President Donald Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, delivered an unusually sharp reprimand to U.S. Catholic bishops this week after the nation’s top Catholic leaders issued a “special message” condemning what they called the administration’s “indiscriminate mass deportation.”
Speaking to reporters outside the White House on Friday, Homan — a self-described “lifelong Catholic” — dismissed the bishops’ complaints and urged them to “spend time fixing the Catholic Church” rather than lecturing federal officials on immigration enforcement.
The message from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, approved by more than 95 percent of its members at their fall assembly in Baltimore, reflected deep unease among church leaders over the state of the nation’s political discourse.
In a video recording accompanying the statement, the bishops expressed concern about “a climate of fear and anxiety around questions of profiling and immigration enforcement,” adding that they were “saddened by the state of contemporary debate and the vilification of immigrants.” They reiterated their opposition to “the indiscriminate mass deportation of people” and insisted that Christian teaching requires compassion toward migrants. Their intervention followed guidance from Pope Leo XIV, who encouraged them to speak candidly about their concerns.
But Homan forcefully rejected the premise of their criticism. “So according to [the bishops] the message we should send to the whole world is: ‘If you cross the border illegally, which is a crime, don’t worry about it. If you get ordered removed by a federal judge, that’s due process, don’t worry about it, because there shouldn’t be mass deportations,’” he said. To Homan, this approach was not only unrealistic, but dangerous.
NEW: Following Pope Leo XIV's lead, the U.S. bishops release a new video condemning the Trump-Vance White House’s “inhumane” deportation raids. pic.twitter.com/EXEPVupcCH
— Christopher Hale (@chrisjollyhale) November 13, 2025
“If that’s the message we send the whole world,” he argued, “people are still going to put themselves in harm’s way to come to the greatest nation on earth. They’re going to spend their life savings on a criminal cartel.” He pointed to what he described as the deadly consequences of lax enforcement during the previous administration, claiming that “over 4,000 aliens died making that journey and 40 million Americans died from fentanyl.”
In his view, the administration’s tightened enforcement measures are not only lawful but necessary. “Secure borders saves lives and I wish the Catholic Church would understand that,” he said. He added that federal officials were committed to enforcing the law humanely and pushed back on the bishops’ moral framing of the issue.
Homan also noted that the Vatican itself enforces strict security policies, suggesting that the bishops were criticizing in the United States what they tolerate at home. “We have the right to secure our borders and they have the right to secure their facility,” he said. “The penalties for entering their facilities are much worse than ours so by enforcing the law we’re saving lives by doing that.”
He credited Immigration and Customs Enforcement with helping to create “the most secure border in the history of this nation,” and emphasized that enforcement was central to that achievement. “We’re going to enforce the law, and by doing that, we’re saving a lot of lives,” he said.
Still, Homan’s most personal remark came at the end, when he returned to the institution he said he still considers his own. “I think they need to spend time fixing the Catholic Church, from my point of view,” he said — making clear that, whatever the bishops’ message, he had one of his own.
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