Pope Francis on Sunday spoke out against President-elect Donald Trump’s plan to launch a massive migrant deportation program on his first day in office.
“If it is true, it will be a disgrace, because it makes the poor wretches who have nothing pay the bill for the imbalance,” the pontiff said in an interview with Italian television, according to a CNN translation. “It won’t do. This is not the way to solve things.”
Trump has repeatedly vowed to launch a sweeping deportation program immediately after taking office on Monday.
“On day one, I will launch the largest deportation program in American history to get the criminals out,” he said in October.
He repeated that promise at a pre-inauguration rally on Sunday.
“By the time the sun sets tomorrow, the invasion of our country will have come to a halt,” he said in Washington.
Politico said he will sign an executive order declaring a crisis at the southern border on Monday, while the Wall Street Journal reported on plans for raids and deportations in Chicago on Tuesday.
Cardinal Blase Cupich, archbishop of Chicago, also spoke out against the reported details of Trump’s plan.
“While we wish the new administration success in promoting the common good, the reports being circulated of planned mass deportations targeting the Chicago area are not only profoundly disturbing but also wound us deeply,” he said in a statement posted online, adding that “indiscriminate mass deportation... would be an affront to the dignity of all people and communities, and deny the legacy of what it means to be an American.”
Trump took a similar hard line on immigration during his previous term in office ― and the pope was critical then as well.
When asked about Trump’s promise to build a border wall in 2016, the pope said: “A person who only thinks about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian.” In 2018, he called the Trump administration’s family separation policy for undocumented migrants “contrary to our Catholic values” and “immoral.”
And when asked about Trump’s 2019 threat to close the border with Mexico, Francis replied: “Builders of walls, be they made of razor wire or bricks, will end up becoming prisoners of the walls they build.”
He did allow that immigration was a difficult issue, but said it should be solved “humanely, not with razor wire.”