Dignitas Migrantis: On the Morality of Deportation

As we approach federal government elections, it is commonplace to address the issues surrounding the growing phenomena of large-scale immigration and its peripheral subjects, such as deportation. It is significant to note that among various nations, and even within the Catholic Church itself, the subject matter of immigration and deportation is one of contention and deep polarization. Though immigration has been well treated in the Magisterium, the deportation of persons, and the conditions pertaining to it, have yet to develop more explicitly. Nonetheless, Pope Saint John Paul II, in his encyclical Veritatis Splendor, while listing “objects of the human act which are by their nature ‘incapable of being ordered to God,’”¹ names deportation among them by referencing the Pastoral Constitution of the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et Spes.² By indicating deportation within the context of intrinsically evil acts, some have concluded that the act of deportation, in any of its iterations, is always and everywhere a moral evil. Here, we will examine the moral nature of deportation and the legitimacy of its use by considering its definition, its historical milieu, and its guiding theological principles within the Church’s Social Teaching.

Definition: An Exploration of the Meaning of Deportatio

Let us first examine a definition of deportatio. In the broadest sense, Jimmy Akin, in his article “Is Deportation Intrinsically Evil?”, asserts that “the Latin word used by Gaudium et Spes is deportatio, and a check of competent dictionaries reveals it has the same basic meaning it does in English.”³ Further, Akin deduces that, by alluding to Leo F. Stelten’s Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin and the Oxford Latin Dictionary, deportatio refers simply to “deportation, banishment,” or “conveyance to a place of exile.”⁴ Deportation refers most broadly to the expulsion of a person, or group, from a place. As such, if in using deportatio in its broadest sense, Gaudium et Spes, and, likewise, Saint John Paul II, would affirm that every act of expulsing a person or group from a nation would be a grave moral act. In this manner, a society would not have moral recourse to expel a person outside of its boundaries in any circumstance. But is this actually the case?

To further specify the intended meaning of deportatio in Gaudium et Spes, let us consider another working definition. In the work Deportation Regime: Sovereignty, Space, and the Freedom of Movement, Nicholas De Genova and Nathalie Peutz determine the definition of deportation as “the compulsory removal of ‘aliens’ from the physical, juridical, and social space of the state.”⁵ Through this prism, deportation is recognized as the arbitrary removal of those who commit “‘unauthorized’ or ‘irregular’ migration.”⁶ By way of this definition deportatio is considered morally evil when addressing the “compulsory” removal of illegal migrants.

Though the definition above is more specified, it is difficult to arrive at the conclusion about the intended definition, among many, that Gaudium et Spes and Pope Saint John Paul II, in his Veritatis Splendor, refer to. To further unearth the possible aegis under which deportatio is employed, it is necessary to consider its historical overview by examining the context and circumstances around the promulgations of Gaudium et Spes and Pope Saint John Paul II’s Veritatis Splendor.

Historical Purview: The Contextual Vantage Point of the Second Vatican Council

On December 7, 1965, Pope Paul VI promulgated the Pastoral Constitution on The Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et Spes. In it, the Council determined to address the whole of humanity and the Church’s role amid a progressively changing age. In the preface of this constitution, Gaudium et Spes asserts, “The council focuses its attention on the world of men, the whole human family along with the sum of those realities in the midst of which it lives; that world which is the theatre of man’s history, and the heir of his energies, his tragedies and his triumphs . . .”⁷ Fittingly, the Council Fathers of Vatican II understood that if the Church wished to proclaim and lead man to his “noble destiny,”⁸ there was a need to address man from the issues pertinent to his historical context.

Significantly, twenty years prior to the Second Vatican Council, the modern world was stricken with various political, ideological, and humanitarian crises. It is precisely these conflicts that set the stage for the Constitution in addressing the specific needs of man in the modern age. Among the many crises that contextualized the Council, World War II, and the terror of the Nazi regime, take a profoundly influential role.

It can be said that the subject of deportatio in Vatican II was shaped by the “kind of deportation that was very much on the European mind,” namely, “the deportations that occurred during World War II.”⁹ As such, it can be said that the type of deportatio that the Council intended to convey were those deportations enacted during the Second World War under Nazi totalitarianism. The kinds of deportations during Nazism in Germany were not just any and all kinds of deportation; rather, they took the nature of a systematic mass and forcible dislocation of those who occupied specific regions and animated by violent racial ideology.

According to the Holocaust Encyclopedia, in its article “Deportations to Killing Centers,” the Nazi forces, “in 1942 . . . decided to implement the ‘Final Solution,’ the systemic mass murder of European Jewry.”¹⁰ Notably, to enact the “systemic mass murder” of the Jewish populace, “German officials deported Jews to [killing centers],”¹¹ to areas principally in Eastern Europe. In this manner, the Nazi regime coordinated and employed a mass and forcible deportation of the Jewish population under their occupancy. This organized attempt to deport and decimate an ethnic group was initiated “at the Wannsee Conference on January 20, 1942,”¹² near Berlin, Germany. Ultimately, by way of these mass and forcible deportations, “The Germans killed nearly three million Jews in the five killing centers”¹³ throughout Europe. Therefore, it is feasible to suggest that the notion of deportation within Gaudium et Spes was profoundly characterized by the mass and violent deportations enacted in the 1940s during World War II.

Karol Wojtyla and the Notion of Deportatio

To further deduce the intended meaning behind deportatio as an intrinsically evil act within the corpus of Veritatis Splendor, let us now consider the necessary historical milieu of Pope Saint John Paul II. James Parry Eyster, in his article “Pope John Paul II and Immigration Law and Policy,” articulates reasons for which Saint John Paul II had a “deep commitment to migration issues.”¹⁴ Early in Karol Wojtyla’s life, the Nazi party would have a striking impact on who he would eventually become. “In 1939,” as attested by Eyster, “Nazi occupiers arrested all of the professors at the Jagiellonian University, where Karol Wojtyla, who would become Pope John Paul II, was a student.”¹⁵ As a result of this, Wojtyla was “was forced to work as a laborer for four years in a quarry and later at a chemical plant.”¹⁶ It can be said that the young Karol Wojtyla was himself experienced with forced displacement.

It is of merit to note that Wojtyla had other personal experiences that influenced his perception of the “rights of migrants and the causes of migration.”¹⁷ During this time, Wojtyla witnessed the ravaging of Nazi occupation in Poland. In addition to witnessing countless Jewish people being displaced from their homes, Karol too experienced the tragedy of fleeing persecution and hardship. Eyster asserts that, “when the Nazis invaded Poland, it became evident that they would occupy Krakow, where Wojtyla was living with his father.”¹⁸ In light of the Nazi invasion, both Karol and his father fled Poland as “refugees along with tens of thousands of other Poles and headed east to avoid Nazi occupation.”¹⁹ Wojtyla, as a refugee, was able to experience in a personal way the plight of migrants.

Lastly, Eyster asserts that Pope Saint John Paul II’s philosophical perspective also influenced his view on deportatio. Specializing in phenomenology, founding his philosophical groundwork on Husserl, “John Paul II used the methods of phenomenology to link Christian ethics to the real world.”²⁰ As a result of his dedication to phenomenological reasoning, Wojtyla contextualized social phenomena through the prism of theological principles, rather than merely leaving theology in the realm of the speculative. As such, “the challenges facing migrants and the causes of forced migration were among the phenomena he contemplated.”²¹ Eyster, in referencing Samuel Gregg, asserts, “John Paul II directed Catholic social thought by stressing the ‘moral-anthropological dimension,’ which focuses upon ‘man as a free and creative subject capable of self-realization as that which he ought to be.”²² By taking his experience under the Nazi regime of mass and violent deportations, and aggregating his experience as a refugee, his understanding of deportatio may be specific to this time in history.

Theological Development of Immigration:
Scriptural Foundations

Though Pope Saint John Paul II gathered much on the issues surrounding migration and deportation from his experience during Nazi occupation in Poland, we must acknowledge that his stance is not substantiated on a subjective reaction alone, but rather that it stands upon the foundation of the Church’s rich theological treasury. First, let us turn our attention to the notion of immigration and the rights of migrants contained within the Old Testament. The most prominent Old Testament passage vis-à-vis immigration and the rights of migrants is found in the Book of Exodus: “You shall not oppress a stranger; you know the heart of a stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” (Exodus 23:9, RSV) In addition to this passage, which highlights that one ought not “oppress” foreigners, there is also in the Book of Deuteronomy a passage which emphasizes a certain “justice” which is due to the foreigner: “‘Cursed be he who perverts the justice due to the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’” (Deut 27:19, RSV) As such, there are certain goods, or particular rights, due to the foreigner.

Likewise, Chad G. Marzen and William Woodyard II attest that “the New Testament also contains a number of passages referring to these duties,”²³ to work for the good of the stranger. First, Marzen and Woodyard allude to the Gospel of Matthew. In it, Jesus likens Himself to a “stranger” in need:

Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see thee hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to thee?’ Then he will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it not to one of the least of these, you did it not to me.’

In this way, Jesus Christ affirms that not only is caring and welcoming for the “stranger” an act of righteousness, but it is something even greater still, namely, it is welcoming Christ Himself.

Further, in his apostolic constitution Exsul Familia Nazarethana, Pope Pius XII references the Holy Family’s flight into Egypt as the icon for every migrant and refugee.²⁴ The Gospel of Matthew communicates this as such:

And being warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed to their own country by another way. Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there till I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.” And he rose and took the child and his mother by night, and departed to Egypt.

By referencing the flight of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph into the foreign land of Egypt, Pope Pius XII affirms that the Holy Family is “for all times and all places, the models and protectors of every migrant, alien and refugee of whatever kind who, whether compelled by fear of persecution or by want, is forced to leave his native land, his beloved parents and relative, his close friends, and to seek foreign soil.”²⁵ As such, in view of Christ, in the midst of his earthly family, the migrant “of whatever kind” is under the tutelage of the Holy Family as their “archetype.”²⁶

Scholastic Background in Thomas Aquinas

Though one may assume Thomas Aquinas, in the thirteenth century, would not be familiar with the notion or principles of immigration, the Angelic Doctor treats this topic in his Summa Theologiae. First, Aquinas notes that in dealing with foreigners, “relations are twofold: peaceful and hostile.”²⁷ He goes further to mention that in dealing with both kinds of relations, whether “peaceful” or “hostile,” there are “suitable precepts” by which one may act. As such, the way in which one deals with the migrant is, firstly, determined by the kind of relation engendered, either peaceable or aggressive.

Regarding “peaceful” relations with the migrant, Thomas points out three relations that ought to be welcomed: 1) when foreigners pass through a nation as travelers; 2) when they come to live in the nation as “newcomers;” 3) when foreigners desire to enter into the nation’s “fellowship and mode of worship.” In these types of relations, Aquinas affirms that for the sake of the common good, the nation ought to, after a certain time, integrate the foreigner into the society. In referencing the Old Testament, he attests that the foreigner should be “admitted to citizenship . . . after two or three generations.” In sum, Aquinas determines that, in peaceable circumstances, the migrant ought to be not only welcomed into the harboring nation but incorporated into its way of life. After a determined period of time, then, it is fitting for the sake of the common good of the nation that the foreigner and his family be naturalized as citizens.

In the face of “hostile” relations, however, Thomas points out varying means of addressing the foreigner. Here, Thomas asserts, “the Law contained suitable precepts” for those who were hostile in their dealings. First, he affirms that the Law “commanded that war should be declared for a just cause.” As such, Aquinas confirms that there are reasons, in accord with justice, for which the nation may take action against the hostile foreigner from the premises. Later on, he articulates that the Law “prescribed the removal of whatever might prove an obstacle to the fight, and that, certain men, who might be in the way, should be sent home . . . [using] moderation in pursuing the advantage of victory.” In this manner, the Angelic Doctor affirms that while there are legitimate reasons to expulse a foreigner from one’s land, it ought to be done in “moderation.” It follows, then, that the deportation of the migrant, while legitimate in circumstances of hostility and in consideration of the common good of a nation, must be discerned and brought about by the appropriate means, namely, in a manner that upholds the dignity of each human person.

Human Dignity and the Universal Common Good

At the heart of the question over the legitimate or illegitimate use of deportatio, the expulsion of foreigners from a nation, is the principle of human dignity. The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church asserts that “‘being in the image of God, the human individual possesses the dignity of a person, who is not just something, but someone. He is capable of self-knowledge, of self-possession and of freely giving himself and entering into communion with other persons . . .’”²⁸ In this way, the human person is not an object, seen as a burden or target for exploitation. The human person rather is the end for which society orders itself. By reducing migrants, whether legal or illegal, to objects rather than subjects, one neglects the inalienable rights of the person to life, food, shelter, and the unity of family. Deportation, then, cannot be used in a simply arbitrary manner, namely, in any circumstance. The use of deportation must take into account the safeguarding of the dignity of every human person and the universal common good.

It is also of merit to note, as asserted by Saint John Paul II in his Undocumented Migrants: Message for World Migration Day,

Illegal immigration should be prevented, but it is also essential to combat vigorously the criminal activities which exploit illegal immigrants. The most appropriate choice, which will yield consistent and long-lasting results is that of international co-operation which aims to foster political stability and to eliminate underdevelopment. The present economic and social imbalance, which to a large extent encourages the migratory flow, should not be seen as something inevitable, but as a challenge to the human race’s sense of responsibility.²⁹

While there ought to be laws in place to prevent the illegal migration of foreigners, the human dignity of migrants must be held intact. To this end, it is ideal for prosperous nations to enact laws that mitigate illegal migration, employ efforts that will bolster international economic and social flourishing, and if employing the deportation of migrants, to do so in such a manner that considers the good of the individual persons and nation.

Conclusion

In the encyclical Veritatis Splendor, Pope Saint John Paul II proposes the act of deportation as, by its very nature, morally evil. In exploring the notion of deportatio by way of its definition, historical background, and theological development in the Tradition, one is better able to determine the moral nature of this act in terms of the intention of Saint John Paul II. Thus, deportation, as a legitimate means of protecting the common good, while upholding the dignity of each human person, is not considered an intrinsically evil act. However, through the lens of Saint John Paul II and the historical context of the Second Vatican Council, deportation which infringes on the dignity of the human person, most explicitly a systematic mass and violent deportation motivated by ideology, even if intended for some good of the nation, is determined to be always and everywhere morally evil.