LI's Bishop Barres: Critics, supporters weigh in on how he should answer Pope Leo's call for bishops to speak out on immigration crackdown

When Bishop John Barres arrived on Long Island to take over the Diocese of Rockville Centre a decade ago, he set ministering to Latino Catholics as one of his priorities.

Now, Latinos on Long Island are facing arguably their biggest threat in decades amid a nationwide crackdown on immigration. Advocates for the community are looking to Barres for the kind of leadership they are seeing emerge from the new pope.

Pope Leo XIV and other bishops are becoming more outspoken as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids have roiled immigrant communities throughout the United States. They are taking a stand as the Latino Catholic population continues to grow rapidly and may eventually make up a majority of the church in the United States and possibly on Long Island.

Leo, the first American pope, has stepped up his criticism in recent weeks since President Donald Trump's crackdown escalated in late May, referring to it as "inhuman." He told a delegation of U.S. bishops and immigration activists this month that "I stand with you" and "the church cannot stay silent before injustice."

Bishop Mark Seitz, of El Paso, Texas, who took part in the meeting, told Reuters: "Our Holy Father ... is very personally concerned about these matters. ... He expressed his desire that the U.S. Bishops' Conference would speak strongly on this issue."

Some Catholic bishops have answered his call. In San Diego, Bishop Michael Pham has accompanied migrants to immigration court in part to try to stave off their deportation. In Washington, D.C., Cardinal Robert McElroy delivered a fiery homily Sept. 28 in which he denounced a "comprehensive governmental assault designed to produce fear and terror among millions of men and women."

Cardinal Blase J. Cupich, archbishop of Chicago, on Tuesday released his strongest statement yet on the immigration crackdown. "Families are being torn apart. Children are left in fear, and communities are shaken by immigration raids and detentions," Cupich said in a videotaped message posted on the archdiocese website.

Some Long Island Catholics feel Barres is doing what he can to support the immigrant community. Others say he has not done nearly enough and is missing a major chance to help the Latino community, which is the fastest growing group of Catholics, at a time of crisis.

"I would say it's time for him to catch up with Leo and it's time for him to catch up with the National Conference" of Catholic bishops, said Richard Koubek, a former public policy advocate at Catholic Charities on Long Island. "He's done nothing so far. It's been very, very frustrating."

A spokesman for Barres said in addition to outreach work to migrants already being done by Catholic Charities and local parishes, the bishop is collaborating with the New York State Conference of Catholic Bishops to devise a joint response to the immigration issue. The bishop declined to be interviewed or comment.

His spokesman, the Rev. Eric Fasano, referred to a four-page statement the bishop issued in 2019 calling for comprehensive immigration reform. In it, Barres urged compassion for immigrants while also asserting the rights of nations to regulate their borders.

Trump says he is waging what will be the largest mass deportation campaign in U.S. history, focusing on dangerous criminals and an out-of-control immigration system. Critics say it is tearing apart and terrorizing the Latino community by sweeping up many migrants with no criminal records, separating children from parents and employing military-style tactics.

Federal agents have arrested and deported about 400,000 immigrants nationwide this year, with another 1.6 million "self-deporting," according to Department of Homeland Security statistics. The dragnet has caught at least 2,000 on Long Island, with about 700 to 800 of them probably Catholic, said Patrick Young, a special professor of immigration law at Hofstra Law School.

Long Island is home to an estimated 100,000 undocumented immigrants — many of them Catholics, including some Haitians and Filipinos, Young said.

Latinos and other immigrants "are suffering. They feel afraid and abandoned and they’re people of faith," said Sister Mary Beth Moore, retired director of Centro Corazon de Maria, a nonprofit that serves Latinos in the Hampton Bays area. Speaking out on their behalf is "not something that’s political. It’s something that’s pastoral."

Rick Hinshaw, a former editor of the now-defunct diocesan newspaper The Long Island Catholic, said it may not be a bishop’s place to wade into political debates, especially complicated ones like immigration.

"There's a widespread and widely promoted perception, really misperception, that Catholic social teaching is synonymous with progressive ideology ... almost a feeling that the church should be the progressive left at prayer," he said.

"That's not really the purpose or the meaning of Catholic social teaching," Hinshaw said.

Hinshaw said there are two sides to the story of Trump’s crackdown that Barres must weigh. While many immigrants, including those in the United States without legal authorization, often bring strong work ethics and family ties, the "open borders" policies of the Biden administration also allowed in violent criminals, deadly drugs like fentanyl and a flood of migrants that overwhelmed many communities, he said.

He noted the Diocese of Rockville Centre helps migrants through Catholic Charities and other agencies by providing food, clothing, health care and immigration legal services.

The crackdown is of special interest to the Catholic Church because overall church attendance and participation is declining. Some Latinos have reported they won’t attend Mass for fear of getting arrested by ICE.

Catholics are by far the largest religious group on Long Island, with 1.3 million baptized Catholics out of a total population of 2.9 million people, Diocese of Rockville Centre statistics show. Hispanics account for at least a third of Catholics on Long Island, church leaders said, and many actively attend Mass.

Nationwide, Latinos make up 36% of the adult Catholic population, up from 29% in 2007, according to the Pew Research Center. Some experts put the figure even higher — close to 50% — and predict Hispanics will eventually be a majority.

Barres, who speaks Spanish, expressed a deep affinity for Hispanic Catholics when he arrived on Long Island. At one point during an interview with Newsday in 2017, he became emotional. "I’ve been so moved by," he said, then fell silent for several seconds as his eyes welled, “ ... the Hispanics."

Hofstra's Young said it is "extremely important" for religious leaders like Barres to speak out on the immigration crackdown because it can have a major impact.

"The church speaking out on that is going to convince people who may be more moderate that this is not just something that is of concern to liberals or Democrats but that their own churches are being definitely affected by it and that the children who go to those churches are losing their parents,’’ Young said.

Trump's initiative inflamed tensions in Leo's hometown of Chicago on Sept. 30 when a Blackhawk helicopter stormed an apartment complex as families slept and federal agents rappelled down ropes. Agents rounded up scores of people, including dozens of U.S. citizens who were later released, according to news reports.

Outside the papal summer residence in Italy that day, Leo told reporters, "Someone who says that 'I'm against abortion, but I'm in agreement with the inhuman treatment of immigrants in the United States,' I don't know if that's pro-life."

In Rome on Oct. 8, Leo met with Seitz's delegation and received letters and videos from migrants in the United States fearful of deportation. The pope was "visibly emotional," Dylan Corbett, of Hope Border Institute, told Catholic News Service.

Leo, who spent 20 years in Peru, "is beginning to emerge as a strong moral voice in an era of rising nativism," Kevin Appleby, former head of the Office of Migration and Refugee Policy for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, wrote in America magazine recently.

The pope’s words are "a stark contrast from the vitriol we see from many politicians about migrants. He has tried to negate the dehumanization of migrants," Appleby told Newsday in an interview.

He added "there's a general recognition within the church that more needs to be done than just issuing statements. There needs to be some sort of witness, some sort of action ... to call attention to the unjust treatment of migrants."

Barrett Psareas, a Catholic from Hicksville who is vice president of the Nassau County Civic Association, said Barres would probably alienate many parishioners if he attacked Trump’s crackdown.

"I’m pretty sure that his flock" in many cases "voted for Trump and I believe are in favor of the crackdown on the illegals," Psareas said.

Mark Hussey doesn’t see it that way.

"I would like to hear Barres come forward and say the way U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is treating people is not right ... and that it should be resisted in ways that we're seeing in Portland and in Chicago," said Hussey, a parishioner at Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal Roman Catholic Church in Wyandanch.

He said he was inspired by the Rev. David Black, a Presbyterian minister who was shot in the head with a pepper ball by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents Sept. 19 during a protest in Chicago.

"That guy is an example of clergy who is getting out in front of the issue and standing on the right side of history," Hussey said.