Resources from Pope Francis and Catholic Social Thought for Re-Orienting Economic Factors in Migration Discourse

U.S. discourse around migration often centers economic debates that position vulnerable citizens and migrants as opponents for limited economic resources and opportunities. The financial valence of policies is especially relevant with increased detentions and deportations closely related to economic gains for a few at the harm of many lives. In response, Catholic social thought provides valuable resources to interrogate the assumptions laden in neoliberal economic analysis and re-orient conversation towards the ethical values of human dignity and the common good. Pope Francis especially articulates the harms of consumption and exclusion while also offering a counter-vision of economic life that centers human flourishing of all. As such, I propose that Pope Francis’s social teaching helps us recognize the problem of current economic structures that incentivize harmful treatment and exclusion of migrants and offer creative alternative modes of economic life that center the human person, regardless of citizenship status.