No Room at the Trump Inn: White House Rejects Bishops’ Call to Halt Christmas Raids

Echoing Pope Leo, Florida’s top bishop urged Trump: “Don’t be the Grinch” this Christmas. The White House slammed the door anyway.

Miami Archbishop Thomas Wenski and all the Catholic bishops of Florida took a remarkable stand this week, imploring President Donald Trump to halt immigration enforcement during Christmas.

“We request that the government pause apprehension and roundup activities during the Christmas season. Such a pause would show a decent regard for the humanity of these families,” the bishops wrote in their Dec. 22 appeal.

Wenski didn’t mince words at a press conference, warning the administration, “Don’t be the Grinch that stole Christmas.”

He urged Trump to “give people these two weeks to be with their families without fear of being arrested or taken into custody and ending up at Alligator Alcatraz or Krome” — referring to Florida ICE detention sites notorious for harsh conditions.

In the spirit of the Prince of Peace, the bishops argued, America can afford a brief moment of compassion: enforcement sweeps have already deported over 500,000 people this year and driven nearly 2 million others to self-deport, and now many of those being rounded up are simply “not criminals but just here to work,” Wenski noted.

A Christmas moratorium, the bishops said, would “ease the fear and anxiety” gripping immigrant families and allow everyone “to celebrate with greater joy the advent of the Prince of Peace.”

The White House wasted no time in snubbing the request. Responding to the query, spokeswoman Abigail Jackson replied with two curt sentences emphasizing that immigration enforcement will continue unabated.

“President Trump was elected based on his promise to the American people to deport criminal illegal aliens. And he’s keeping that promise,” Jackson said in a statement.

In other words, no holiday reprieve, not even on the Lord’s birthday. The messenger was striking: Jackson herself is a baptized Catholic who attended parochial school in Allentown, Pa., yet here she was effectively telling Catholic bishops that their plea for mercy would find no traction in Trump’s America.

The administration’s stance was crystal clear —business as usual on deportations, even amid Christmas Masses and family gatherings.

The contrast could not be starker: on one side, Church leaders invoking the Holy Family and the spirit of welcome, and on the other, a president doubling down on a campaign promise to be deport all undocumented migrants.

As Wenski put it, treating every undocumented person as an urgent target has created a “climate of fear and anxiety” that infects whole communities — including U.S. citizens — with dread.

Yet the White House message is that fear will continue to rule, Christmas or not.

A Year of Church-State Clashes Comes to a Head

This Florida showdown is not an isolated incident. It’s the latest flare-up in a long-simmering feud between President Trump and the Catholic Church — a feud that has intensified since the election of Pope Leo XIV on May 8, 2025, the first American pontiff in history.

Over the past year, Pope Leo and Trump’s camp have repeatedly butted heads, especially over the treatment of migrants. Just last month, Pope Leo publicly denounced an ICE policy that prevented detained immigrants near Chicago from receiving Holy Communion.

The pope was outraged at such an infringement on religious liberty and human dignity, pointedly asking whether those in power had forgotten Christ’s command to welcome the stranger.

The Trump White House’s response? A Trump official snapped that “the pope doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

When pressed by Letters from Leo if the President had ever read Jesus’s words about caring for strangers, the same spokesperson had no comment.

The president’s allies went even further: MAGA media agitators launched a coordinated broadside against Pope Leo, smearing him as a “woke Marxist heretic” for suggesting that being truly pro-life means caring about kids at the border as well as in the womb.

In one notorious episode, a prominent Trump backer on social media fumed that he was “heartbroken” to learn the pope sympathizes with the poor — practically rewriting the Beatitudes to say blessed are the comfortable.

Through it all, Pope Leo XIV has shown no intention of backing down from his Gospel-based critique of Trump-era policies. In fact, he has actively encouraged American bishops to turn up the volume on social justice issues.

At the Vatican’s urging, the U.S. bishops at their November assembly issued a rare “special message” condemning Trump’s mass deportation agenda and the “vilification” of immigrants.

They voiced alarm at the way aggressive raids have torn apart families and even denied people the ministry of the Church in detention centers. Pope Leo not only endorsed this message; he’s been elevating like-minded pastors into leadership.

A case in point: Leo recently accepted the retirement of conservative Cardinal Timothy Dolan and hand-picked Bishop Ronald Hicks — an active pro-immigrant missionary aligned with Leo’s priorities — as the next Archbishop of New York.

That appointment sent an unmistakable signal about the direction Leo expects the American Church to take. Pope Leo XIV has urged local bishops to speak out on social justice concerns. The Florida bishops’ bold Christmas appeal can be seen as a direct fruit of that papal urging.

The first American pope has effectively told his bishops: do not be afraid to confront injustice, even if it puts you at odds with the president.

Pope Leo XIV has repeatedly encouraged U.S. bishops to defend human dignity and speak out on issues like immigration. His support emboldened Florida’s bishops to appeal for a Christmas enforcement pause, heightening tensions with the Trump administration.

So far, President Trump’s pattern has been to dismiss or deride these faith-based criticisms. When Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago (a close ally of Leo) released a video denouncing immigration raids earlier this year, Trump surrogates blasted it as partisan posturing.

When Pope Leo gently reminded governments that “there are ways to treat” even those here illegally with justice — through courts and due process instead of heavy-handed raids — the administration shrugged.

And now, even the simple request to let immigrant families “celebrate in peace” for a few days is being treated as beyond the pale.

It’s telling that the Department of Homeland Security reportedly even touted recent ICE arrests as a “Christmas gift to Americans,” as if rounding up delivery drivers and line cooks were something to rejoice in. The values gap between Trump’s agenda and Pope Leo’s vision of America’s moral duty has never been wider.

No Room at the Inn?

This confrontation during Christmas week underscores a fundamental choice facing American Catholics. On one side stands the example of Pope Leo XIV and the bishops who echo his call: a Church that puts mercy over politics, that sees migrants not as invaders but as brothers and sisters deserving compassion.

Recall that in the Biblical Christmas story, there was literally no room at the inn for the Holy Family — yet here we are again, turning away those knocking at our door in desperation.

As Archbishop Wenski said, the U.S. can enforce its laws humanely and not “be callous toward the suffering” of vulnerable families. On the other side, we have a President proud of a hardline approach that treats any pause in enforcement as a betrayal of his base.

Mr. Trump is sending a clear message that even the pleas of pastors and the optics of Christmas will not slow his crackdown. And he’s willing to deploy Catholic staff like Abigail Jackson to drive that message home, a move that suggests the White House wants to blunt criticism by hiding behind one of the faithful.

In the coming days, as Christmas Eve brings Midnight Mass and the Church celebrates the Holy Infant born in a stable, many will be praying for migrants jailed far from their loved ones. Bishops in Florida and beyond will undoubtedly continue to press for mercy. But President Trump’s position is firmly set: the deportation machine grinds on, holy day or not.

Yet, there is hope in this story too. The very fact that the Church is finding its voice — united and unafraid — is a sign of the times under Pope Leo XIV. The pope has repeatedly said the Church “cannot remain silent” in the face of cruelty, and his American flock is hearing him.

The Florida bishops may not have moved the White House today, but they have drawn a stark moral contrast for all Americans to see.

In a year full of heated exchanges between the pope and the president, this Christmas clash cuts to the heart of the matter: Will we make room for compassion, or not? As we approach the manger this week, that question lingers over our nation.

The battle between Donald Trump and Pope Leo XIV’s vision of America will continue into the new year.

For now, the Christmas season finds the two leaders — one political, one religious – in dramatically different postures.

One is refusing to bend even for a quiet holiday break; the other is bending low to wash the feet of those our society would rather discard. The contrast is jarring, but it clarifies the choice facing the faithful.

As Pope Leo has emphasized throughout his pontificate, to truly celebrate the birth of Christ is to recognize the dignity of every human person, especially those on life’s margins.

No executive order or talking point can change that truth.

And so, while the White House may have said “no” to the bishops’ request, the Church — guided by Pope Leo’s courageous witness — is saying “yes” to standing with migrants this Christmas. In that stance lies the real hope of the season.

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