WASHINGTON (OSV News) — The incoming Trump administration is preparing a list of countries to which they may deport migrants who aren’t accepted by their home countries, NBC News reported Dec. 5.
The same week in Washington, there was continued fallout from President Joe Biden’s controversial pardon of his son, Hunter Biden. Missouri carried out an execution after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to intervene.
Deporting migrants to other nations
President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team is preparing a list of countries to which they intend to deport migrants without legal authorization to be in the U.S., if their countries of origin do not accept them back, sources informed NBC News.
The countries on the list have at one time included Turks and Caicos, the Bahamas, Panama and Grenada, the report said, but may also include others. Those deported to other countries may have no ties to them, or understanding of their cultures, including the local language. It was not yet clear, if such a plan were carried out, whether those deported to those nations would be legally authorized to live and work in those countries.
Some of those nations, including the Bahamas, have said they would not agree to such a plan.
Trump campaigned on hardline immigration policies, including his call for mass deportations, and has since indicated willingness to use military force for a mass deportation program.
While Trump has not offered specifics on how he would carry out such a program, mass deportations more broadly run contrary to the Second Vatican Council’s teaching in “Gaudium et Spes” condemning “deportation” among other actions, such as abortion, that “poison human society” and are “supreme dishonor to the Creator,” a teaching St. John Paul II affirmed in two encyclicals on moral truth and life issues.
Biden reportedly considering blanket pardons
Following the controversial pardon of his son Hunter Biden, the Biden administration is reportedly weighing issuing another batch of pardons that could also be controversial: blanket pardons for some political opponents of Trump, amid concerns the incoming Trump administration would seek to prosecute political rivals as revenge for criminal prosecutions of the former president.
Biden’s staff is debating whether he should issue blanket pardons for some of Trump’s perceived political enemies to protect them from the “retribution” he campaigned on, The New York Times reported.
Issuing pre-emptive executive clemency to those individuals — who have not been charged with any wrongdoing — would in effect shield them from such efforts, proponents argued. But such a move would exceed historic precedent for clemency.
Among those whose names whose names have been considered are former Rep. Liz Cheney, a Republican who was vice chair of the committee that investigated Trump’s role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol; Dr. Anthony Fauci, who advised Trump and Biden during the Covid-19 pandemic, among others for whom Trump has called to be prosecuted.
Catholic activists with Catholic Mobilizing Network, however, have been calling on Biden to commute the sentences of 40 federal prisoners on death row during his final days in office.
Missouri carries out execution of man convicted of child’s rape, murder
The state of Missouri carried out an execution Dec. 3 after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to intervene.
Christopher Collings, 49, was executed at state prison in Bonne Terre, Missouri, at 6 p.m. that day for his conviction in the 2007 sexual assault and murder of a 9-year-old girl, Rowan Ford.
In a Dec. 2 statement, Gov. Mike Parson, a Republican, confirmed the state would carry out the execution, arguing Collings “received every protection afforded by the Missouri and United States Constitutions, and Mr. Collings’ conviction and sentence remain for his horrendous and callous crime.”
“The State of Missouri will carry out Mr. Collings’ sentence according to the Court’s order and deliver justice,” Parson said.
Pope Francis revised the Catechism of the Catholic Church in 2018 to clarify the church’s teaching that capital punishment is morally “inadmissible” in the modern world and that the church works with determination for its abolishment worldwide.
The St. Louis Review, the newspaper for the Archdiocese of St. Louis, reported that the Missouri Catholic Conference, Missourians to Abolish the Death Penalty and other groups had asked Parson to commute Collings’ sentence to life without parole. Parson, however, has never granted clemency since he became governor in 2018.
The Catholic newspaper noted that a small group gathered at the Mary Mother of the Church chapel 45 miles north of the prison to pray for Collings’ soul and for the comfort of the family of Rowan Ford at the time of Collings’ execution.
Kate Scanlon is a national reporter for OSV News covering Washington. Follow her on X (formerly known as Twitter) @kgscanlon.
