This past February, President Biden referred to the tsunami of current migrants as “newcomers.” A euphemism that normalizes illegal migration, it was a cue for Catholic voters. The word was the brainchild of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). It appeared in the 2024 USCCB document “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship: A Call to Political Responsibility.”
The Gospel mandate to “welcome the stranger” requires Catholics to care for and stand with newcomers, authorized and unauthorized, including unaccompanied immigrant children, refugees and asylum-seekers, those unnecessarily detained, and victims of human trafficking.
Under the heading “Global Solidarity,” the USCCB conflates immigration with migration. The first is a legal process, in effect a contract between arrivals and the state. In current context, the latter term refers to illegal entry by the brute force of overwhelming numbers. Moralistic disdain for distinction between “authorized and unauthorized” entry is the core of open borders dogma.
In August, Pope Francis used the bully pulpit of St. Peter’s Square to pressure nations of the West to keep their borders open, no matter the consequence to their native populations. He presented prudent immigration restriction as a moral crime and dismissed legality. The USCCB reported:
“It needs to be said clearly: There are those who systematically work by all means to drive away migrants, and this, when done knowingly and deliberately, is a grave sin,” he said during his general audience Aug. 28.
Without irony — and short on historical sense — the USCCB
