GAINESVILLE – As President Donald Trump’s mass deportation plans ramp up, Miami Archbishop Thomas Wenski says the president is taking the wrong approach.

“ Migrants are not a problem,” Wenski said in a Zoom interview. “Our broken immigration laws are a problem, but the migrants are not a problem. These people represent an opportunity.”

Wenski, 74, a South Florida native and son of Polish immigrants, oversees the pastoral care of over 1 million Catholics, according to the Archdiocese of Miami. Wenski was appointed archbishop in 2010 by Pope Benedict XVI.

Wenski cited the harm to the economy that could come from mass deportations — something the Catholic leader noted would run contrary to the president’s campaign promises.

“ President Trump has promised us the best economy ever,” Wenski said in the interview last week with Fresh Take Florida, a news service of the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications. “And you're not going to have the best economy ever without making an accommodation for migration. Because this nation, our economy, needs the immigrants. They need it for agriculture, for the service industry. They need it across the board.”

The archbishop added of Trump, "He's not stupid. If he wants a big economy, he's going to need to have [a] labor force to work in that economy. And if you're bringing the factories back to the United States, somebody has to be working in those factories."

Trump campaigned in the 2024 election on undertaking mass deportations across the United States. The plans are now on full throttle, as U.S. Immigration, Customs and Enforcement conducts raids nationwide, including in Florida. Migrants were taken into custody in recent days in Broward County, Tallahassee, southwest Florida and elsewhere in the state.

There are approximately 1.2 million migrants without permanent legal status in Florida, according to a 2022 report by Pew Research Center. Moreover, there was an increase of over 400,000 migrants in the state from 2019 to 2022, according to the report. The total population of the Sunshine State at the time was about 22 million, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, meaning migrants without legal status made up about 5% of Florida’s total population.

Wenski said he doesn’t think ICE agents are planning to go after the “old lady in her backyard” but hopes the administration is going to target bad actors who have committed crimes.

“President Trump knows very well that it's going to be impossible to deport 12 or 13 million people,” he said.

Wenski also acknowledged that it would not be feasible for churches to protect migrants from deportation by sheltering them, noting the facilities lack the infrastructure to house people for any length of time and adding that it would be a fleeting solution at best.

The archdiocese provides legal services to those in need, Wenski said. The Catholic Charities Legal Services, which is under the Archdiocese of Miami, sees over 2,000 people each month and has 31 lawyers in-house.

“We’re going to try to protect them as much as we can through our legal services,” Wenksi said.

While the Trump administration has talked about entering churches if that’s necessary for deportation, Wenski said in response, “The Fourth Amendment protects us from unreasonable searches.” He added that authorities “cannot enter into private property without a warrant.”

He said it’s time for Congress – where Republicans control both House and Senate – to act.

“We have to look for real solutions…[that] can be found in Congress,” Wenski said, without offering any specific proposals. “We have to get Congress to really enact laws that will fix our broken immigration system.”

Calling the system “ill-suited for the needs of the country today,” the archbishop also strongly backed the continuation of birthright citizenship, which Trump is seeking to do away with.  

Wenski put it this way, “What’s the better policy solution – to have second-, third-generation migrants or first-generation, second generations of Americans?”

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This story was produced by Fresh Take Florida, a news service of the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications. The reporters can be reached at gvelasquezneira@ufl.edu.