nations need accept immigrants only “to the extent they are able.” The authorities that govern a nation, precisely because they are responsible for the common good of its own citizens, may put “conditions” on immigration. Immigrants seeking to enter a country must “respect [its] spiritual heritage” and “obey its laws.” Even just from the Catechism, then, it is clear that the Church does not teach that a nation must accept all immigrants, or that it must tolerate illegal immigration, or that it must acquiesce in the destruction of the cultural inheritance that defines it. These qualifications too make perfect sense, given that in the ordo amoris, our obligations to foreigners—while real—are weaker than our obligations to our own nation.

Other magisterial documents make this clearer still. The 1988 document The Church and Racism: Towards a More Fraternal Society, issued by the Vatican’s Pontifical Commission on Justice and Peace, acknowledges that:

It is up to the public powers who are responsible for the common good to determine the number of refugees or immigrants which their country can accept, taking into consideration its possibilities for employment and its perspectives for development but also the urgency of the need of other people. The State must also see to it that a serious social imbalance is not created which would be accompanied by sociological phenomena of rejection such as those which can occur when an overly heavy concentration of persons from another culture is perceived as directly threatening the identity and customs of the local community that receives them.

Here the Church acknowledges that a nation’s concerns about the economic well-being of its own citizens, and about preserving its own culture and identity, may be among the considerations that guide public authorities in deciding how many immigrants to take in. Recent popes have said the same thing. For example, in a 2010 address, Pope Benedict XVI acknowledged that nations have a “legitimate concern for security and social coherence,” so that “states have the right to regulate migration flows and to defend their own frontiers,” and “immigrants, moreover, have the duty to integrate into the host country, respecting its laws and its national identity.”  

Similarly, notwithstanding his well-known concern for migrants, Pope John Paul II agreed that there are limits to how welcoming to them a nation can be, consistent with its own well-being. In his 2001 World Migration Day message, John Paul acknowledged that even “highly developed countries are not always able to assimilate all those who emigrate,” and that while the Church strongly affirms the right to emigrate, “certainly, the exercise of such a right is to be regulated, because practicing it indiscriminately may do harm and be detrimental to the common good of the community that receives the migrant.” In his 1995 World Migration Day message, John Paul acknowledged that “migration is assuming the features of a social emergency, above all because of the increase in illegal migrants,” and that the problem is “delicate and complex.” He affirmed that “illegal immigration should be prevented,” and that one reason it is problematic is that “the supply of foreign labour is becoming excessive in comparison to the needs of the economy, which already has difficulty in absorbing its domestic workers.” And he stated that in some cases, it may be necessary to advise migrants “to seek acceptance in other countries, or to return to their own country.”

Naturally, that is not to deny that John Paul II, like Pope Francis and the Church’s bishops more generally, have nevertheless put special emphasis on welcoming migrants. But everybody already knows that. What many people do not know is that the Church has, all the same, explicitly rejected an “open borders” policy; explicitly acknowledged that governments have the right to prevent illegal immigration; explicitly said that public authorities may limit the number of immigrants a nation takes in; and explicitly affirmed that concerns about security, the economic needs of its own citizens, and the preservation of its own cultural identity are among the considerations a nation’s public authorities can take into consideration when deciding on immigration policy.  

It would be intellectually dishonest, and indeed contrary to justice and charity, to accuse Catholics who appeal to such considerations in defense of enforcing U.S. immigration laws of somehow dissenting from the Church’s teaching. The truth is that the entirety of that teaching—not only what it says about the obligation to welcome the stranger, but also what it says about the limitations on that obligation—must inform our judgments about how many migrants to allow in and under what conditions. And as Aquinas teaches, here “it is not possible to decide, by any general rule” but requires the exercise of the virtue of prudence. As to what prudence calls for, Catholics of good will can reasonably disagree. Those who demand mercy toward immigrants should afford the same courtesy to their fellow Catholics who simply express a legitimate difference of opinion about a matter of public policy.

Image by Lorie Shaull and sourced via Wikimedia Commons.