Congress has, after much debate and delay, passed a sprawling budget bill, colloquially termed the “big beautiful” bill. Among other expenditures, the bill devotes roughly $46.5 billion to new segments of the border wall, along with another approximately $120 billion to other Department of Homeland Security and immigration-enforcement infrastructure, including the expansion of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE).
Currently, approximately 706 miles of the roughly 1,954-mile U.S.-Mexico border is covered by a wall, fence or other form of barrier, including parts of the Rio Grande River.
The new bill would allocate funding for a significant expansion amounting to 701 miles of primary wall, 629 miles of parallel secondary fencing, 141 miles of vehicle and pedestrian barriers, and 900 miles of river barriers, similar to those deployed by Texas in the Rio Grande in 2023.
Supporters tout the allocation of funds as one more concrete phase in President Donald Trump’s response to a decades-long problem at the southern border with Mexico. Meanwhile, critics see an enforcement-only strategy that treats vulnerable people as problems to be walled off.
Among the latter are a number of Catholic bishops whose recent statements, though stemming from differing diocesan experiences and practical realities, converge on a core moral judgment: A policy that predictably increases human suffering is contrary to both the Gospel and the social teaching of the Church on human dignity and rights.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2241, affirms a nation’s right to regulate its borders and safeguard the communities within them, when it states, “Political authorities … may make the exercise of the right to immigrate subject to various juridical conditions.”
According to the Catechism, nations may also require that immigrants fulfill certain civic duties and laws, when it teaches, “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.”
Yet Catholic teaching includes more than this. The Catechism also states, “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” (2241).
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Bishops mentioned in the column:
- Peter Baldacchino
- Timothy Broglio
- John Dolan
- Timothy Dolan
- Daniel Flores
- José Gomez
- Robert McElroy
- Joseph Tobin
- Mark Seitz
- James Wall
- Edward Weisenburger
- John Wester