Catholic migrant advocates express concern about Trump’s sanctuary cities executive order

Friday, May. 09, 2025

WASHINGTON (OSV News) — President Donald Trump began what the White House cast as a weeklong celebration of his first 100 days with an executive order directing federal agencies to publish a list of “sanctuary cities” he argued are not complying with his immigration agenda, an order that prompted concern from Catholic migrant advocates.

The order, part of several executive orders Trump signed the same week, also said sanctuary jurisdictions “that do not comply with federal law may lose federal funding.”

Dylan Corbett, executive director of the Hope Border Institute, a group that works to apply the perspective of Catholic social teaching in policy and practice to the U.S.-Mexico border region, told OSV News that while there is “no single definition of a sanctuary city,” some jurisdictions have decided “in order to preserve trust between the community and law enforcement at the local level, so that crimes go reported, police departments often restrain from asking about immigration status.”

“Policies like these are sensible and ensure good order and safety,” he said. “President Trump’s executive order does nothing to solve our broken immigration system, but does introduce fear, anxiety and tension in local communities.”

J. Kevin Appleby, senior fellow for policy at the Center for Migration Studies of New York and the former director of migration policy for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, told OSV News that the term is sometimes used as a “derogatory” one for “a state, county, or city that won’t require its law enforcement officers to act as immigration agents for the federal government.”

“Truth be told, such jurisdictions are safer overall, as local law enforcement can focus on apprehending violent criminals rather than on the undocumented mother with two U.S. citizen children,” Appleby said. Data from the National Immigration Law Center showed “a documented decrease in crime in cities and states” that implement such policies.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said during an April 28 press briefing that the order was “quite simple.”

“Obey the law, respect the law, and don’t obstruct federal immigration officials and law enforcement officials when they are simply trying to remove public safety threats from our nation’s communities,” she said.

Appleby argued Trump “needs local law enforcement to cooperate in order to carry out his mass deportation campaign.”

He said the executive order, which threatens to take away federal funding to their jurisdictions, is an intimidation tactic to force their compliance.

“Ironically, states and localities who do comply often see a rise in crime in their communities and an increase in police profiling of legal immigrants and U.S. citizens,” he said.

Catholic social teaching on immigration seeks to balance three interrelated principles: the right of persons to migrate in order to sustain their lives and those of their families, the right of a country to regulate its borders and immigration, and a nation’s duty to do so with justice and mercy.

Corbett argued that “law and order and defending the rights of our immigrant neighbors are not in conflict.”

“We need to work together to find common sense solutions to our broken immigration system,” Corbett said.