The Catholic Church’s principles on immigration have their roots in scripture, tradition, and magisterial teaching. Both the Hebrew scriptures and Christian scriptures reiterate the moral obligation to “welcome the stranger.” This is perhaps most strongly worded in Matthew’s gospel, when Jesus says that whatever we do to the foreigner living among us, we do to him.
While legal understandings of who counts as an immigrant, migrant, or refugee may differ across history and from one culture to the next, the idea that people should treat the foreigner in their midst with justice and charity precedes Christianity. It was present in many ancient cultures and endures in Christian traditions around hospitality and works of mercy, as well as in the church’s social doctrine.
The Catholic Church also states clearly that Jesus himself was a refugee and views the Holy Family, in their flight to Egypt, as a model of refugee families everywhere. In his apostolic constitution Exsul Familia Nazarethana (On the Spiritual Care of Emigrants) Pope Pius XII writes that: “Jesus, Mary and Joseph, living in exile in Egypt to escape the fury of an evil king, are, for all times and all places, the models and protectors of every migrant, alien and refugee of whatever kind who, whether compelled by fear of persecution or by want, is forced to leave his native land, his beloved parents and relatives, his close friends, and to seek a foreign soil.”
While the Catholic Church has many teachings that pertain to immigration, here are seven that are crucial for understanding its stance:
All people are made in the image and likeness of God.
Fundamental to Catholic teaching on immigration is the core belief that the dignity of the person is inherent and their rights inalienable. The church teaches that every person’s fundamental rights are not contingent on any law, but are based on their nature as children of God, created in God’s image. A person’s worth is prior to any allegiance, accomplishment, or political organization. It is independent of any legal system. It cannot be erased by the grossest wrongdoing.
Dignitas Infinita (Declaration on Human Dignity) from the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith states that: “Every human person possesses an infinite dignity, inalienably grounded in his or her very being, which prevails in and beyond every circumstance, state, or situation the person may ever encounter. This principle, which is fully recognizable even by reason alone, underlies the primacy of the human person and the protection of human rights.”
Pope St. John Paul II, in a 1985 address to the New World Congress on the Pastoral Care of Immigrants, reaffirmed that the fact that a person is a citizen of a particular state “does not deprive him of membership to the human family, nor of citizenship in the universal society, the common, world-wide fellowship of men.”
Pope Benedict XVI reiterated this in Caritas in Veritate (On Integral Human Development): “Every migrant is a human person who, as such, possesses fundamental, inalienable rights that must be respected by everyone and in every circumstance.”
People have the right to migrate to sustain their lives and the lives of their families.
The right of the person to migrate has been affirmed in multiple church documents. It is connected with the church’s teachings on a person’s right to work to sustain themselves and their families, as laid out by Pope Leo XIII in his encyclical Rerum Novarum (On Capital and Labor). It is also connected with the church’s teaching on the universal destination of goods, as outlined by Pope St. John XXIII in his encyclical Mater et Magistra (On Christianity and Social Progress).
John XXIII’s encyclical, Pacem in Terris (On Establishing Universal Peace) also clearly states that people have the right to migrate, when it is a matter of justice and the attainment of a life of dignity: “Every human being has the right to the freedom of movement and of residence within the confines of his own State. When there are just reasons in favor of it, he must be permitted to emigrate to other countries and take up residence there.”
Nations have the right to regulate their borders and to control immigration.
The church also teaches that nations have certain rights—though these rights are always secondary to the dignity of the person. An individual’s right to migrate exists within certain moral parameters, including a nation’s right to establish laws around immigration and control their borders, for the sake of the safety and flourishing of those who reside there.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church affirms that “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.”
Pope Benedict XVI stated, in his 2010 message for World Day of Migrants and Refugees, that
“States have the right to regulate migration flows and defend their own frontiers, always guaranteeing respect due to the dignity of each and every person.” And while countries should strive to welcome and care for immigrants, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops state that “no country is bound to accept all those who wish to resettle there.”
A country must regulate its borders with justice and mercy.
A nation’s right to control its borders and regulate immigration must be understood in the context of its obligation to welcome the stranger whenever possible, to provide for their basic needs, and to treat all refugees, immigrants, and migrants humanely, respecting their inherent rights and dignity. For this reason, a country’s right to regulate its borders is itself limited.
“Rule of law” does not mean that a nation can treat immigrants in any way it chooses. As Pope Francis stated in his 2025 letter to the U.S. bishops, “an authentic rule of law is verified precisely in the dignified treatment that all people deserve, especially the poorest and most marginalized. The true common good is promoted when society and government, with creativity and strict respect for the rights of all — as I have affirmed on numerous occasions — welcomes, protects, promotes and integrates the most fragile, unprotected and vulnerable.”
The church should also respect people’s right not to migrate.
The church recognizes that the right to migrate is connected with the right to stay. People should not be obliged to be uprooted and flee their homes. For this reason, Catholics should work for justice, peace, and the common good in all nations, so that all people can remain in their communities in peace.
Pope St. John Paul II stated, in his 2004 message for the 90th World Day of Migrants and Refugees, that as “regards immigrants and refugees, building conditions of peace means in practice being seriously committed to safeguarding first of all the right not to emigrate, that is, the right to live in peace and dignity in one’s own country.”
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops affirms that even as we welcome immigrants and celebrate their contributions, we should also “work to make it unnecessary for people to leave their own land.”
People have an obligation to respect the just and legitimate laws of the nations they enter.
While all people have certain fundamental rights, they also have moral obligations. These include obligations to the community they reside in and the nation that governs them.
According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, “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.”
While many laws around immigration are not in themselves rooted in natural law or objective morality, but are prudential regulations governing the function of human society, immigrants are nevertheless strongly encouraged to respect those laws—as long as they do not conflict with the demands of justice.
Deportation is a violation of human dignity.
Several magisterial documents include deportation in its list of sins against human dignity. The pastoral constitution Gaudium et Spes (On the Church in the Modern World) names deportation as one of a list of infamies:
“Whatever is opposed to life itself, such as any type of murder, genocide, abortion, euthanasia or wilful self-destruction, whatever violates the integrity of the human person, such as mutilation, torments inflicted on body or mind, attempts to coerce the will itself; whatever insults human dignity, such as subhuman living conditions, arbitrary imprisonment, deportation, slavery, prostitution, the selling of women and children; as well as disgraceful working conditions, where men are treated as mere tools for profit, rather than as free and responsible persons; all these things and others of their like are infamies indeed. They poison human society, but they do more harm to those who practice them than those who suffer from the injury. Moreover, they are supreme dishonor to the Creator.”
Pope St. John Paul II, in Veritatis Splendor, reiterates this when he lists a number of actions that are intrinsically evil, in the sense that they “radically contradict the good of the person.”
Image: Unsplash/Annika Gordon
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