As the Trump administration overhauls immigration policy and raises concerns about refugee resettlement, Vice President JD Vance is battling with his church about faith-based service to immigrants and refugees.
The conflict began on Wednesday, when the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops put out a statement criticizing new executive orders related to immigration.
“Several of the executive orders signed by President Trump this week are specifically intended to eviscerate humanitarian protections enshrined in federal law and undermine due process, subjecting vulnerable families and children to grave danger,” wrote Bishop Mark J. Seitz of El Paso, chairman of the conference’s Committee on Migration.
Vance then criticized Catholic leaders during an interview with CBS News’ “Face the Nation,” arguing that the church has “not been a good partner in common sense immigration enforcement.”
Vance went on to say that Catholic leaders may be more upset about losing the federal money that goes to religious organizations that help immigrants and refugees than about the Trump administration’s executive orders.
“I think that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops needs to actually look in the mirror a little bit and recognize that when they receive over $100 million to help resettle illegal immigrants, are they worried about humanitarian concerns? Or are they actually worried about their bottom line?,” the vice president said in the CBS News interview, which aired on Sunday.
Later on Sunday, Catholic leaders released a statement on the church’s resettlement work, explaining that it spends more on its refugee program than it receives from the federal government.
“Faithful to the teaching of Jesus Christ, the Catholic Church has a long history of serving refugees. In 1980, the bishops of the United States began partnering with the federal government to carry out this service when Congress created the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP). Every person resettled through USRAP is vetted and approved for the program by the federal government while outside of the United States. In our agreements with the government, the USCCB receives funds to do this work; however, these funds are not sufficient to cover the entire cost of these programs. Nonetheless, this remains a work of mercy and ministry of the Church,” the statement said.
The tension between Vance and the Catholic Church echoes the tension that persisted throughout former President Joe Biden’s time in office.
Biden, like Vance, is Catholic, and, also like Vance, he faced pushback from the Catholic Church over various policy moves, especially ones related to abortion.
Biden is a lifelong Catholic, while Vance converted to Catholicism in 2019, as the Deseret News previously reported.
“When I looked at the people who meant the most to me, they were Catholic,” Vance said to The American Conservative in 2019 about his decision to convert.