Illegal immigrants are net contributors to the U.S. economy and deserve the protection of our laws, a high-ranking Catholic Church official told religion newswriters in Washington D. C. today

We are a hypocritical country, putting ‘keep out’ signs on our border while simultaneously hiring them to do valuable work, J. Kevin Appleby said.

“It’s a chess game, and the migrants are the pawns,” he said.

Illegal immigrants are underpaid and pliable, a permanent underclass that is easily taken advantage of, Appleby said.

“The bishops are involved in this because there is suffering going on,” he said. “We’re not responding to them because they are Catholic, but because we are Catholic.”

Appleby is the director of migration and refugee policy for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

He noted that Jesus was an itinerant preacher with no place to lay his head and that the holy family were refugees.

“Ultimately it’s a humanitarian issue,” he said.

He believes the $33 billion that the U.S. has spent on border enforcement since 1993 has been largely ineffective in curbing illegal immigration.

“Sadly what we may be left with is a wall on our border that will be a symbol in our country of our failure to to address this issue.”