“The threat of mass deportations is untenable and immoral and demands a credible response,” Bishop Mark J. Seitz of El Paso, Texas, wrote in an open letter to “all people of faith and everyone committed to the common good.”

Diminishing public support, along with the Trump administration’s intense focus on immigration, has left DACA recipients uncertain about their future.

At the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast, Vance said he wasn’t there to litigate “about who’s right and who’s wrong,” and credited Francis as one who “cares about the flock of Christians under his under his leadership.”

Areas for possible dialogue between the church and the Trump administration included anti-human-trafficking efforts, the status of Dreamers and the right of a nation to control its borders.

More than two dozen Christian and Jewish denominations have sued the Trump administration’s to stop ICE agents from making arrests in churches. Solidarity requires us to do more to help the vulnerable.

Pope Francis’s letter poses an implicit question to the whole church in the United States: Will we subject our political debates on immigration to the scrutiny of the Gospel or not?