On Immigrants, Due Process, and “Alligator Alcatraz”

The first thing I have to be absolutely clear about, as a Christian, is that God will judge us by the way we treat immigrants.

There are very few things about which we can truly say “the Bible is clear” and not end up with a debate. But the Bible is clear on immigrants. The Bible clearly states, “‘When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them.  The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the Lord your God.” If you’re one of those Christians who writes Leviticus 18:22 on a picket sign to protest the Pride parade, but you’re not picketing Immigration and Customs Enforcement right now, then you’re not a serious person and I refuse to take you seriously when you claim you’re just concerned with LGBTQ people’s souls. 

Christ Himself said that our treatment of immigrants is one of a small number of criteria that will be used to judge souls at His second coming. One-fifth of the reasons that the sheep go to Heaven in the prophecy and the goats do not, is that the sheep welcomed strangers. The stranger in this context is the foreigner.

Now, if you’re a Catholic Christian, your obligation is even clearer.

Pope Saint Paul VI’s Pacem in Terris and Pope Saint John Paul II’s Veritatis Splendor both declared mass deportation to be evil, and Pope Francis constantly spoke out on behalf of migrants as well. Pope Leo already publicly corrected the vice president about cruelty to migrants before he was Pope. Pope Leo’s first U. S. bishop, Bishop Pham, is also leading the charge against the current crackdown on immigrants in America.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church states: The more prosperous nations are obliged, to the extent they are able, to welcome the foreigner in search of the security and the means of livelihood which he cannot find in his country of origin. Public authorities should see to it that the natural right is respected that places a guest under the protection of those who receive him. Political authorities, for the sake of the common good for which they are responsible, may make the exercise of the right to immigrate subject to various juridical conditions, especially with regard to the immigrants’ duties toward their country of adoption. Immigrants are obliged to respect with gratitude the material and spiritual heritage of the country that receives them, to obey its laws and to assist in carrying civic burdens.

Got that? We have an obligation to welcome immigrants and help them get security and livelihood, whenever we can. We’re allowed to have rules and regulations prioritizing and protecting our citizens, but we’re obliged to welcome those less fortunate whenever possible. And we have to respect their natural rights and treat them as guests, while we’re figuring out what else we’re going to do, whether we can just give them all visas and a place to stay or not. Meanwhile, yes, immigrants have an obligation to be grateful and respectful to the country they’re coming to, and to obey our laws and perform their civic duty. That the exchange of obligations to one another. We welcome them as best we can, or at least help them get somewhere else safely and humanely if we can’t let them stay, and they are subject to our laws.

Oh, and in case you didn’t remember: Catholics are obliged to be good citizens of the countries we live in, and follow the law and participate in our government how we can, as long as the law doesn’t require us to sin. An unjust law is  a law Catholics should conscientiously break, but just laws are our obligation to follow.

Here’s something else you need to know: crossing the United States border illegally is a misdemeanor.

The legal punishment for a misdemeanor, typically, is getting let off with a warning, or paying a fine. Maybe being court ordered to pick up trash and serve Meals on Wheels for community service. If you build up a whole lot of misdemeanors or stubbornly refuse to appear at your court date, you might annoy the judge enough to get several days in the county jail to teach you a lesson, but you won’t do serious time. And overstaying your visa is a civil issue, not a criminal offense at all.

And do you know what else is a law of the United States of America? The eighth amendment to the constitution: “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.” So is the 14th amendment, which reads in part: “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” Have you got that? Every state in America owes “any person within its jurisdiction,” not just citizens, not just well-behaved legal migrants, but any human who got here for any reason, the due process of the law. If a diagnosed psychopath who was a serial killer from another country was dropped out of an airplane onto the grounds of an elementary school in Ohio, we as Americans would still owe that person due process when they landed. That’s the law.

And if you’re getting in the comment box to yell at me that actually, many Americans are already denied due process of the law all the time, I’m way ahead of you. Our legal system already doesn’t do what it’s supposed to do for all kinds of people, especially if they’re black or brown, whether they’re citizens or not, and that’s a terrible crime that needs to be rectified. But I’m just talking about the way it’s supposed to work.

So: Catholics are obliged to treat foreigners living among us with as much mercy and charity as we can. Besides that, we’re obliged to do our civic duty, participate in government, and follow the laws of the country we live in, so long as our laws and government don’t require us to sin. We have to do that. And our laws in the United States of America require us to treat every human being with due process of the law, and to never give anyone a cruel and unusual punishment. That means if someone who commits a misdemeanor gets a severe penalty, we ought to protest their treatment, as Catholics and as Americans. And if someone is imprisoned in our country, it had better not be without due process of the law. And if someone is tortured or abused here, Catholics ought to be crying out against it the loudest. That’s not my opinion. That’s the rule.

Now, here’s one more thing you need to know: you need to know the definition of a concentration camp.

“Concentration Camp” is not just a term that means “the most horrible thing ever.” It’s a real term, with a real definition. Conservatives who say that an abortion clinic is a concentration camp are making a mistake, and so are people on the left who say every federal prison is a concentration camp. Those are terrible things, but they’re not concentration camps. A concentration camp is a very specific thing, with a specific definition.

The Holocaust Encyclopedia of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum states: Generically defined, a concentration camp is a site for the detention of civilians whom a regime perceives to be a security risk of some sort. What distinguishes it from a prison (in the modern sense) is that incarceration in a concentration camp is independent of any judicial sentence or even indictment, and is not subject to judicial review.

Have you got that? Whether a prison is a concentration camp doesn’t depend on your or my liking it. A prison is a concentration camp if it’s concentrating civilians together, because a regime thinks they’re a risk to the country– NOT as a punishment for a crime, or under indictment awaiting trial. That’s a concentration camp.

The tent prison which has just been built in Florida,  called “Alligator Alcatraz,” is not concentrating immigrants together in a prison as a punishment for a crime they’ve committed. Nobody stood in a courtroom and had a judge bang a gavel and say “for the crime of such-and-such, I sentence you to thirty days in Alligator Alcatraz!” And they’re not under indictment for a crime and being kept in the facility awaiting trial either. Whether or not they’ve committed any crime besides the misdemeanor of illegal migration, the immigrants are there because a truck full of ICE officers picked them up and drove them there. ICE did that because the president of the United States deems brown-skinned immigrants from Latin America a threat to the country. That’s all. They are not receiving due process of the law, and they’re now squashed together in cages under a tent awning in the middle of the Everglades for an indefinite period, because the president thinks they’re dangerous.

That’s a concentration camp. It just is.

Just as a plane figure with three straight sides and three straight angles is a triangle and can’t not be a triangle, a place where a certain class of civilians are kept without due process of the law because the government thinks they’re a danger to us is a concentration camp. The government could have put them in a regular jail if they thought the immigrants were a flight risk while they were being processed for deportation, but instead, they built a concentration camp.

This concentration camp is not humane. It’s extremely hot. It’s infested with mosquitoes. It’s subject to flooding and the spread of disease. That’s cruel and unusual punishment, which should appall every law-abiding American. Catholics, obliged as we are to be kind to immigrants, ought to be crying out against the camp the loudest of all. DeSantis, a Catholic, is in serious sin, and we mustn’t let him forget it.

By the intercession of the blessed martyrs, the Ulma Family, we pray: never again. Not on our watch. Not in our country. Not with our permission.

Fight this injustice with everything you have, because the life of your soul depends on it.

Mary Pezzulo is the author of Meditations on the Way of the Cross, The Sorrows and Joys of Mary, and Stumbling into Grace: How We Meet God in Tiny Works of Mercy.