President Donald Trump’s “border czar” has publicly rebuked Pope Leo XIV over immigration policy, saying the pontiff fails to grasp “the flip side of illegal immigration.”
Speaking to reporters in remarks aired by Breitbart News on the social media platform X, Thomas Homan was responding to criticism from the pope over deportation policies.
Admittedly, the question was loaded: “What is your response to Pope Leo for being critical of the Trump administration when it comes to deporting illegals?”
On Nov. 4, 2025, Leo urged U.S. authorities to allow pastoral workers access to detainees, saying many migrants have been separated from their families for prolonged periods and face spiritual needs that “should be attended to.”
While affirming the right of nations to enforce immigration laws, the pope stressed the need for humane treatment and respect for dignity.
“If people are in the United States illegally, there are ways to treat that. There are courts, there’s a system of justice,” he said, invoking Jesus’ question: “How did you receive the foreigner?”
RELATED: Leo XIV calls US authorities to ‘consider’ and ‘attend to’ detainees’ spiritual needs
In Homan’s remarks, which aired on Feb. 25, he said he believes the pope should stand firmly behind border enforcement, arguing that “Catholic faith is always in support of law enforcement, always has been, and he should be, too.”
Describing himself as “a lifelong Catholic, still a practicing Catholic,” the border czar suggested Pope Leo should focus on internal Church matters instead, saying the pontiff “ought to be fixing the Catholic Church, ’cause they’ve got their own issues.”
He added that security at the Vatican is stricter than U.S. immigration enforcement. “[T]he bottom line is, if we jumped the wall at the Vatican, the penalties for doing that are much harder than the ones here in the United States, entering the country illegally,” Homan said.
“So, look, what he doesn’t understand is there’s a flip side to illegal immigration. Thirty-one percent of women get raped making that journey. Over 4,000 aliens died making that journey under Joe Biden. A quarter million Americans died of fentanyl because of the open border,” Homan also said.
“When you overwhelm the border patrol, all the bad things happen. Sex trafficking increases, fentanyl increases. Securing the border saves lives,” Homan said, adding he would like to sit down with Pope Leo and “explain it to him.”
“Illegal immigration is not a victimless crime. So President [Donald] Trump having illegal immigration down 96 percent, he’s saving thousands of lives every year,” he said.
RELATED: Pope Leo speaks to Crux’s Elise Ann Allen about Gaza, China, and the U.S.
Trump has yet to meet with Pope Leo, the first U.S. citizen elected to the pontificate.
During his first term, and the first days of his second term, Trump often clashed with Leo’s predecessor, Pope Francis.
The U.S. bishops have also often spoken against the Trump administration’s hard stance on illegal immigrants.
In a January 22 statement, Archbishop Timothy Broglio – then the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) – said executive decisions affecting undocumented immigrants “are deeply troubling and will have negative consequences, many of which will harm the most vulnerable among us.”
Trump has generally avoided a direct confrontation with the bishops, using the Catholic members of his administration to do that job.
As a businessman, the president often used a “divide and conquer” strategy in dealing with his opponents. This has carried on his presidency, and it seems to define his dealings with the Catholic Church.
After Broglio’s statement, U.S. Vice President JD Vance told CBS’s ‘Face the Nation’ the USCCB “has, frankly, not been a good partner in common sense immigration enforcement that the American people voted for, and I hope, again, as a devout Catholic, that they’ll do better.”
RELATED: JD Vance’s words a ‘dog whistle’ to ‘Professional Catholics’
Homan has also spoken against the bishops, even before his statement this week. On Nov. 14, 2025, he told reporters, “The Catholic Church is wrong.”
“A secure border saves lives. We’re going to enforce the law and by doing that we save a lot of lives,” he said.
Trump’s relationship with the Catholic Church has been mixed.
A Pew Research Center report issued on June 26, 2025, said 22 percent of those who voted for Trump in the 2024 election were Catholic. This is despite the fact that before the election Pope Francis spoke against Trump and said that his immigrant deportation policy would be a “disgrace.”
His words were even harsher when Trump was first running for election in 2016.
“A person who thinks only about building walls… and not of building bridges, is not Christian,” Francis told reporters on Feb. 18, 2016.
RELATED: US immigration law ‘not rooted in hate or xenophobia,’ ambassador says
A new survey by the Pew Research Center published this month – on Feb. 11 – shows support for Trump from Catholics has dropped by 10 percent – although still over half of white Catholics support him.
Much of that loss is tied to violence taking place during Trump’s efforts to go after immigrants without paperwork – including several people being shot dead – and the threats he has made to NATO ally Denmark in an effort to acquire Greenland. Such things are causing unease among Catholic supporters.
This sliding support of Catholics for the current president could be impacting Catholic politicians seeking to become the Republican nominee in 2028, when term limits will bar the president from running again.
While Trump may have employed a “divide and conquer” strategy in his business dealings, some Catholic Republicans may be recalling ventures such as the Trump Taj Mahal or the Trump Shuttle — enterprises that Donald Trump ultimately survived, but in which many of his partners were less successful.
Follow Charles Collins on X: @CharlesinRome
