During the 2024 presidential campaign, Donald Trump repeatedly said that his immigration policy would focus on deporting the “worst of the worst” criminals. A June 2025 report by the CATO Institute, however, shows that 65% of those booked in to detention by ICE had no criminal record whatsoever other than being in the country illegally, and that 93% of those booked into detention had no history of a violent crime. The crimes most often represented among this population are immigration crimes (i. e.: being in the country illegally), traffic violations, or what CATO calls non-violent vice crimes (I’m assuming things like drug use in one’s home, being drunk in public, or engaging in illegal gambling).

I’m not arguing that the 7% remaining are not heinous, violent criminals. I fully support Trump’s efforts to deport murderers, rapists, pedophiles, drug cartel members, and members of criminal gangs. But it’s hard to argue that that’s where Trump’s immigration focus is when more than 9 out of ten immigrants booked in to detention do not, by anyone’s broadest definition, include the “worst of the worst.” What’s happening is that ICE targets a particular “bad hombre” (as Fox News is fond of calling them), and ICE is allowed to arrest and book all those illegal immigrants they come across in their effort to snag the “bad hombre.” This is only one reason the majority of immigrants arrested have been those with no criminal record other than entering the country illegally. Raids on Home Depots have resulted in numerous day laborers being arrested. The raid on the Hyandai plant in Georgia didn’t seem to be focused on finding and arresting the “worst of the worst.” ICE agents have also raided restaurants, farms, auto shops, and construction sites.

I’ve repeatedly argued that those who entered the country illegally, especially those who have been here for years, and especially those who were brought here as children and know no other country as their “home country” cannot be treated the same as violent criminal illegals. Yet, that is exactly what the Trump administration is doing. And it seems that Trump’s mass deportation policy may work against a Republican victory in 2026, as polling shows that most Americans are opposed to mass deportations of illegal immigrants who have committed no other crimes. A majority even support a pathway to citizenship, especially for those who have been here for years and proven themselves upright, hard-working people.

Methinks Trump needs to rethink his immigration policy. There is widespread support for arresting and deporting violent criminal illegals. But there is no widespread support for deporting those who entered the country illegally only to make a good life for themselves and their families, have been working hard and keeping their noses clean. The majority support a path to citizenship for these illegals.

My son-in-law, Felix Yu, came to the United States legally from Hong Kong on a student visa. He got his green card two or three years ago, and just recently passed his test for U. S. citizenship. He did it the right way, the legal way. But he was not fleeing persecution, and he was not fleeing intractable poverty or political corruption (Felix was already in the U. S. when China started cracking down on freedoms on Hong Kong). He came here to earn an undergraduate degree, and then a Master’s degree. Then he married. He is working for a tech company, doing well, and has no inclination toward criminal behavior. There are other immigrants, those who did not have the resources or the time to enter the U. S. legally. Our Catholic confreres in Nicaragua suffer under a brutal and fiercely anti-Catholic socialist regime ruled over by the dictators, Daniel Ortega and his wife, Rosario Murillo. Their churches have been destroyed. Their schools and radio stations taken over. Their newpapers supressed. Bishop Rolando Alvarez of Matagalpa was imprisoned, exiled, and stripped of his Nicaraguan citizenship. He is in Rome currently, but some of his people have made their way to the U. S. Some, likely most, did not enter the country legally. But they are fleeing persecution because of their faith and face certain imprisonment, at best, if they are returned to Nicaragua.

Other immigrants came to the U. S. fleeing intractable poverty, simply trying to make a better life for themselves and their families. I would argue that these are the kinds of people we want in the U. S., hard-working, family people, the kind of people you would love to have as your neighbors. Others were brought here as children and have been here for years, growing up in their communities, attending their schools, speaking English and losing their accents. The U. S. is the only country they know. Why would we send them back to their “home country” when the U. S. is really their home country?

We need to create a process whereby those who came here illegally, either twenty years ago or just last year, can make their case for why they came and why they should be able to stay. If they can make a good case, then then stay. If they cannot, if it’s clear they only came here to engage in criminal activity or to game the system, then they are subject to being deported. We still get to vet them. We just don’t assume that, because they came illegally, they need to be treated as criminals. Okay, they came illegally, which means we can treat them as criminals, though certainly as non-violent criminals. But it doesn’t mean we have to. And it doesn’t mean we ought to. There’s a wideness in God’s mercy, and there ought to one in ours, too.

Be Christ for all. Bring Christ to all. See Christ in all.