Pope Francis chastises Trump administration for mass deportation plan

ROME – Faced with United States President Donald Trump’s insistence on a plan of mass deportations, Pope Francis has published a letter chastising the policy and calling faithful and politicians alike to care for the poor and those whose dignity is threatened.

In a 10-point letter to the bishops of the United States, dated Feb. 10 and published Tuesday, Pope Francis said the current socio-political climate is clearly “marked by the phenomenon of migration.”

He called the current global reality “a decisive moment in history to reaffirm not only our faith in a God who is always close, incarnate, migrant and refugee, but also the infinite and transcendent dignity of every human person.”

Alluding to the journey “from slavery to freedom” of the people of Israel in the biblical book of Exodus, the pope said that a basic examination of the Church’s social doctrine “emphatically” shows that Jesus “did not live apart from the difficult experience of being expelled from his own land because of an imminent risk to his life.”

Jesus also was forced to take refuge in a foreign society and culture, he said, saying that through his incarnation, Jesus chose to “live the drama of immigration.”

To this end, he quoted Pope Pius XII’s 1952 constitution on the care of migrants, Exul Familia, which stated that the Holy Family, as exiled refugees seeking to escape the wrath of a violent king, “are the model, the example and the consolation of emigrants and pilgrims of every age and country.”

They are a model, Pius XII said, for “all refugees of every condition who, beset by persecution or necessity, are forced to leave their homeland, beloved family and dear friends for foreign lands.”

Pope Francis insisted that Jesus’s example is one of universal love and is an education in how to recognize the dignity “of every human being, without exception.”

In a direct rebuke of the Trump administration’s controversial mass deportation policy, he said that human dignity is one that “surpasses and sustains every other juridical consideration that can be made to regulate life in society.”

“Thus, all the Christian faithful and people of good will are called upon to consider the legitimacy of norms and public policies in the light of the dignity of the person and his or her fundamental rights, not vice versa,” he said.

Referring to the mass deportation plans, he said he has been following the situation closely and argued that no decision can be made in good conscience to agree with the plan.

“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,” he said.

He acknowledged the right of every country to defend itself and keep its various communities safe from those who have committed violent or serious crimes, but insisted that deportation of those who have not committed any crimes and who left their homes to escape poverty, exploitation, or persecution, makes them especially vulnerable and defenseless.

“This is not a minor issue,” he said, saying an authentic and true rule of law “is verified precisely in the dignified treatment that all people deserve, especially the poorest and most marginalized.”

Pope Francis said the common good is only really promoted when both government and society, with respect for the rights of all, welcome, protect, promote and integrate the fragile, unprotected, and vulnerable.

“This does not impede the development of a policy that regulates orderly and legal migration,” he said, but said that this development “cannot come about through the privilege of some and the sacrifice of others.”

“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 said.

Invoking the call to Christian charity, he said love for Christians is not “a concentric expansion of interests that little by little extend to other persons and groups,” but is rather a dignity lived in and with others, especially the poor.

Francis also issued an apparent rebuke of comments made by U.S. Vice President JD Vance, who is a convert to Catholicism who has openly defended his administration’s immigration policy on the grounds of his faith.

“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,” the pope said.

Vance had previously said in a Jan. 29 interview on Fox News that “There’s this old school – and I think it’s a very Christian concept, by the way – that you love your family and then you love your neighbor and then you love your community and then you love your fellow citizens and your own country, and then after that you can focus and prioritize the rest of the world.”

“A lot of the far left has completely inverted that. They seem to hate the citizens of their own country and care more about people outside their own borders. That is no way to run a society,” Vance said.

Pope Francis in his message stressed that any concern for personal, community, or national identity separated from a sense of fraternity toward everyone without distinction opens the door to “an ideological criterion that distorts social life and imposes the will of the strongest as the criterion of truth.”

Francis applauded the U.S. bishops’ work with migrants and refugees, and for “promoting fundamental human rights” through those efforts, saying God would reward them for their “protection and defense of those who are considered less valuable, less important or less human!”

To this end, he urged all faithful “not to give in to narratives that discriminate against and cause unnecessary suffering to our migrant and refugee brothers and sisters.”

“With charity and clarity we are all called to live in solidarity and fraternity, to build bridges that bring us ever closer together, to avoid walls of ignominy and to learn to give our lives as Jesus Christ gave his for the salvation of all,” he said.

The pope closed his letter asking Our Lady of Guadalupe to protect all individuals and families “who live in fear or pain due to migration and/or deportation.”

He prayed that Our Lady of Guadalupe, “who knew how to reconcile peoples when they were at enmity,” allow everyone to “meet again as brothers and sisters, within her embrace, and thus take a step forward in the construction of a society that is more fraternal, inclusive and respectful of the dignity of all.”

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