Pope Francis tells US bishops Trump’s immigration policy ‘will end badly’
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Pope Francis said it was wrong to assume that all undocumented immigrants were criminals.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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VATICAN CITY - Pope Francis sharply criticised US President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown in an unusual open letter to America’s Catholic bishops on Feb 11, saying criminalising migrants and taking measures built on force “will end badly”.
The Pope, who in January called Mr Trump’s plan to deport millions of migrants
“I exhort all the faithful of the Catholic Church... not to give in to narratives that discriminate against and cause unnecessary suffering to our migrant and refugee brothers and sisters,” said the pontiff.
Francis, Pope since 2013, has long been critical of Mr Trump’s immigration policies. In 2016, during Mr Trump’s first White House campaign, the Pope said Mr Trump was “not Christian” in his views on immigration.
In his letter on Feb 11, Pope Francis called the immigration crackdown a “major crisis” for the US.
“What is built on the basis of force, and not on the truth about the equal dignity of every human being, begins badly and will end badly,” he said.
Mr Trump, a Republican who was president in 2017 to 2021, won a second non-consecutive term promising to deport millions of immigrants who are in the US illegally.
After taking office in January, he issued a flurry of executive actions to redirect military resources to support the mass deportation effort and empowered US immigration officers to make more arrests, including at schools, churches and hospitals.
In the letter on Feb 11, Pope Francis also appeared to respond indirectly to Vice-President J.D. Vance’s defence of the deportations.
Mr Vance, a Catholic, defended the crackdown in a January social media post by referring to an early Catholic theological concept known as the “ordo amoris”, or “order of love”, to suggest that Catholics must give priority to non-immigrants.
The Pope said: “The true ‘ordo amoris’ that must be promoted (is)... by meditating on the love that builds a fraternity open to all, without exception.”
New appointments
On Feb 11, Pope Francis also named a Catholic prelate known for advocating for immigrants as the new archbishop of Detroit.
Bishop Edward Weisenburger suggested in 2018 that border patrol agents who were Catholic and took part in the first Trump administration's family separation policy could be denied Communion, a central part of Catholic worship.
The family separation policy, in place from 2017 to 2018, was halted after images of youngsters in cages sparked outrage at home and abroad.
The Pope also recently appointed as the new archbishop of Washington DC a cardinal, Robert McElroy, who has criticised Mr Trump’s political agenda.
The US Conference of Catholic Bishops has also criticised Mr Trump’s immigration crackdown, calling it “deeply troubling” in a statement in January. REUTERS
