Trump Vigorously Defends Aggressive Immigration Policies, Putting Him On a Collision ...

Trump Vigorously Defends Aggressive Immigration Policies, Putting Him On a Collision Course with the Catholic Church

But the president's rambling, record-length State of the Union address exposed deep polarization in the nation and the Church over Trump’s mass deportation campaig

President Donald J. Trump delivers the first State of the Union address of his second term to a joint session of Congress in the House Chamber of the U.S. Capitol. (Photo: Kenny Holston /Pool via Reuters)

This story has been updated.

By Gary Gately

President Donald J. Trump’s record-length State of the Union address Tuesday night came amid an ever-widening rift between the White House and the Catholic Church over federal agents’ aggressive and often-violent immigration enforcement tactics.

Hours before Trump’s address, U.S. Catholic bishops delivered among their sharpest criticism yet of Trump’s immigration policies, demanding a series of major reforms to restore “the God-given human dignity and rights of the human person.”

That followed months of mounting criticism over the immigration crackdown from Pope Leo XIV, the U.S. bishops’ conference, lay Catholics, immigration advocates and civil and human rights groups.

Trump, who made immigration a keystone of his campaign, won the Catholic vote in November 2024 by a larger margin than any presidential candidate in more than a half-century, in a nation where about 3 in 10 Catholics are immigrants and another 14% children of immigrants, a majority of people targeted for immigration detention or deportation are Catholics, and nearly 1 in 5 Catholics are vulnerable to deportation or live with someone who is.

But just over 13 months into Trump’s second term, multiple polls show that about 6 in 10 Americans believe that in the wake of immigration agents’ fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis last month, Trump’s immigration enforcement has gone too far, and the president’s overall approval rating has plunged to the low 40s.

In his rambling address — running an hour and 48 minutes and laced with a litany of familiar falsehoods and misleading statements — Trump blamed undocumented immigrants for violent crime, drug trafficking and welfare fraud.

But the speech, while decidedly short on policy goals — on immigration, or much of anything else — once again exposed deep polarization over Trump’s mass deportation campaign. It quickly drew both fierce backlash among critics, including congressional Democrats, and widespread praise among Republican lawmakers, conservative Catholic commentators and organizations — and, of course, prominent administration Catholics including Vice President JD Vance, border czar Thomas Homan, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt and outgoing DHS spokeswoman Tricia McDonald, all of whom have vigorously defended the immigration crackdown.

Trump never uttered the names of U.S. citizens Renee Nicole Good or Alex Pretti, whose January shooting deaths by immigration agents in Minneapolis, captured on multiple viral videos that contradicted the administration’s accounts of the killings, led to nationwide outrage. Nor did Trump bring up mounting criticism over not only undocumented immigrants but also nonviolent, unarmed U.S. citizens, being dragged from cars and homes, tackled, tased, beaten, put in dangerous chokeholds, pepper-sprayed and tear-gassed. And the president did not bring up well-documented deplorable conditions in immigration detention centers; widespread racial profiling; unjustified use of force; unlawful arrests and denial of due process rights; or plans to transform warehouses across the country into mass detention centers for tens of thousands more immigrants.

“The only thing standing between Americans and a wide-open border right now is President Donald J. Trump and our great Republican patriots in Congress,” Trump declared, drawing the first of dozens of rounds of applause from Republicans in the House Chamber of the U.S. Capitol.

He blamed former President Joe Biden for allowing “millions and millions of illegal aliens” to enter the U.S. “totally unvetted and unchecked.” Among them, Trump claimed: 11,888 murderers, when no evidence exists that millions of migrants came to the U.S. from prisons and mental institutions, and the Department of Homeland Security confirms that the more than 13,000 convicted murderers lacking legal status in the U.S. could have entered the country anytime during the last four decades.

Nonetheless, Trump again sought to stoke fear of immigrant crime. But while administration officials have repeatedly claimed that the immigration crackdown has targeted the “worst of the worst” dangerous and violent criminals living in the U.S. illegally, statistics belie those claims. The Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a non-profit, non-partisan data-collection center at Syracuse University, reported that as of February 7, 2026, 50,259 out of 68,289 —or 73.6% — of ICE detainees had no criminal conviction. Many of those convicted committed only minor offenses, including traffic violations. And a New York Times analysis of ICE arrests and detentions from January 20 to October 15, 2025, found that only 7% percent of those arrested nationwide had a violent conviction and a third had no criminal charges.

Trump soon pivoted to another favorite target: congressional Democrats.

He urged lawmakers to stand if they agreed with the statement: “The first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens, not illegal aliens.”

When Democrats remained seated during an extended standing ovation from Republicans, Trump said: “Isn’t that a shame? You should be ashamed of yourself, not standing up. You should be ashamed of yourself. That is why I’m also asking you to end deadly sanctuary cities that protect the criminals and enact serious penalties for public officials who block the removal of criminal aliens, in many cases, drug lords, murderers all over our country. They’re blocking the removal of these people out of our country, and you should be ashamed of yourself.”

On Tuesday night, tensions flared repeatedly during the address, which dozens of Democrats boycotted.

U.S. Representative Al Green, a Texas Democrat, quickly got ejected from the chambers after holding up a sign reading: BLACK PEOPLE AREN’T APES!” — a reference to a racist Trump social media post depicting former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama as apes. As staff escorted Green from the chamber, Republicans drowned out his shouts with chants of “USA! USA!”

As Trump spoke of immigration enforcement, Representative Ilhan Omar, a Minnesota Democrat, shouted at the president: “You’ve killed Americans!”

To which Trump replied: “You should be ashamed of yourself.”

Aliya Rahman, who had been dragged from her by federal agents and taken into custody as she headed to a doctor’s appointment in Minneapolis in a searing, viral image that ignited widespread shock and outrage, said Wednesday morning that she was arrested during the State of the Union address for standing in the House gallery.

Rahman, who was a guest of Omar at Trump’s speech, told Democracy Now: “Would you like to know why I was told that I was removed and arrested? The sergeant of arms told me it was because I was standing up.”

She said she stood “at the moment that I heard this man say some of the most racist things I have heard come out of any leader’s mouth about the people of my city, and continue to trash talk my state of Minnesota and glorify [Homeland Security], the people who did this to me and who are being allowed to roam free on the streets.”

Spewing xenophobic bile, Trump had referred to “Somali pirates who ransacked Minnesota,” and claimed members of the state’s Somali community “have pillaged an estimated $19 billion from the American taxpayer.” While more than 90% of about 80 charged in major fraud cases involving state-run programs in Minnesota are of Somali descent, that represents a tiny fraction of the over 107,000 Somalis in the state.

Trump said he had tapped Vance to lead a new “war on fraud,” adding: “We will take care of this problem. We’re going to take care of this problem. We are not playing games.”

Immigration officers dragged Aliya Rahman from her car on January 13 and took her into custody as she headed to an appointment at a traumatic brain injury center. (Photo: Photograph: Tim Evans/Reuters)

U.S. Capitol Police said in a statement Wednesday that Rahman “was told to sit down, but refused to obey our lawful orders. “It is illegal to disrupt the Congress and demonstrate in the congressional buildings, the statement added. Rahman was arrested and charged with unlawful conduct and disruption of Congress and released early Wednesday.

Rahman, who is autistic, recalled the terrifying January ordeal, telling The Catholic Observer: “Before I realized what was happening, several masked officers surrounded my car and were yelling conflicting instructions on what I was supposed to do with my car.” Her autism makes it difficult to distinguish voices, and amid the cacophony of conflicting commands from agents, screaming and whistles, she struggled to attempt to read their lips.

“You can imagine how difficult it was for me to try to read lips when ICE officers are completely masked,” she said. “I think it’s also important to point out that even someone who is not autistic would have trouble handling that situation. It was chaotic and overwhelming. There was a lot going on and it was happening fast. I do remember facing the ground and feeling pressure on my neck — which because of my brain injury was extremely painful for me.”

Alexa Van Brunt, director at the MacArthur Justice Center and Rahman’s attorney, said Rahman has not been charged. “The ICE agents in Minneapolis and around the country have certainly acted as if they are above the law,” Van Brunt said. “In Aliya’s case, they also violated every law enforcement standard and protocol governing use of force and the treatment of people with disabilities. Rather than using clear communication, they issued conflicting and confusing commands. Rather than deescalating the scene, they swore at Aliya and broke her car window. And after finding out Aliya had a disability and traumatic brain injury, they increased their use of violence, slamming her into the ground, carrying her like an animal, and continuously denying her medical care. They showed no humanity and no care and need to be held to account.”

During the address, Trump had chastised Democrats for not standing as he highlighted family members of loved ones killed or injured by undocumented immigrants. Anna Zarutska — who in 2022 fled war-ravaged Ukraine with her daughter, Iryna Zarutska, who was stabbed to death by an illegal immigrant on a Charlotte light rail train last August — wept as Trump spoke of her daughter.

“How do you not stand?” Trump asked Democrats.

President Donald J. Trump delivers his State of the Union address during a joint session of Congress in the House Chamber at the Capitol. (Photo: Kenny Holston/Pool via Reuters)

Trump also falsely claimed during his address “rampant” cheating in elections among “illegal aliens” as he pressed for passage of the “SAVE America Act,” which would require proof of citizenship to vote. In fact, multiple studies have found that noncitizen voting in federal elections, which is illegal, is extremely rare.

This morning, Trump unleashed a social media tirade against Omar, a U.S. citizen who fled Somalia as a child refugee, and Representative Rashida Tlaib, a Detroit native and daughter of Palestinian immigrant parents, who also jeered during the address.

“When you watch Low IQ Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, as they screamed uncontrollably last night at the very elegant State of the Union, such an important and beautiful event, they had the bulging, bloodshot eyes of crazy people, LUNATICS, mentally deranged and sick who, frankly, look like they should be institutionalized,” the president of the United States wrote. “When people can behave like that, and knowing that they are Crooked and Corrupt Politicians, so bad for our Country, we should send them back from where they came — as fast as possible. They can only damage the United States of America, they can do nothing to help it.”

In a Democratic rebuttal, Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger focused heavily on affordability and blamed rising costs on Trump’s tariffs, while also decrying the president’s harsh immigration enforcement tactics, including sending young children to detention centers.

For his part, Senator Alex Padilla, a California Democrat who is the son of Mexican immigrants, delivered a blistering Spanish-language response denouncing federal immigration agents who, he said, “terrorize our communities by targeting people because of the color of their skin or for speaking Spanish — including immigrants with legal status and citizens.”

“This chaos is the product of the dangerous whims of one person: Donald Trump,” Padilla, a Catholic, added. “Despite Trump’s lies, we know what we’re seeing with our own eyes. We see ICE agents using excessive force: entering homes without judicial warrants and shooting at cars with families still inside; placing people in detention centers without adequate access to doctors, healthy food, or clean drinking water.” He noted that 32 people died in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody in 2025, the highest number in more than two decades, and that six people have died in ICE custody thus far this year.

Ahead of Trump’s address, the 20 Catholic bishops — most of them from U.S.-Mexico border regions — called for restoring the right to asylum at the border, protecting churches and schools from enforcement raids, halting warrantless arrests and racial profiling, keeping immigrant families together, and providing a pathway to citizenship for law-abiding undocumented immigrants.

Fear of enforcement tactics among masked, heavily armed federal agents pervades many immigrant communities across the country — and drives Catholics from their own churches, the bishops said.

“Members of our flock have decided not to attend Mass or access the sacraments of the Church because of the fear of immigration enforcement,” the bishops said. “We consider this an issue of religious freedom — a right enshrined in both the US Constitution and international covenants.”

Those signing the statement include Bishop Mark J. Seitz of El Paso, Archbishop Gustavo Garcia-Siller of San Antonio and Archbishop John C. Wester of Santa Fe, among others.

“We speak out as pastors in border states and beyond concerned about the impact of the Department of Homeland Security’s recent and ongoing immigration enforcement activities against individuals and families who are without legal status in our country,” the bishops said. “While we acknowledge the right and duty of a sovereign nation to enforce its laws, we also believe that those laws should be upheld in a manner that protects the God-given human dignity and rights of the human person.”

Meanwhile, members of the Catholic Network for Social Justice, famous for its “Nuns On the Bus” tours, prayed, sang and marched to the U.S. Capitol Wednesday morning to visit congressional offices during “Faithful Resistance: A Public Witness for Immigrant Justice.”

Members of the Catholic Network for Social Justice, prayed, sang and marched to the U.S. Capitol Wednesday morning to visit congressional offices during “Faithful Resistance: A Public Witness for Immigrant Justice.” (Photo: Catholic Network for Social Justice)

The Network joined more than 300 other faith leaders and immigration advocates in urging Americans to sign an online petition against the Trump administration’s immigration policies. “We call on all Christians to join us in greater acts of courage to resist the injustices and anti-democratic danger sweeping across the nation,” the petition states. “We are facing a cruel and oppressive government; citizens and immigrants being demonized, disappeared, and even killed; the erosion of hard-won rights and freedoms; and a calculated effort to reverse America’s growing racial and ethnic diversity — all of which are pushing us toward authoritarian and imperial rule. What confronts us is not only an endangered democracy and the rise of tyranny. It is also a Christian faith corrupted by the heretical ideology of white Christian nationalism, and a church that has often failed to equip its members to model Jesus’s teachings and fulfill its prophetic calling as a humanitarian, compassionate, and moral compass for society.”

Archbishop Wester said bishops’ pre-address “puts some meat on the bones” of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) November condemnation of the Trump administration’s aggressive crackdown on undocumented immigrants as an affront to “God-given human dignity.”

“We oppose the indiscriminate mass deportation of people,” the bishops said in their message, approved at the USCCB’s annual plenary session in Baltimore. “We pray for an end to dehumanizing rhetoric and violence, whether directed at immigrants or at law enforcement…. We as Catholic bishops love our country and pray for its peace and prosperity. For this very reason, we feel compelled now in this environment to raise our voices in defense of God-given human dignity.”

The rare pastoral message from USCCB, reserved for speaking out on “particularly urgent” matters, marked its first such message since 2013, when the conference issued such a message in opposition to the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive coverage mandate.

Liam Conejo Ramos, 5, is seen being detained in a Minneapolis suburb on Jan. 20. Liam and his father Adrian Conejo Arias, who is originally from Ecuador, were held at a detention facility in Dilley, Texas, until a judge ordered their release on February 1. The viral image sparked fierce nationwide criticism. (Photo: Columbia Heights Public Schools)

For some longtime Catholic immigration activists like Chicago priest Father Brendan Curran, federal agents killings of Good and Pretti came as no surprise.

“What we witnessed in Minneapolis is called homicide in most jurisdictions in the world, and it should shock me, but it doesn’t shock me at all after what we’ve seen in Chicago,” Father Curran told The Catholic Observer.

Since the launch of “Operation Midway Blitz” in early September, Curran has witnessed ICE agents repeatedly unleashing tear gas and firing pepper balls at peaceful protesters — and fellow clergy members, as they prayed — outside a suburban Chicago detention facility. The 55-year-old Dominican priest, the son of an Irish immigrant father, has ministered to immigrants and U.S. citizens alike who committed no crimes but had nonetheless been harassed, assaulted, targeted with chemical agents or arrested by masked federal immigration enforcement officers wearing no identification.

Weeks after the aggressive enforcement operation began, Curran co-celebrated a Mass in September in honor of Silverio Villegas-González, a 38-year-old Mexican immigrant shot to death by an ICE during a traffic stop in the majority-Hispanic Chicago suburb of Franklin Park after dropping his two young children off at a nearby school and a daycare center.

The Department of Homeland Security released a statement soon after the shooting claiming that Villegas-Gonzalez had hit and dragged the officer a “significant distance” with his car as he tried to flee and had “seriously injured” the officer, who feared for his life and fatally shot him in self-defense. But footage from nearby businesses does not show Villegas-Gonzalez’s car driving at or hitting law either of the two officers who stood on the side of the car as he reversed away from the officers. And in bodycam footage, when a Franklin Park police officer asked the two ICE officers about their injuries, the officer who shot Villegas-Gonzalez replies: “I got a cut — nothing major.”

In November, the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office ruled Villegas-Gonzalez’s death a homicide caused by multiple gunshot wounds. No one has been arrested or charged in his death.

Curran’s voice quivered with emotion. “I don’t recognize my country anymore,” the priest said. “I never before imagined that the government of my country would almost immediately create an absolutely overt fiction about the death of a person who was murdered. It’s sickening. We have outlaws running Homeland Security, and these masked agents operate without rules or accountability. They know they can act with impunity. Our very democracy is under threat.”

Father Brendan Curran speaks at a late-January vigil in Chicago honoring Alex Pretti, the nurse killed by immigration agents in Minneapolis. (Photo: YouTube video screenshot)

Human Rights Watch, other rights groups and immigration advocates and some judges say the killing of Good and Pretti followed a pattern of U.S. immigration enforcement officers’ escalating violence against unarmed people who pose no threat to them, including clergy members and U.S. citizens; the Trump administration’s continual misrepresentations of facts surrounding officers’ assaults, arrests and shootings of unarmed people; and widespread use of racial profiling and violations of due process rights.

Belkis Wille, associate director of Human Rights Watch’s Crisis & Conflict Division, told The Catholic Observer: “Sadly, these killings aren’t a surprise. The groundwork had been laid by continuous use of excessive force with no effort by the government to rein in these tactics. Everyone in America should be concerned by a reality in which you have federal agents deployed to the streets of any city, town, village who are able to operate with this level of violence and with this level of impunity. That’s a threat to everybody.”

Belkis Wille serves as associate director of the Crisis, Conflict and Arms division of Human Rights Watch (Photo: Human Rights Watch)

Agents’ masks represent more than an intimidation tactic, Wille explained: “This is not only a violation of U.S. law, but also international law, which requires that law enforcement officers’ faces be visible to ensure accountability and give access to remedies for victims.”

DHS justifies masking as protection against “doxing,” but Wille stressed that international law allows concealing identity “only in rare cases for individual officers when there’s a legitimate need.”

“But,” she added, “when we see it adopted as a broad policy, that clearly is serving as a measure to block accountability. It’s impossible to even know who you have been abused by because they’ve taken measures to cover up their identities so they do not have to accept responsibility.”

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