Every Catholic Must Resign from ICE — Today
After a year of inhumane raids and papal rebukes, it’s clear no Catholic can in good conscience remain with ICE any longer.
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Yesterday morning, a United States immigration enforcement officer shot and killed Renee Nicole Macklin Good, 37, in her car with three fatal gunshot wounds — an American citizen, but more importantly a widowed mother of a six-year-old, and a woman made in the image and likeness of Almighty God.
The people of Minnesota through their judicial system will judge the culpability of the officer, but for ICE the verdict is in.
Yesterday’s killing makes plainly clear that which has been hidden to many for far too long.
ICE’s godless tactics are a total affront to the gospel of Jesus Christ. It stands in the face of the faith of our ancestors. It mocks the women and men who reared us to love the truth, to stand up for justice, and to never stand by idly while tyrants trample on the dignity and life of our neighbors.
This tragedy crystallizes a painful truth: every Catholic working for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) must resign today.
For the past year, President Trump’s renewed crackdown — championed by our nominally Catholic Vice President JD Vance — has inflicted mounting inhumanity: violent raids, quota-driven roundups, even a notorious new detention camp in Florida dubbed Alligator Alcatraz.
These policies have drawn scathing rebukes from two popes and the vast majority of bishops across the United States.
Just this past October, it brought the vicar of Christ, Leo XIV, himself to tears.
After this latest outrage, a line has been crossed. A Catholic cannot continue to serve ICE without betraying the core values of our faith.
No More “Just Following Orders”
Catholic teaching leaves no room for just following orders as a moral excuse.
In a July 31 public letter, Bishop Mark E. Brennan of Wheeling, West Virginia invoked the Nuremberg trials in urging ICE agents to defy unjust directives. “No one can escape personal moral responsibility by saying ‘I was just following orders,’” the bishop warns — that defense was rejected at Nuremberg.
If an enforcement action is immoral, Brennan insists, refuse it: God is the final judge of our actions.
In other words, an unjust law does not bind the conscience of a believer.
The late Pope Francis — in a letter partially written by the future Pope Leo XIV — told U.S. bishops that the “mass deportations that have torn apart families” cannot be reconciled with moral law, declaring: “No policy can stand if it does not uphold human dignity. No law is just if it turns its back on the vulnerable.”
That message has been affirmed over and over in this past year.
From the Vatican to the Texas border, Catholic leaders have decried ICE’s tactics as incompatible with the Gospel.
Bishop Mark Seitz of El Paso, who heads the U.S. bishops’ migration committee, likened the current crackdown to a “Category 4” hurricane tearing through immigrant communities. He cautioned months ago that the time was nearing when Catholic agents must say, “In conscience, I can’t do this.”
Many ICE personnel have tried to convince themselves they can soften the agency’s cruelty from the inside. But Seitz himself noted that ICE leadership now demands strict obedience, leaving little room for mercy.
The sad reality is that good intentions cannot sanitize participation in a deportation regime built on fear. ICE, as it operates today, has become an anti-Christian institution — one that systematically violates the sanctity of human dignity and the inherent value of the family.
We Will Help You Find a Better Way
I do not presume to judge the soul of every Catholic who wears an ICE badge. The vast majority who signed up recently were likely looking for stable work amid economic turbulence, not seeking to inflict harm.
Many are under-trained and have been thrust into impossible moral dilemmas. They deserve our compassion. Yet no amount of personal goodwill can change what ICE is doing.
Right now, sincere Catholics in the agency are being ordered to tear toddlers from their parents, to shove frightened families into buses and cages, to enforce laws that treat migrants as disposable.
Participating in such deeds — however reluctantly — ties you to an enterprise that makes a mockery of the Gospel of love. It’s no wonder Pope Leo XIV has continually condemned these actions as inhumane and unworthy of any follower of Christ.
As a Church, we must take care of our brothers and sisters who find themselves trapped in ICE’s ranks. Telling someone to quit their job is serious; it affects their livelihood and family.
That’s why we, as fellow Catholics, have a duty to help these men and women find noble employment elsewhere.
There are better ways to make a living — work that serves the common good, honors our nation’s ideals, and keeps one’s conscience clean. If you or someone you love needs assistance leaving ICE, reach out.
Under the guidance of Pope Leo XIV, the Catholic Church will do all we can, through our parishes, charities, and networks, to support your transition to dignified work.
You are our brothers and sisters in Christ — we stand ready to catch you. Staying in a morally toxic job is no longer tenable, and we owe it to you to help you escape it.
Every Catholic who reads this also has a role to play.
Please amplify this plea to your friends, family, and fellow parishioners. It’s time to sound the alarm in our pews: no Catholic can continue working for ICE without grave danger to their soul. We need to urgently encourage our brothers and sisters in those uniforms to step away from this dark path. Their salvation is at stake.
The words of Wheeling’s Bishop Brennan ring prophetically: God, not government, is the ultimate judge of our actions. We cannot wait quietly on the sidelines while our fellow Catholics carry out a campaign that Leo XIV and the Church herself calls “inhumane.”
Morally, the moment of decision has arrived.
You Are Not Alone — But the Time to Act is Now
And so, a personal word to any Catholic ICE agent who might be reading: Remember the final words of St. Thomas More before his execution at the hands of a godless tyrant.
“I am the King’s good servant, but God’s first.”
Your first duty is to God and the eternal law of love — everything else is secondary. You swore to serve your country, yes, but not at the cost of betraying Christ’s commands.
Right now, you are serving an organization that defies our faith at every turn. You have seen it with your own eyes: cruelty celebrated, lies justified, families devastated. No job, no order, no flag can excuse these sins.
That’s why Pope Leo himself has rebuked what ICE is doing a dozen times in the past three months alone.
If you take the courageous step to resign, you will not walk alone. An entire faith community will walk with you every step of the way, helping you find hope and a future beyond this.
If fear of unemployment is the only chain holding you, let us help break it — reach out to me or to any Catholic leader you trust, and you will find support.
Donald Trump will not be president forever.
One day this national nightmare will end, and when it does, you will answer for what you chose to do in these years — not just before Almighty God, but likely before the courts of this country, and certainly in the eyes of your neighbors.
I fear that if you stay until the bitter end, you may find yourself unemployable in the future, with a stain on your reputation that’s hard to wash away.
Look to history. Tyrants come and go, but justice remains.
“The truth suffers, but it never dies,” taught St. Teresa.
When you pick up one side of the stick, you pick up the other; those who carry out oppression now will carry its weight later.
You still have a choice, while your conscience is still alive. For the sake of your faith, your family, and your country’s honor — walk a different way.
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I have cried for this woman...the WWII germans shot jews in the head and pushed them into mass graves and left them there, whether dead or alive. This fiasco with this death squad yesterday, has the same aura, leaving her in her vehicle dying and NOT letting a doctor near her, it is vile and despicable...
Thank you. The murder, the lies and denial by Trump and his minions, and now the coverup by the Feds who are shutting Minnesota officials out of the investigation are all hideous. Every person of faith and ethics should denounce ICE and demand it be abolished.