EXCLUSIVE: Catholic bishops chided for sowing 'confusion' on deportation stance

"We are disturbed when we see among our people a climate of fear and anxiety around questions of profiling and immigration enforcement. We are saddened by the state of contemporary debate and the vilification of immigrants. We are concerned about the conditions in detention centers and the lack of access to pastoral care."

A day later, conservative advocacy group CatholicVote issued a report titled, "Immigration Enforcement and the Christian Conscience."

"Despite what some Church leaders in America have indicated, a faithful Catholic can support strong and humane immigration law enforcement - by means such as physical barriers, detention and deportation - without violating the teaching of the Church," the report states. 

While the U.S. bishops' statement invokes the scripture verse, "whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me," in reference to the plight of migrants, CatholicVote's report states that the "implications of this passage apply to all people - including those left poor, forgotten, unemployed and the victims of crime."

The report posits that while "weak borders and lenient law enforcement are often presented as 'humane' and 'compassionate' policies demanded by Christian love," such policies "frequently have a terrible human toll - such as when they enrich and empower the criminal cartels, clearly harming both Americans and foreigners in the process."

It also makes the case for deportations even in instances that lead to the separation of families, saying, "In this regard, there is no essential difference between a prison sentence for other offenses and the deportation of illegal immigrants.

"If legitimate law enforcement is disruptive to family life, the responsibility lies with those family members who broke the law."

Despite this, the report posits that "properly speaking, there is no such thing as an official 'Catholic position' on the practical details of immigration policy." Instead, it frames individual Catholics' stances on immigration enforcement as "a matter of prudential political judgment," which it says is "an area of responsibility that belongs properly to Catholic laypersons rather than the bishops."

CatholicVote President Kelsey Reinhardt told Fox News Digital the group "wants to foster a more complete conversation on immigration and give moral standing and freedom of conscience for Catholics and Christians who recognize a need to secure the border and the importance of the rule of law."

Reinhardt said "pastoral accompaniment on the part of the bishops and faithful Christians, however necessary, does not exhaust the Church's moral vocabulary."

"The responsibility to regulate borders for the sake of the common good is not a caveat tacked onto an otherwise humanitarian manifesto; it is an integral part of Catholic doctrine," said Reinhardt. "This is not a secondary or peripheral concern. As we argue, it is precisely the collapse of lawful order - not merely private prejudice - that has created the conditions in which exploitation flourishes, cartels thrive, and millions of migrants are pushed into a shadow-world without legal recourse or clear prospects.

"The point, put bluntly, is this: a nation cannot honor the dignity of immigrants if it has effectively abandoned the rule of law under which immigrants might be protected."

Fox News Digital reached out to the USCCB for comment but did not immediately receive a response.