A majority of U.S. Catholics said Donald Trump would be better equipped to handle immigration issues, according to exit polls, but less than one week into his second term as president, some church leaders are speaking out against his administration’s immigration crackdown.

Trump signed dozens of executive orders on immigration Jan. 20, according to White House documents, including one directive invalidating a previous guideline in which immigration officials could not enforce actions in “sensitive” areas, including schools, hospitals and places of worship.

On Jan. 23, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops — a membership organization of bishops — issued a statement criticizing the move, citing one of the church’s core beliefs that “all people are conceived with inherent dignity, reflecting the image of God,” regardless of a person’s citizenship.

“Turning places of care, healing, and solace into places of fear and uncertainty for those in need, while endangering the trust between pastors, providers, educators and the people they serve, will not make our communities safer,” the statement said.

The statement was signed by Bishop Mark J. Seitz, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Migration; Sister Mary Haddad, president and CEO of the Catholic Health Association of the United States; and Kerry Alys Robinson, president and CEO of Catholic Charities USA.

U.S. Catholics voted for Trump at a historically large margin, McClatchy News reported in November. According to an Associated Press VoteCast survey, 58% of Catholics picked Trump as a better fit to handle issues of immigration.

But this statement indicates a limit to how Catholic leadership believes immigration issues should be handled, said Dennis Doyle, professor of religious studies at the University of Dayton in Ohio.

“The line being drawn here is the rollback of respecting these safe areas,” he told McClatchy News in a Jan. 24 phone interview.

Doyle said some bishops within the group — which has generally been conservative — likely also voted for Trump, but immigration has historically been an issue that differentiates the bishops from other politically conservative groups.

Nevertheless, the statement drew mixed responses among Catholics.

“Thank you for this official statement,” one person commented on a Facebook post. “We must each ask ourselves, ‘Do I welcome the refugees, Jesus, Mary and Joseph, or do I turn them back to Herod.’ That is the invitation that the refugee offers each of us.”

Others disagreed.

“As a Catholic, I would like to express ‘the people’ are the church. The pope doesn’t rule us. The bishops don’t rule us. I for one commend President Trump. Illegal is illegal,” one person wrote on X. “So as far as I’m concerned, some bishops and the Pope may disagree with him but there are many in our church that support President Trump and JD Vance!”

“Catholics are polarized, just like the rest of the country,” Doyle said.

According to a Jan. 17 Public Religion Research Institute survey, a plurality of white Catholics (45%) agree with the statement that “the immigrants entering the country illegally today are poisoning the blood of our country,” while only 28% of Hispanic Catholics said they agree.

The survey also found that support for Christian nationalism positively correlated with more extreme views on immigration.

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