Photo via the Vatican Media
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When U.S. President Donald J. Trump returned to office this past January, he made it clear that he would pursue one of his primary campaign objectives of a mass-deportation operation. And, in rare form, Trump actually kept this promise. Since the start of his second term, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have deported over half a million undocumented immigrants, with the goal of deporting at least 1 million undocumented immigrants by the end of the year. Stephen Miller, the White House Deputy Chief of Staff and architect of the deportation campaign, issued a directive in May calling on ICE to make 3,000 immigration-related arrests per day, warning that agents will face consequences for failing to reach the quota. Even though ICE claims to be targeting the “worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens,” analysis shows that less than 40 percent of arrests were of people with a criminal conviction, and only about 8 percent were of people convicted of a violent crime.
ICE has also expanded in scale, receiving over 150,000 new job applications and growing the department to over 20,000 personnel. It has offered benefits to new agents, including a $50,000 signing bonus and student loan forgiveness. Furthermore, the passing of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act allocated over $170 billion to DHS over the next four years, with ICE’s annual budget almost quadrupling.
The expansion of this new deportation campaign has impacted every state in the country. ICE activity has been seen throughout large cities to small rural towns, often in public areas such as parks, public transit areas, or community centers. Arrests have frequently been in the form of raids, where a large number of ICE Agents coordinate and organize a swift operation, detaining large groups of people they believe have committed an immigration crime. These raids typically occur at workplaces or apartment complexes, but have more recently taken place in courthouses, where people are detained and arrested for illegal immigration charges while they are literally in the legal process of certifying their immigration status.
These raids have spurred intense backlash from millions of Americans across the country. Many witnesses of raids have reported ICE agents using illegal tactics to detain people, many of whom are often legal immigrants or full citizens. Since January, there have been over 170 cases where American citizens were detained during raids. Nicole Foy, a reporter for ProPublica, a nonprofit newsroom, writes, “Americans have been dragged, tackled, beaten, tased, and shot by immigration agents. They’ve had their necks kneeled on. They’ve been held outside in the rain while in their underwear. At least three citizens were pregnant when agents detained them. One of those women had already had the door of her home blown off while Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem watched.” And these are just the abuses that have impacted citizens; think about the number of abuses that could have taken place against the half-million undocumented immigrants that have already been deported.
What are some of the legally questionable tactics and abuses that ICE has been perpetrating? First—and most obvious—is the physical appearance of ICE agents. The agency has encouraged agents to wear concealing coverings over their faces to hide their identities. The director of ICE, Todd Lyons, has said that these coverings are a response to protect agents and their families from an increased level of doxxing and threats, but ICE has provided no information or data to support this claim. Instead, this masking of agents quite literally masks the abuses agents are committing. Protection of their identity enables protection from accountability, which strikes more terror into immigrant communities that are already anxious from the aggressive deportation campaign. At least in California and New York, lawmakers are responding by pushing legislation prohibiting the masking of federal agents; however, masking remains legal at the federal level.
ICE has also been scrutinized for its detention procedure. Reports have shown that ICE has consistently been aggressive and violent while detaining immigrants; many of their actions have been outside legal bounds. Across the country, civil and immigration rights groups have filed several lawsuits deeming ICE’s raids and detainment procedures to be unconstitutional. A lawsuit filed in California accuses ICE agents of denying detained immigrants food, water, and the right to speak with an attorney. Many lawsuits also revolve around agents failing to properly announce themselves and giving no explanation for arrests. The California lawsuit says, “Such seizures look less like lawful arrests and more like brazen, midday kidnappings.” And perhaps the most severe abuse of all is that most immigrants who are arrested go through no due process. They receive no court date. They are given no attorney. They are taken from the street by masked agents, separated from their families, thrown into detention camps riddled with wretched conditions, and deported, without ever getting the chance to say goodbye.
Trump’s mass-deportation campaign is more than just illegal; however, it is also immoral. There have been far too many cases of families separated, children left behind, and whole communities living in daily fear. A few months ago, ICE agents raided a factory in central New York, arresting Maribel Lopez, a mother of a 2-year-old with an active asylum appeal. Three days later, she was deported to Guatemala, leaving behind her young child. Elizabeth Brundige, the lawyer representing Ms. Lopez and professor at Cornell Law School, declared her deportation to be “a clear violation of U.S. and international law,” specifically due to her active asylum appeal; she had a work permit, social security card, and letters from her lawyer all showing she was legally in the U.S. and could not be removed. ICE did not care, and her 2-year-old was left without a mother. Just a reminder, this is just one case out of over half a million people who have been deported—and Ms. Lopez had a lawyer.
For people held within ICE detention camps, the conditions are horrific. At least 20 detainees have died in these camps since the start of 2025. Detainees face unsanitary living spaces, extreme overcrowding, a lack of showers and clothes, and a prohibition from phone calls. In June, an undocumented immigrant named Javier, who has been living in the U.S. for 28 years, was detained and held in an ICE facility. He said the experience “felt like we were in a cage,” and that there was “utter despair and fear” in the facility.
People who have been deported also face disturbing conditions. A recent report from Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Cristosal found that 252 Venezuelans deported from the U.S. to El Salvador’s maximum security prison CECOT endured systematic torture. The report found that, “the people held in CECOT were subjected to inhumane prison conditions, including prolonged incommunicado detention, inadequate food, denial of basic hygiene and sanitation, limited access to health care and medicine, and lack of recreational or educational activities.” HRW and Cristocal also documented that many of the detainees were subjected to sexual violence, which constitutes torture under international law.
Lawmakers themselves have been using their power to inspect these camps and prisons both within and outside of the U.S., finding clear legal violations and inhumane conditions. Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), after speaking with his constituent Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was wrongfully deported to CECOT, said, “he was traumatized by being at CECOT and fearful of many of the prisoners in other cell blocks who called out to him and taunted him in various ways.”
After inspecting an ICE facility in New Mexico, Senator Martin Heinrich (D-NM) described that detainees “had been limited to two bottles of drinking water per day and were unable to flush their toilets for days at a time.” These horrendous conditions cement the level of immorality that ICE has been showing. And it is shameful that this mass-deportation campaign has been perpetrated by men like Stephen Miller and Donald Trump, who call themselves Christians, when in fact, these gross policies are so contrary to Christianity that Pope Leo XIV and the Church have responded in opposition to it.
Leo, the first American pontiff in the history of the Catholic Church, made remarks earlier this month condemning Trump’s immigration policies, stating that foreigners are being treated in an “extremely disrespectful way.” In September, Leo called the U.S. treatment of immigrants “inhuman.” And perhaps most significantly, on November 12, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a “special message”—the first since 2013—that transparently opposes Donald Trump’s mass-deportation campaign and ICE’s violent behavior. The bishops stated, “We oppose the indiscriminate mass deportation of people” and “we pray for an end to dehumanizing rhetoric and violence, whether directed at immigrants or at law enforcement.” Pope Leo has also recently said, “Jesus says very clearly at the end of the world, we’re going to be asked, you know, how did you receive the foreigner? Did you receive him and welcome him, or not? And I think that there’s a deep reflection that needs to be made in terms of what’s happening.”
Clergymen have taken to the streets protesting and aiding undocumented immigrants. At 26 Federal Plaza in New York City, clergy members have been escorting immigrants to their hearings—physically protecting them from ICE detainment. In Chicago, a pastor was shot in the head with pepper balls by ICE agents during a protest outside an ICE facility, leading to an Illinois judge prohibiting federal agents “from using certain types of force and crowd-control measures against protesters.” At an ICE facility in Broadview, Illinois, seven faith leaders—many of whom are clergy members—were arrested for protesting the treatment of immigrants and the absence of due process. Rev. Micahel Woolf, one of the seven arrested, stated that the current abuses of ICE and ongoing mass-deportation are “really a spiritual emergency.” This protest came after clergy members were not permitted to enter the facility to administer Communion, even though they had done so before the current Trump administration. Blase Cupich, the Cardinal of Chicago, criticized ICE’s rejection, calling it a “violation of religious freedom.” And not only is this a violation of religious freedom, but it is a contradiction of ICE’s own religious practices policy, which guarantees access to worship for detainees.
Priests and clergy members have also been fighting Trump’s immigration policies within their Churches. Parishes have been sheltering immigrants and acting as “sanctuaries.” Before the start of the current Trump administration, Churches were regarded as “sensitive locations,” which prevented immigration agents from conducting activity on parish grounds. However, on his first day in office, Trump revoked these protections. Yet, Churches have continued to carry out their sanctuary practices, and parishes and congregations have even filed lawsuits against the federal government, claiming that removing the protections infringed on their right to religious worship. Churches like Lake View Presbyterian Church in Chicago have set up signs stating that ICE agents are not allowed to enter without a judicial warrant. They are also “know your rights” trainings. These measures at least give undocumented parishioners some sense of comfort when practicing their religious faith. ICE has terrorized immigrant communities enough, and the threat of a raid in a place of worship is abhorrent.
Furthermore, during masses, Catholic priests and parishioners have been preaching about Trump’s deportation campaign, expressing that these policies go against Catholic teachings. Church communities have come together in prayer for immigrants, as well as established donation funds and volunteer programs. Priests have also been instructing parishioners to take to the streets and practice their faith through works, physically opposing injustice, supporting Christ. Reflecting on a nearby detention camp, Rev. Alex Santora from a parish in Hoboken, NJ, stated, “This is not what Jesus Christ would want…it’s immoral.”
Never in the modern era has the Church voiced such a broad and united dissent against the actions of the American government. From the words of the Pope to local lawmakers, it is clear that the American government is currently violating the law as well as core Christian teachings. The immorality and cruelty of this deportation campaign undermine this country’s ability to pursue justice and liberty for all, and Americans must take a stand and end this stain on our history. This onslaught of injustice threatens the legitimacy of this country’s morality. And no matter your religious preferences or background, if we fail to act, if we fail to end this inhumanness, then we become complicit in it. Dignity and compassion fall on all of us. Whether your beliefs come from religion or home values, as Americans, we are called to defend justice, and history will judge us by whether we defended this virtue or let our nation abandon the ideals it claims to cherish.
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This article was edited by Anna Gehres and Cameron Ma.
Anne Eslick-Persyn 
David Tomanelli 
Nora Lukavic