Trump’s mass deportation plan is ‘shameful’
Pope Francis has said that Donald Trump’s plan to deport illegal immigrants from the United States would be a shame if it came true.
Francis told an Italian television program from his Vatican residence that if the plans go ahead, Trump will make “the poor who don’t have anything at the bottom of the bill”.
“It’s not right, that’s not how you solve problems,” he said.
Trump has promised to begin deporting large numbers of undocumented immigrants. He held office not long ago in American history.
In a message to Trump on Monday, Pope Francis offered him a “greeting of peace” and urged him to “lead a society where there is no room for hatred, discrimination and exclusion” and for “peace and reconciliation between peoples”.
It is known that the Pope holds the issue of refugees dear. Last August, he told a public audience that it was a “grave sin” to “act in any way to deport refugees”.
In the year In 2016, before Trump’s first presidential election, Pope Francis said, “He who thinks only about building walls … is not a Christian who thinks about building bridges.”
Referring to Trump’s promise to build a wall on the Mexican border to keep immigrants out of the United States, Francis said: “I mean, if this guy says something like that, he’s just not a Christian.” That way, I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.
Francis and Trump met in 2017 when Trump and his family visited Rome.
In the year Ahead of the US presidential election in 2024, the Pope refrained from saying whether people should vote for Trump or his Democratic challenger Kamala Harris, urging people to choose the “lesser evil” according to their conscience.
In an interview on Sunday night, Francis touched on the issue of migration to Europe, saying it is “full of brutality” and that everyone has the “right to stay at home and to emigrate.”
The Pope added that some southern European countries, which receive large numbers of immigrants, “have no children and need manpower”.
“There are whole villages in some of these countries that are empty. A good, well-thought-out immigration policy would also help countries like Italy and Spain,” he said.
In another part of the interview, Francis was asked about the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, and he said he doesn’t know why making peace is so difficult.
“I don’t know why… there is an international movement of suicide,” the Pope said.
Francis, 88, has been in office since 2013 after being elected to succeed Pope Benedict XVI.
