U.S. border czar shrugs off Pope Francis’ condemnation of deportations

Rome — President Trump’s U.S. border czar Tom Homan lashed out Tuesday at Pope Francis after the leader of the Catholic Church strongly criticized the mass deportation of migrants that Mr. Trump has initiated in his second term.

In an open letter to U.S. Catholic bishops sent Tuesday, the Argentinian pope criticized Mr. Trump’s mass deportation program, saying those who entered the United States illegally should not be treated as criminals and that the overall plan could not be supported as it violates human dignity.

When asked Tuesday by a Fox News reporter to comment on the pope’s “harsh words,” Homan replied: “I’ve got harsh words for the pope: I say this as a lifelong Catholic. He ought to focus on his work and leave enforcement to us. He’s got a wall around the Vatican, does he not?”

Homan reiterated that sentiment to other reporters at the White House, saying: “I wish he’d stick to the Catholic Church and fix that and leave border enforcement to us.”

In his letter to the bishops, Francis said he was closely following the “major crisis” in the U.S., but that the “rightly formed conscience cannot fail to make a critical judgment and express its disagreement with any measure that tacitly or explicitly identifies the illegal status of some migrants with criminality.”

Francis acknowledged that nations have the right to defend themselves against migrants who have committed crimes, but he said that was not incompatible with policies for orderly and legal migration.

Deporting people who fled extreme poverty, insecurity, exploitation, persecution or serious environmental deterioration in their home nations, regardless of how they enter the U.S., “damages the dignity of many men and women, and of entire families, and places them in a state of particular vulnerability and defenselessness,” the pope said.

“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,” Francis warned.

The pope, 88, has made the defense of migrants and refugees a priority of his papacy since he was elected to lead the Catholic Church in 2013.  Still, it is rare for a pontiff to so directly critique a country’s internal political debate.

The pope also rejected Vice President JD Vance’s use of Catholic theology to justify the immigration crackdown. 

In a January 29 appearance on Fox News, Vance, who converted to Catholicism in 2019, described what he said was “a very Christian concept: You love your family, and then you love your neighbor, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens in your own country. And then after that, you can focus and prioritize the rest of the world.”

When critics responded that he had misunderstood the gospel, Vance took to social media to argue that a person’s moral duties to their own children outweigh those, “to a stranger who lives thousands of miles away.” 

“Just google ‘ordo amoris,’ Vance wrote, referring to a medieval Catholic concept on the “order of love” or “order of charity” to God, ourselves and our neighbors. 

While not mentioning Vance directly, Pope Francis directly contradicted the vice president’s interpretation of Christian love in his Tuesday letter.   

“Christian love is not a concentric expansion of interests that little by little extend to other persons and groups,” he wrote. “The true ordo amoris that must be promoted is that which we discover by meditating constantly on the parable of the ‘Good Samaritan,’ that is, by meditating on the love that builds a fraternity open to all, without exception.”

Francis also urged Catholics and others to, “not give in to narratives that discriminate and cause needless suffering to our migrant and refugee brothers and sisters.” 

He said all nations’ laws and policies should be crafted and considered, “in light of the dignity of the person and his or her fundamental rights, and not vice versa.”

The pope and Mr. Trump have clashed on immigration in the past. 

In February 2016, asked about Mr. Trump’s vow to build a border wall between the U.S. and Mexico, Francis said, “building walls instead of bridges is not Christian.”

In January, Francis called Mr. Trump’s plan to conduct mass deportations of undocumented migrants a “disgrace.”

“It will be a disgrace,” he said in an interview with an Italian talk show, “because it makes the poor wretches who have nothing pay the bill… This won’t do! You don’t resolve things this way.”