Pope Francis issued a fierce rebuke of President Donald Trump’s mass deportation efforts on Tuesday, calling it a “major crisis” in the U.S. and warning that it “will end badly.”
In a letter to U.S. bishops, the pope criticized the criminalization of migrants based on their legal status and the sweeping deportations of those fleeing hardship, saying it “damages the dignity of many men and women, and of entire families, and places them in a state of particular vulnerability and defenselessness.”
“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 warned.
Pope Francis does not name Trump in his letter, but it is a clear directive to resist the demonization of migrants and refugees.
“I exhort all the faithful of the Catholic Church, and all men and women of good will, not to give in to narratives that discriminate against and cause unnecessary suffering to our migrant and refugee brothers and sisters,” he wrote.
In response to the pope’s criticism, Tom Homan, the Trump administration official overseeing immigration and border security, went on the offensive during an appearance on conservative news outlet Newsmax on Tuesday.
“Concentrate on the Catholic Church,” Homan, a Catholic, said in his on-air message to the pope. “You’ve got a lot of problems right there in the Catholic Church. You have enough to fix in your own home. Leave the border stuff to us. We know what we’re doing.”








