Cardinal Timothy Dolan has said that United States Vice President JD Vance apologised to him after suggesting that Catholic bishops supported immigration for financial gain.
The archbishop emeritus of New York made the remarks during an interview with EWTN on 20 February, when he was asked to comment on the vice president. Reflecting on their relationship, Cardinal Dolan said: “I’ve met him a number of times. He’s a very good guy. I enjoy him a lot. I agree with a bunch of the things he talks about. At times, though, I’ve said, ‘Uh-oh – can’t agree with you there.’”
He continued: “He and I had a little tête-à-tête, as you probably know, when he suggested that bishops in the United States were pro-immigrant because we were making money. I told him that was not only untrue – it was scurrilous. And he apologised. He said that was out of line, and that it wasn’t true.”
The exchange followed comments made by Mr Vance in a January 26, 2025 interview on CBS News’s “Face the Nation”. Speaking to Margaret Brennan, the vice president said he believed “the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has frankly not been a good partner in commonsense immigration enforcement that the American people voted for”, adding: “I hope … as a devout Catholic that they’ll do better.”
During the same interview, he questioned the bishops’ role in refugee resettlement. “The [USCCB] needs to actually look in the mirror a little bit and recognise that when they receive over $100 million to help resettle illegal immigrants, are they worried about humanitarian concerns?” Mr Vance said. “Or are they actually worried about their bottom line? We’re going to enforce immigration law. We’re going to protect the American people.”
He also defended the administration’s rollback of refugee admissions, stating that not all refugees had been “properly vetted”. “In fact, we know that there are cases of people who allegedly were properly vetted and then were literally planning terrorist attacks in our country,” he said. “So clearly, not all of these foreign nationals have been properly vetted.”
Two days before that interview aired, President Donald Trump signed an executive order halting the U.S. Refugee Assistance Program, a domestic initiative established by Congress in 1980 to formalise the process by which refugees vetted and approved by the federal government are legally resettled in the United States. The move suspended a decades-long partnership between the federal government and the USCCB.
As a result of the suspension of its agreement with the government, the bishops’ conference laid off about a third of its resettlement staff. The USCCB subsequently filed suit against the administration, seeking reimbursement for more than $24 million it said it had paid out for resettlement services.
In response to criticism, the USCCB issued a statement defending its refugee work as part of the Church’s mission. “In 1980, the bishops of the United States began partnering with the federal government to carry out this service when Congress created the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP),” the bishops said. “Every person resettled through USRAP is vetted and approved for the program by the federal government while outside of the United States.”
“In our agreements with the government, the USCCB receives funds to do this work; however, these funds are not sufficient to cover the entire cost of these programs,” the statement continued. “Nonetheless, this remains a work of mercy and ministry of the Church.”
