Pope Rebukes Trump Administration Over Migrant Deportations

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Francis took the remarkable step of addressing the U.S. migrant crackdown in a letter to U.S. bishops in which he appeared to take direct aim at Vice President JD Vance’s defense of the deportation program on theological grounds.

U.S. border czar Tom Homan immediately pushed back, saying Francis should leave border enforcement to his office and noted the Vatican is a city-state surrounded by fortress-like walls.

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In the letter, Francis said nations have the right to defend themselves and keep their communities safe from criminals.

“That said, the act of deporting people who in many cases have left their own land for reasons of extreme poverty, insecurity, exploitation, persecution or serious deterioration of the environment, damages the dignity of many men and women, and of entire families, and places them in a state of particular vulnerability and defenselessness,” he wrote.

Citing the Book of Exodus and Jesus Christ’s own experience, Francis affirmed the right of people to seek shelter and safety in other lands and described the deportation plan as a “major crisis” unfolding in the U.S.

Anyone schooled in Christianity “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,” he 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,” he wrote.

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Vance, a Catholic convert, has defended the administration’s America-first crackdown by citing a concept from medieval Catholic theology known in Latin as “ordo amoris.” He has said the concept delineates a hierarchy of care — to family first, followed by neighbor, community, fellow citizens and lastly those elsewhere.

In his letter, Francis appeared to correct Vance’s understanding of the concept.

“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.”

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