This article explores the relationship between official Catholic Social Teaching on forced migration and contemporary issues in forced migration as they are experienced in a UK context. Using the work of Hannah Arendt on judgement and responsibility and Charles Taylor's analysis of the dynamics of democratic exclusion this paper concludes with a suggestion for two areas for further analysis: theological reflection on the dialectics of inclusion and exclusion in democratic nation-states; further attention to the neglected category of commutative justice as it relates to migration experience and the terms of the common good.