Immigration has torn our nation apart.

Millions of people have entered the United States illegally. You can use all the euphemisms you like — undocumented workers, persecuted pilgrims, suffering masses — but the simple truth is they are people who entered our nation illegally.

The USCCB has issued a strong condemnation of the Trump Administration’s “indiscriminate mass deportation of people.” The bishops offer a token nod to the right of a nation to defend its borders. But you can sum up the document by saying that deporting illegals is cruel, unChristian, and worthy of condemnation.

In reality, the deportations are not “indiscriminate” but carefully planned and executed.

The bishops, in their analysis, ignore how we got into this mess. It resulted from the Obama and Biden Administrations inviting millions of illegals into the nation for one or more of the following reasons:

1. Overwhelm the social-services system and therein force massive transfers of wealth from taxpayers to the government.
2. Boosting census numbers to create more Democrat-voting Congressional districts.
3. Adding millions of welfare-depending people to the voting rolls (even if illegally).
4. Creating a huge class of people dependent on the government for support and thus willing to support any and all entitlement programs.
5. Providing cheap labor that displaces existing American workers.
6. Centralizing all power in the government at the expense of the individual.

All this was easy to see coming. When Biden was President, thousand of illegals streamed across the border each day. We didn’t know where they came from or where they were going. Many were unaccompanied minors destined for sex trafficking or virtual enslavement.

Biden said there was nothing he could do without new legislation. But after Trump was elected, the border crossings stopped. It was a miracle, right?

Now we have millions of people here illegally and they are demanding we take care of them. And, of course, there are millions of people born and raised here legally who also are demanding we take care of them.

In this context, the Trump Administration is doing the hard task that must be done to hold people accountable by forcing them to accept the consequences of their illegal (criminal) actions. The consequences might be unpleasant but that is the price for going against the law.

The bishops have countered by playing the useful idiot: abetting illegal actions while believing they are doing the compassionate, Christian thing. In offering concern about illegal immigrants, they ignore Americans who lose their jobs to cheap labor, taxpayers who lose their homes, citizens who can’t get health care because the medical system is overwhelmed, schools that are overcrowded and trying to teach students who don’t know English.

President Trump didn’t create this crisis but he is trying to solve it while preserving the United States of America.

Will the process be painful? Yes… but so would be doing nothing. If I come home to my house one day and another family has moved into my home illegally, getting them out will likely be painful. But so would it be painful to tell my family to shrug it off and go sleep on a park bench.

Of course, perhaps some dishonest realtor illegally sold my house to an unsuspecting soul who thought he has bought it honestly. Likewise, we probably have many people who entered the country illegally and were told it was okay and they could “get their papers later” and not to worry. We certainly hear the emotional stories of people crossing the river, trekking across the desert, working to make a better life for their families.

Those stories just give more credit to the immigrants who came to America legally, waited their turn, and worked to become citizens.

We don’t have a perfect system, but the system we have is better than just letting people stream into the country, demanding all the benefits afforded American citizens. America, our home, deserves protection, just like the home of an individual American. If we don’t accomplish that protection, what people come here to get will be gone.