Joshua McElwee
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – Pope Francis on Sunday criticized President-elect Donald Trump’s plan to sharply intensify immigration enforcement across the United States in the days after his inauguration.
In an interview with Italian television, the pope said it would be a “shame” if Trump went ahead with the plan, using unusually strong language for the leader of the global Catholic Church.
“It would force the migrants, who have nothing, to pay the unpaid bill,” said the Pope. “It doesn’t work. This is not how problems are solved.”
The pope’s remarks were made during a video link from his residence in the Vatican to the “Che Tempo Che Fa” program on Italy’s Channel 9.
Francis, the leader of the 1.4 billion-member church, is usually cautious when it comes to political matters.
The pope has made welcoming migrants a key theme of his nearly 12-year papacy, and has previously criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric. During the 2016 election, he said that Trump was “not a Christian” in his opinion.
New Trump administration officials said Saturday that the president-elect is reviewing plans for immigration raids in Chicago next week, following reports of the plans.
Earlier on Sunday, Chicago’s Catholic archbishop, Cardinal Blase Cupich, also criticized the planned raids. “It would be an insult to the dignity of all people and communities,” the cardinal said in a statement.
