By Randall Smith
I’ll start with a statement that may seem like pointless virtue signaling, so I hope readers will stick with me. The statement is simply that I believe we should care about how immigrants are treated, whether legal or not.
Now, I don’t think this statement is particularly controversial—most people don’t want immigrants to be mistreated—. But it may seem controversial depending on the context. So why am I saying it?
I’ve been concerned about the treatment of immigrants for a long time. I was concerned, for example, when President Barack Obama deported 3.1 million immigrants during his eight years in office, a figure far higher than that carried out by the Trump administration.
According to the DHS, between Trump’s inauguration in January 2025 and December, the administration had deported 605,000 illegal immigrants. ProPublica reports that ICE also detained 170 U.S. citizens during the year, which is true, but according to The New York Post, 130 of them were arrested for interfering with agents or assaulting them. Only around 40 people were detained accidentally or erroneously, and only half of them remained detained for more than a day; most were released within hours.
By contrast, in fiscal years 2015 and 2016, ICE recorded 263 erroneous arrests, 54 erroneous detentions (entries into custody), and four erroneous deportations of U.S. citizens. When asked about the administration’s record on immigration, President Obama’s Director of Intergovernmental Affairs responded: «What the president is doing is enforcing the country’s law.»
To her credit, one person who warned about the problem back then was Maria Hinojosa, whose 2011 Frontline special, “Lost in Detention”, should be watched to understand how many of the same problems that outrage people today were already happening then, but with far less opposition or bitter controversy.
I don’t remember crowds of people violently protesting back then, getting between ICE agents and immigrants. I don’t remember masked citizens setting up checkpoints to prevent ICE agents from entering.
Even if all those actions are praised today, it must be admitted that they weren’t happening then. And at that time, Obama was deporting far more immigrants than Donald Trump has been able to deport. I don’t remember Democrats in Congress shutting down the government to force changes in ICE back then.
I also don’t remember a crowd of Catholic bishops rushing to raise their voices courageously against the Obama administration. A Google search only found one position document from the USCCB prepared by a lawyer on immigration law enforcement, several praises for Obama for delaying some deportations, and an article in America magazine titled «Catholic bishops call for an end to the Obama administration’s deportation surge.»
Which is less impressive than the title promises, because, in reality, «the bishops» were one bishop and an auxiliary bishop. This was not exactly an overwhelming avalanche of criticism.
Even the Minnesota Catholic website praised President Obama’s «deferred action» executive order, but did so by reassuring people that Obama wasn’t too extreme. «Most of the people I spoke with,» writes the article’s author, «who initially opposed the president’s action, supported it when they heard what it did and didn’t do.»
The author continued:
The confusion surrounding the executive action is emblematic of an immigration debate that has been distorted both by passionate rejection of President Obama and by a media culture that, unfortunately, turns most political debates into «either this or that» policy choices. . . . The comments and reactions to the president’s action have generated more heat than light and have conformed to the false parameters of the public debate on immigration: either we open our borders to everyone who wants to enter and grant «amnesty,» or we deport everyone who is here. The president’s order is not «amnesty» in the popular sense of the term, which would mean forgiving undocumented people, not requiring any sanction from them, and providing them with legal immigration status.
In other words, don’t worry, Minnesota residents, President Obama isn’t crazy. He’s not granting amnesty!
This doesn’t make every Trump deportation morally justified. There were concerns about family separations back then, and there should be concerns about family separations now. I won’t pretend that I can offer an adequate answer to the immigration reform the country needs in a brief phrase. That’s work for others. My concern is that during the Obama presidency, there was relatively little outrage over these deportations.
He even received an honorary doctorate from Notre Dame, despite his record on both immigration and abortion. But when Trump became president, news of immigrants in cages suddenly appeared everywhere—though those cages were an inheritance from the Obama administration—.
When Joe Biden was elected, the outrage calmed down, but immigrants were no better off. Even those entering the country without documentation were being dragged into a bad deal for the benefit of others, forced to indefinitely hide their undocumented status, leaving them permanently exposed to bribery and extortion, unable to complain about mistreatment.
The media were more interested in them being bused to New York and Chicago, where their treatment was, possibly, better than in the overcrowded detention centers in Texas.
So, if the next president is a Democrat and the situation for immigrants doesn’t improve, will we continue to see violent protests in the streets? Will Catholic bishops be frank in their criticisms? Or will they retreat to the relative silence we’ve come to expect on the abortion issue? Will Democrats then shut down the government if ICE deportations continue? Will the people who today rush against ICE agents in the streets continue to do so?
Do these people really care about immigrants? Or do they simply enjoy the feeling of meaning that comes from joining the latest trendy cause? What will happen when media coverage runs out and it’s no longer «cool»? Will they still be there to support the people, rather than just a partisan ideology?
That’s my concern. Because their track record is not promising.
About the Author
Randall B. Smith is a professor of Theology at the University of St. Thomas in Houston, Texas. His most recent book is From Here to Eternity: Reflections on Death, Immortality, and the Resurrection of the Body.