Texas Bishop Slams Greg Abbott, Says Christians Have ‘Duty to Resist’

A bishop in El Paso, Texas, a popular U.S. entry point for illegal immigration, said statewide efforts to villainize migrants is a sad sight and falls on the shoulders of Governor Greg Abbott.

Abbott has arguably been the most outspoken public official in condemning the claimed inaction of the federal government surrounding illegal immigration, which has soared under the Biden administration and hit a record high during the 2023 fiscal year. He instituted Operation Lone Star in March 2021 to build more border wall and leverage additional National Guard soldiers to deter migrants from entering unlawfully.

Total border crossings exceeded 988,900 between October and December, following a record 2.4 million migrant encounters at the U.S.-Mexico border in fiscal 2023—up from about 1.7 million in 2021.

Texas officials like Abbott are trying to take their own action without federal intervention, waiting to see if it can enforce its own immigration laws, including arrests and deportation through legislation known as Senate Bill 4 (S.B. 4), which was approved last year in an 88-4 vote.

“You have seen the Humvees and the concertina wire and the national guardsmen on the television,” Bishop Mark Seitz of the Diocese of El Paso said during a March 18 lecture at Fairfield University, a Jesuit institution in Connecticut, according to the National Catholic Reporter.

Seitz called Texas officials’ efforts “transparently political” and part of a “broader, brutal, historical project in Texas to criminalize and police people who migrate.”

“People of faith have a duty to resist these racist projects,” he added.

Seitz is the chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) Office of Migration, which sets broad policies and direction for the church’s work in areas including advocacy, education, refugee resettlement, and providing specialized services to at-risk and vulnerable populations including victims of trafficking and unaccompanied minors.

Newsweek reached out to Abbott, the diocese and the USCCB via email for comment.

Abbott and other Texas officials received bad news on Wednesday, when the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals denied Texas’ request to allow S.B. 4 to go into effect while the court considers its legality. It is being praised by civil rights groups as a victory in what has become a contentious court battle that has extended to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Chief Judge Priscilla Richman wrote in the ruling that “for nearly 150 years, the Supreme Court has held that the power to control immigration—the entry, admission, and removal of noncitizens—is exclusively a federal power.”

The ruling allows a lower-court decision to remain in place. The Fifth Circuit will hear arguments on April 3 in New Orleans about whether the injunction should be upheld.

“The court did the right thing in preventing the implementation of S.B. 4,” El Paso County attorney Jo Anne Bernal said in a statement shared with Newsweek. “We will continue seeking a court decision permanently enjoining this law that has already caused so much fear and divisiveness in our community.”

Seitz also reportedly rebuked Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton for his office’s efforts to defund Annunciation House, a decades-old Catholic migrant shelter in El Paso that was alleged by the AG to have facilitated illegal entry to the United States, harboring illegal migrants, human smuggling, and operating a stash house.

This month, a district court judge in Texas said Paxton’s efforts were presented “without regard to due process or fair play.”

“The attack on Annunciation House represents an escalation in Texas’ efforts in recent years to militarize the border and to enact legislation criminalizing migration and people who migrate,” Seitz said.

The bishop told Crux, an online newspaper that focuses on news related to the Catholic Church, that the hypothetical situation of Texas officials deporting migrants without properly allowing for the asylum process to play out “saddens” him.

“I’m very disappointed in the narrative that is being promoted to this day that people who are fleeing to our border are a threat to us in the first place,” Seitz said. “It’s just a tremendous misunderstanding of what’s happening.”