Christians and other people of faith are confronting a government campaign to deport migrants to their countries of origin (or, more violently, to third countries). Hundreds of thousands of people from Haiti and Syria this month lost their Temporary Protected Status and their right to work. 

Many Haitian and other T.P.S. recipients have not lived in their nation of birth in over a decade. A large number have children who are U.S. citizens and have shaped families that are part of the fabric of this country. Their hard work contributes to industries across the nation. The current moment challenges us to understand the lives migrants have built in the United States as well as the harm that may come to them if they are returned to countries still plagued by violence and instability. 

How can Christians respond to a government that seems too powerful to resist? The concepts of “rootedness” and of “the right to stay” or “the right to stay, migrate and return,” embedded in Catholic social teaching from its inception, offer a comprehensive lens for framing solidarity with migrants today.

“This ‘right to stay’ refers to individuals’ and families’ right to live securely and with dignity in their homelands, rather than being driven to leave by violence, poverty or political instability,” wrote Antonio Lemos, a teaching scholar at the University of Notre Dame, in a 2025 essay in U.S. Catholic. “It places a moral obligation on the international community and local governments to address the root causes that force migration in the first place.”

Mr. Lemos traces the concept in Catholic social teaching to its very beginnings in the writings of Pope Leo XIII, who in 1888 spoke of the drama of forced migration of Italian migrants in his encyclical “Quam Aerumnosa.” In it, the pope laments the dangers of the migrant journey, the harm of uprooting families and communities and, most importantly, the lack of available spiritual resources for the newcomers. 

Pope Pius XII likewise lifted up the plight of forced migrants while also upholding “the right of families to secure living space for themselves” in the 1952 apostolic constitution “Exsul Familia Nazarethana.” And St. Pope John Paul II provided a clear articulation of the right to stay in his speech for the World Congress on Pastoral Care for Migrants and Refugees in 1998: “[I]t seems important to stress that it is a basic human right to live in one’s country.” 

Pope Francis confirmed the right to stay in his 2023 message for the World Day of Migrants and Refugees, which had as its theme “Free to Choose Whether to Migrate or to Stay”: “To make migration a choice that is truly free, efforts must be made to ensure to everyone an equal share in the common good, respect for his or her fundamental rights, and access to an integral human development.” 

And during his June visit to Spain and the Canary Islands, Pope Leo XIV raised the related question, “What kind of world have we built, if so many brothers and sisters must risk death to seek life?” Like his namesake, Pope Leo XIV expressed concern over the violence and abuse inflicted on migrants by traffickers, as well as the poor conditions many face in receiving countries.

The right to stay is not about keeping migrants in place against their will, but instead works alongside the right to migrate. Both are legitimate paths available to the human family to ensure a life with dignity for all. Both rights demand that we examine the social, economic and political conditions that support or undercut that dignity. 

The right to stay correlates to the notion of “rootedness,” an essential component of the human experience. While it is related to the universal quest for belonging, meaning and a life worth living, rootedness points to deeper grounding and attachments to place and community; it also acknowledges the concrete elements that build these, such as education, work, religious life and cultural expressions.

[P]eople in all situations of mobility, or no mobility, have the right to experience rootedness—to connect, to build, to nourish, to dream, to labor, to belong, to contribute.

In previous generations, Irish, German, Italian and Eastern European immigrants left their rootedness in their countries of birth and committed themselves to build rootedness in many places in the United States. A similar experience was reflected in Bad Bunny’s Superbowl halftime show, which depicted the desire to stay that is grounded in place (Puerto Rico and New York), community connections (a wedding celebration, men playing dominos, la casita), labor (working the fields, the corner market, the nail salon), culture (food, clothing, dancing, music), and shared experiences of struggle (the blackout and neocolonialism). 

And rootedness is the experience of Haitian migrants and other former recipients of T.P.S. who have built a life in the United States that is worth living and that is as connected to Miami, Boston and Springfield, Ohio, as it is to Haiti.

The witness of Jesuit Refugee Service and other agencies accompanying refugees and migrants tells us that people in all situations of mobility, or no mobility, have the right to experience rootedness—to connect, to build, to nourish, to dream, to labor, to belong, to contribute. All of these elements integral to flourishing human life require local, national and international collaboration to address the root causes of conflict, establish lasting peace and ensure everyone’s access to the goods of creation. The right to stay, rootedness and the right to migrate come together in the principle of human dignity and are concepts that impact all of us directly.

Allowing rootedness to shape our responses to the current challenges in migrant advocacy and accompaniment demands that we walk very closely with affected communities whose very real rootedness in the United States, as well as their safety in their countries of origin, is threatened. By expanding our understanding of the human experience of migration to include rootedness and the right to stay, we become more aware of the ways in which colonial, extractive and military relationships across the globe impact people’s ability to stay or to migrate to seek safety, stability, a community to belong to, a place to call home.