I continue with my suggestions for improving the recent pastoral letter on immigration by the Archbishop of San Antonio, the Most Rev. Gustavo García-Siller, MSpS.

Racism of Enforcement?

The Archbishop maintains that there are “patterns of racial disparity in [immigration] enforcement against Hispanics, Latinos, and other people of color” (Para. 22). For this, he cites the Migration Policy Institute. But this Institute also reported, in July 2026, that about one million out of 16 million (6%) illegals are Caucasian and they typically have overstayed their visas. So, immigration enforcement against illegals — 94% of whom are Asian, black, or Latino — cannot but overwhelmingly involve the vast majority and thus cannot convincingly be called racist.

Criminal Behavior of Illegal Immigrants

The Archbishop refers to crimes by illegal immigrants in only one location in the letter, namely, where he mentions the percentage of detained people charged with, or convicted of, crimes. He cites a Cato Institute report of November 2025 in stating: “We are told repeatedly that enforcement targets the criminally dangerous, yet 73% of those in immigration detention have no criminal conviction, and only 5% have been convicted of a violent crime” (Para. 17).

My research into national statistics by and large confirms this. Among the 400,000 arrests made in 2025, 14% had charges or convictions of violence, such as homicide, sexual assault, and kidnapping, and an additional 10% had serious but non-violent charges, such as DUI, burglary, drug trafficking, weapons charges, identity theft, and large-scale fraud. On the other hand, ICE reports that 70% have criminal convictions or charges and, more specifically, of the 1,500 arrests made in the San Antonio region between January 2025 and July 8, 2026, that figure was 87% (900 with convictions and 400 with pending criminal charges).

Mass Deportation

The Archbishop repeats the statement of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in November 2025 that “indiscriminate mass deportation” must end (Paras. 34, 78). Neither the Conference nor the Archbishop describe what they mean by “indiscriminate.” As a preliminary matter, I assume that they’re not criticizing only deportation but arrests and detention, since deportation necessarily involves arrest and detention.

They appear to be referring to the deportation, on a large scale, of those who have neither been charged with, nor convicted of, certain crimes — either in their home countries or in the U.S. For example, the Archbishop insists that “disrespect toward those who have built good lives here is unacceptable” (Para 23), and that “Children and parents who were our neighbors are being held [in detention] separated from parishes, from their families and from the lives they built” (Para. 16). Presumably these are the people he describes as “the living presence of the Lord, a gift the Holy Spirit continues to bestow upon the Church and country [citing Pope Leo XVI]… We welcome these missionaries of God’s love” (Para. 8).

He compares them to the strangers Christ thanks us for welcoming (Matt. 25:35; in Para. 31) and to the traveler who was a victim of a crime and was cared for by the Good Samaritan (Para. 30). This language is proper to a minister of the Gospel appealing to members of his flock, but not necessarily proper in an appeal to public authorities.

Another concern is the adjective “mass” in “mass deportation.” I don’t think that the Archbishop’s or the other bishops’ concerns would be less if there was just one person subject to “indiscriminate” deportation. Second, would their concern be less if the number of deportations at issue were the same as is occurring but were spread over months, over years? What numbers, over what period of time, constitute a “mass deportation” as opposed to a more routine deportation? In the eight years of the Obama Administration, 400,000 were deported in 2012 and nearly three million during the entire eight years. Did this constitute “mass deportation”? As I just noted, in the 18 months between January 2025 and July 2026, there were 1,500 arrests in the San Antonio region. If all of the arrestees end up being deported, would 1,500 in 18 months — in the context of 355,000 aided by San Antonio’s Migrant Resource Center during the Biden Administration (Para. 60), even if only a minority of the 355,000 remained in the area — constitute “mass deportation”? I don’t think so.

The Economics of Mass Deportation

The Archbishop ever so briefly makes an economic argument against mass deportation. He cites documents stating that it would cost the economy one trillion dollars while, on the other hand, providing a pathway to citizenship would grow the economy $1.7 trillion (Para. 17). If we are to engage in a discussion of the economic impact of tens of millions of unvetted illegal immigrants, then we would have to include the costs to the general population of, for example:

• higher rents and home prices due to the higher demand
• the impact on public education – its effect on learning and requiring teaching in multiple languages
• the effect on the costs of healthcare, including emergency care
• the effect of crimes such as murder, rape, drug trafficking, sex trafficking, DUI, and traffic deaths and injuries caused by commercial drivers

Family Members or Unmarried?

In addition to describing illegal immigrants as “missionaries of God’s love,” the Archbishop paints a picture of the undocumented immigrant in fear of detention and deportation as a member of a family, a good worker:

• “A dependable employee…A loving parent…A retired, patriotic veteran” (Para. 10)
• “Children and parents who were our neighbors are being held there right now, separated from parishes, from their families and from the lives they built” (Para. 16)
• “…homes where parents cannot feed their children…[T]hose who migrate do so to survive, to keep their families alive… Our sisters and brothers cannot wait years for their children to eat. They cannot wait years for their family to be safe” (Para. 18)
• “…a family flees violence or starvation and crosses a border in search of safety…” (Para. 33)

Undoubtedly, there are large numbers of illegal immigrants, going back 20 years, who are members of families and good workers. Yet, there are studies, including statistics by Customs and Border Protection, showing that, since the January 2021 beginning of the Biden Administration’s open borders, few arriving illegal immigrants came with families, that 50%, even 70%, of all “encounters” were of adult males unaccompanied by spouse or children. It is supposed that, among the “got-aways,” the percentage is even higher. And, if we were to include 15-, 16- and 17-year-olds, that number would be higher still.[i]

This essay will continue in Part 3. A link to Part 1 is here.

[i] In this regard, there is an ABC News report of June 2026 analyzing ICE data and finding that, nationally, of some 400,000 arrests in the first eight months of the second Trump Administration, only 5,000 of them were married to American citizens (and 2,000 of them were deported). I could not find any statistics about how many arrestees or deportees were married to non-citizens.