“What is clearly true, and what the Church and many others have called for, is the urgent need for a comprehensive reform of our country’s immigration system,” the US Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Administrative Committee said on March 17. “The US immigration system is overly complex and unjust, often keeping family members apart; it must be fixed.”

“The Church does teach that a country has the right to regulate its borders. At the same time, people have the fundamental right to migrate in order to preserve their lives and families,” the bishops continued, as they called for a rejection of “contemporary forces of division that tempt us with a false choice between our security and our humanity.”