Donald Trump’s proposals to deport illegal immigrants from the United States would be a “disgrace” if they came to pass, according to Pope Francis. In an interview with an Italian television program from his Vatican apartment, Francis claimed that Trump would force “poor wretches that don’t have anything foot the bill” if the plans were carried out.
“That’s not right. That’s not how you solve problems,” Pope Francis noted.
- Advertisement -
Soon after taking office, Trump pledged to start the biggest deportation of unauthorized immigrants in US history.
Pope Francis sent Trump “cordial greetings” and urged him to lead a society that has “no room for hatred, discrimination or exclusion” and to encourage “peace and reconciliation among peoples” in a recently revealed statement.
The Pope is known to be quite concerned about the issue of immigration. According to him, “systematically working by all means to drive away migrants” is “a grave sin” at a public appearance in August of last year.
Pope Francis stated that “a person who thinks only about building walls… and not of building bridges, is not Christian” before Trump’s victories in the first presidential election in 2016.
Francis referred to Trump’s pledge to erect a wall along the Mexican border to prevent migrants from entering the United States. He noted, “I say only that this man is not Christian if he has said things like that. We must see if he said things in that way and I will give him the benefit of the doubt.”
When Trump and his family traveled to Rome in 2017, Francis and Trump eventually crossed paths.
The Pope only urged people to select “the lesser evil” following their conscience before the US presidential election in 2024, declining to declare whether voters should support Trump or his Democratic opponent Kamala Harris.
Francis mentioned “a lot of cruelty” and that everyone had “the right to remain home and the right to emigrate” in reference to the topic of migration to Europe during the interview.
The Pope also added that some of the southern European countries that receive the most migrant arrivals “are not having any children and need manpower”.
“In some of these countries, there are entire villages that are empty. A good, well-thought-out migrant policy would help countries like Italy and Spain too,” he claimed.
When questioned about the conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine in a different segment of the conversation, Francis stated that he had no idea why achieving peace was so hard.
“I don’t know why… it’s as if there was an international drive towards self-destruction,” stated Pope Francis.
