OAN Staff Brooke Mallory
7:35 PM – Friday, November 14, 2025
Border Czar Tom Homan publicly pushed back Friday against the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which this week condemned the Trump administration’s mass deportation of illegal aliens.
“The Catholic Church is wrong,” Homan told reporters at the White House. “I’m a lifelong Catholic, but I’m saying it not only as a border czar, but I’m also saying this as a Catholic,” he added.
The bishops’ statement, released Wednesday, criticized what it called the GOP administration’s “indiscriminate” removal efforts.
“We are disturbed when we see among our people a climate of fear and anxiety around questions of profiling and immigration enforcement,” the statement reads. “We are saddened by the state of contemporary debate and the vilification of immigrants.”
Their comments followed American Pope Leo XIV’s directive urging U.S. bishops to speak openly about their concerns regarding President Donald Trump’s deportation agenda. Nonetheless, Homan maintained on Friday that the administration’s priorities have not changed.
“A secure border saves lives. We’re going to enforce the law and by doing that we save a lot of lives,” he said. “ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] is sending a message to the whole world.”
The administration’s intensified enforcement measures have coincided with a major decline in southern border crossings, with immigration raids escalating under Trump. He went on to defend the administration’s enforcement focus, pushing back on fabricated claims.
“If people would just look at the data and see that the vast majority of what ICE is doing is public safety threats. A lot of media say that a lot of people in ICE detention aren’t criminals — [they’re] wrong,” he added. “A lot of these people are national security threats, a lot of them don’t have criminal history records. It’s not okay to be in the country illegally. It’s a crime.”
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