By Michael Smolens / San Diego Union-Tribune / June 27, 2025
Earlier this month, San Diego Catholic Bishop-Designate Michael Pham and Auxiliary Bishops Ramón Bejarano and Felipe Pulido reflected on the past and accurately predicted the future.
“. . . it has been experienced that the presence of faith leaders makes a difference in how the migrants are treated,” they wrote in a June 11 letter to fellow priests, deacons and parish leaders.
A little more than a week later, Pham led a delegation of faith leaders to accompany immigrants attending court hearings at the Edward J. Schwartz Federal Building in downtown San Diego.
The proceedings and scene in and around the courthouse on June 20 were calm compared with chaos and controversy in San Diego and elsewhere at other times when agents snatched immigrants on the way to and from appointed court hearings.
Too bad that sense of dignity, humility and, frankly, adult behavior brought by Pham and his colleagues couldn’t be cast upon other aspects of the immigration enforcement crisis, created by recent militaristic raids and aggressive government response to protests that sometimes have devolved into violence.
Further, actions by the Trump administration suggest an agenda that goes beyond the president’s goal of mass deportations of undocumented immigrants.
The overall operations swiftly moved from the notion of targeting dangerous criminal immigrants to everyday workers and laborers — who may or may not have proper documentation — trying to make a living, and overriding local officials along the way.
Representatives of President Donald Trump have justified courthouse arrests based on a law that states most immigrants who illegally entered the United States within the past two years are subject to expedited removals.
Still, seizing people who have agreed to appear at ordered court or asylum hearings seems patently unfair.
The Catholic Church has a long history of activism, particularly when it comes to social justice for the downtrodden and refugees. The late Pope Francis was an outspoken advocate for better treatment of immigrants and Pope Leo XIV, the first leader of the church from the United States, is carrying on that tradition.
The Catholic Church has become a leading counterpoint to Trump’s immigration policies and tactics.
Three days after Pham’s letter, Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago spoke about the rights of immigrants at a celebration for the selection of Pope Leo XIV at Rate Field, home of the White Sox.
“They are here due to a broken immigration system which both parties have failed to fix,” he said to cheers from many in the stands, according to The New York Times. “They are here not by invasion but invitation: to harvest the fruits of the earth that feed our families, an invitation to clean our tables, homes and hotel rooms, an invitation to landscape our lawns, and yes even an invitation to care for our children and elderly.”
Pham, a refugee from Vietnam, is the first U.S. Catholic bishop appointed by Pope Leo XIV. His appearance at the San Diego courthouse on what was International Refugee Day wasn’t just symbolic.
Outside the federal building, Pham urged that “the government treat people with kindness, compassion, dignity and respect.” On that day, it sort of did, if perhaps by shame — or realizing agents could stumble into a really bad PR moment.
Dinora Reyna, executive director of the nonprofit San Diego Organizing Project, a network of faith and spiritual congregations, said previously she saw “intimidation tactics outside the courtrooms and families who were really nervous,” according to Alexandra Mendoza of The San Diego Union-Tribune.
“I didn’t see that today,” she said on June 20. “At least for the families that were here … that our clergy walked out with them made a huge difference.”
Pham said federal agents were present, but “kind of scattered and went away.”
Significantly, the faith leaders weren’t physically trying to prevent, interrupt or block arrests, the Rev. Scott Santarosa of Our Lady of Guadalupe parish in Logan Heights, said at the courthouse.
“We were trying to say, with our presence: ‘We see you. You’re not doing this alone in silence, but we stand with you,’” he said of the immigrants.
Most people protesting the immigration enforcement nationwide have been peaceful, but — regrettably — not all. Critics of the Trump administration say the scattered violence was used as an excuse to call in the National Guard and, in Los Angeles, the Marines.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and Gov. Gavin Newsom said local law enforcement could have handled the situation and contend Trump’s response made matters worse.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem suggested the issue wasn’t just immigration, but actually taking down or sidelining duly elected officials.
“We are not going away,” she said at a news conference in Los Angeles. “We are staying here to liberate the city from the socialists and the burdensome leadership that this governor and that this mayor have placed on this country and what they have tried to insert into the city.”
It was immediately after that when Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla, who was in attendance, said he wanted to ask Noem some questions. Perhaps he was guilty of disrupting her mid-statement, but that was certainly no cause for him being forcibly removed from the room, put on the floor and handcuffed — after he had identified himself.
Padilla, who was not charged, rejected the claim that security officials viewed him as a threat to Noem, pointing out that he was escorted to the event by federal agents.
In a sophomoric turn, Vice President J.D. Vance referred to the incident days later, mocking the California senator and calling him “José Padilla.” The two had served in the Senate together, which raises doubts about the subsequent suggestion by a Vance spokesperson that it was merely a mistake.
Regardless of what one thinks about immigration laws, it’s no surprise the federal government is enforcing them. That’s not new. It’s easy to overlook that a huge number of deportations took place under President Barack Obama — and many of those people were not allowed to plead their case in court.
But some of the current raids seem to lack proper protocol and may be extralegal. People with a legal right to be here have been deported and Trump has considered a proposal to detain U.S. citizens and send them to prisons in El Salvador.
Masked agents arriving in unmarked vehicles wearing streetclothes, sometimes with weapons drawn and showing no warrant, descend upon unsuspecting people at work or on the street. There isn’t always much information, if any, about what’s happening.
Surely, the United States of America is better than conducting immigration operations that resemble abductions in a corrupt Third World country.
