Pope receives letters from ICE detainees, pastoral workers in Chicago
Pope Leo XIV received letters and messages from immigrants detained at an ICE facility near Chicago, along with messages from Catholics supporting them. A delegation from Chicago’s Coalition for Spiritual and Public Leadership presented the pope with a handmade album of photos and messages during his Oct. 28 general audience. Scalabrinian laywoman Abigail Ortiz Valles described the coalition’s pastoral ministry at the Broadview facility and said it brought her face to face with the suffering of Jesus. The delegation included Chicago Auxiliary Bishop José María Garcia-Maldonado and Franciscan Father Richard Rohr; members called for the dignity and religious freedom of immigrants to be protected.
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Pope Leo XIV received messages from detainees at an ICE processing facility near Chicago and from people providing them pastoral support. The delegation delivered the letters during a meeting after the pope’s Oct. 28 general audience at the Vatican.
About 30 members of the Chicago-based Coalition for Spiritual and Public Leadership met with the pope, including Chicago Auxiliary Bishop José María Garcia-Maldonado and Franciscan Father Richard Rohr. They presented a handmade album containing photographs and messages of hope and support from coalition members and detainees at the Broadview facility.
Abigail Ortiz Valles, a Scalabrinian laywoman involved in the coalition’s ministry, told the pope that entering the facility felt like encountering “the face and Passion of Jesus.” The coalition said the pope appeared visibly moved as he listened to her testimony.
The coalition’s work includes pastoral visits inside the facility, as well as events outside it, such as Mass and Eucharistic processions. Members said their efforts seek to draw attention to detainees and defend immigrants’ religious freedom and dignity.
The article reported that immigration-enforcement operations began in March 2025 and that activity increased after ICE launched Operation Midway Blitz in September of that year. Coalition members were initially barred from entering Broadview after the operation began, but regained access to provide pastoral care to detainees after suing the U.S. government and securing an injunction.
The Church’s duty to uphold migrant dignity amid detention
The Church’s duty is to insist that migrants retain their full human dignity and fundamental rights in detention, whatever their immigration status. That does not mean denying a state’s authority to regulate its borders or enforce its laws. It means judging enforcement by whether it respects human dignity, protects legitimate humanitarian needs, and avoids treating detention as the default response when less restrictive alternatives can serve the public purpose.
Catholic teaching grounds the rights of migrants in their humanity, not in citizenship or lawful status. Dignitas Infinita warns that migrants may be treated in practice as “less worthy, less important, less human,” even if no one openly denies that they are human beings. It insists that every migrant possesses fundamental, inalienable rights that must be respected “in every circumstance.”
That principle applies inside detention as much as outside it. A person’s confinement does not make that person less deserving of respect, humane treatment, or recognition as a member of the human family. Pope Leo XIV put the point plainly: “Human dignity has no passport and does not lose its value when crossing a border.”
The Church’s concern is therefore not limited to migrants who have entered through regular channels. John Paul II called the Church to defend migrants’ rights and human dignity “even in cases of non-legal immigration.”
The Church does not teach that governments have no right to regulate migration. The US bishops affirm both the right of nations to control their borders and the responsibility to protect people within them. But they say those responsibilities must be exercised consistently with the humanitarian needs of migrants and refugees.
This is a balance, not a choice between ordered migration and human dignity. Pope Francis likewise wrote that protecting vulnerable people does not prevent governments from developing policies for orderly and legal migration. His warning was that such policies must not be built on the privilege of some and the sacrifice of others, or on force rather than the equal dignity of every person.
Migrants, for their part, have responsibilities: the USCCB recalls the Catechism’s teaching that immigrants are obliged to respect the receiving country’s heritage, obey its laws, and contribute to civic burdens. But the bishops distinguish forced migration, including flight from persecution or serious danger, from ordinary migration; such circumstances can make conventional legal pathways unavailable.
The clearest policy direction in the supplied material is the US bishops’ support for community-based alternatives to detention, especially models that include case management and direct services. Their stated view is that nearly everyone navigating an immigration case should be able to do so from home, with family and in the community, rather than behind bars.
That position reflects a moral concern about the burdens detention can impose: confinement separates people from family and community and can make it harder for them to navigate their cases. The bishops specifically emphasize the importance of family reunification and note that some families face serious difficulty pursuing it through available legal pathways.
The materials support a strong preference for alternatives, but they do not establish that every instance of immigration detention is automatically immoral, nor do they supply a complete set of legal criteria for when detention may or may not be justified. The grounded conclusion is narrower but important: detention should be subject to serious moral scrutiny, and governments should not default to it when community-based approaches can meet legitimate needs.
The Church’s duty is both pastoral and public. Pastoral care means welcoming migrants, serving their needs, and ensuring that they are not left isolated. The Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development calls for migrants and refugees to be recognized as brothers and sisters, and says that assistance is not merely an act of generosity but “an act of justice due to them.”
Public witness means speaking clearly when migrants are demeaned or made to suffer unnecessarily. Pope Francis urged Catholics and people of goodwill to resist discriminatory narratives and to build solidarity rather than deepen division. The Church’s advocacy should therefore defend fair and humane treatment while acknowledging the legitimate responsibilities of public authorities.
For Catholics, this can include supporting credible organizations that serve detained migrants and their families, encouraging pastoral access and practical assistance, and evaluating public policies against the principles of equal dignity and humanitarian protection. The supplied sources do not specify detailed standards for detention conditions or legal representation, so they cannot settle every policy question. They do provide a clear moral measure: migrants must never be treated as though confinement, irregular status, or foreign origin cancels their dignity or their claim to justice.