Pope Francis on Immigration

Must count undocumented people in US Census

"The church's teaching is clear: Human dignity is most sacred, regardless of legal status," he said. The USCCB, along with other Catholic organizations, filed a friend-of-the-court brief in this case, arguing that excluding those without legal documentation from the apportionment base of the census sends a message that these individuals are not equal members of the human family, which contradicts the dignity of all people and violates the U.S. Constitution and the Census Act.

Since the census started in 1790, its practice has been to count all people living in the U.S. Currently, an estimated 11 million unauthorized immigrants are living in this country.

Separating immigrant parents from children is immoral

One of his most pointed messages concerned Pres. Trump's zero-tolerance immigration policy, in which US authorities hold illegal immigrant adults in jail while their children are sent to government shelters.

US Catholic bishops have joined other religious leaders in the US in condemning the policy. "I am on the side of the bishops' conference," the pope said, referring to two statements from US bishops this month. "Let it be clear that in these things, I respect the bishops conference."

"It's not easy, but populism is not the solution," Francis said. The pope said populists were "creating psychosis" on the issue of immigration.

We should receive asylum-seekers, not reject them

He spoke at length about immigration, a controversial issue in Europe as well as the US. The populist Italian government has refused port access to non-government ships that have been rescuing asylum-seekers trying to cross to Italy from Africa in flimsy boats.

"I believe that you cannot reject people who arrive. You have to receive them, help them, look after them, accompany them and then see where to put them, but throughout all of Europe," Francis said.

"Some governments are working on it, and people have to be settled in the best possible way, but creating psychosis is not the cure," he added. "Populism does not resolve things. What resolves things is acceptance, study, prudence."

Take better care of refugees driven from their land

Speaking in St. Peter's Square in Rome, Pope Francis, the leader of 1.2 billion Catholics across the world, brought his attention to the migrant crisis occurring throughout the Middle East, Europe and Africa. The pope compared the plight of more than 22 million refugees worldwide to that of Joseph and Mary, who traveled from Nazareth to Bethlehem but found no lodging, a timeless parable of unwelcome travelers.

President Trump has tried to keep˙refugees out of the U.S., signing a number of restrictions on those seeking asylum from war-torn countries like Yemen,˙Syria and Iraq. Trump often argues that allowing refugees from these countries into the U.S. could increase the risk of terrorism, but he has also accepted far fewer Christian refugees than in prior years.

Building walls instead of building bridges is not Christian

In February 2016, shortly after celebrating a Mass in Mexico just yards from the border, Pope Francis was asked by reporters about then-candidate Trump's promise to build a wall the entire length of the border. "A person who thinks only of building walls, wherever it may be, and not of building bridges, is not Christian," the pope said.

Trump, asked by reporters to comment on that, said Mexico was "using the pope as a pawn," and he said it was "disgraceful" for a religious leader to question someone's faith.

The pope's approach, he said, is "to meet the major players in the field in order to reason together and to propose to everyone the greatest good, exercising the soft power that seems to me to be the specific trait of his international policy."

Opposes border wall between US and Mexico

Trump fired back via Facebook: "If and when the Vatican is attacked by ISIS, which as everyone knows is ISIS's ultimate trophy, I can promise you that the Pope would have only wished and prayed that Donald Trump would have been President because this would not have happened. ISIS would have been eradicated unlike what is happening now with our all talk, no action politicians."

Trump added, huffily, "No leader, especially a religious leader, should have the right to question another man's religion or faith."

Vocal advocate for the plight of refugees

It's not Christian to build a wall on US-Mexican border

The rare back-and-forth between pontiff and presidential candidate underscored the popular pope's willingness to needle U.S. politicians on hot-button issues. Francis' comments came hours after he concluded a visit to Mexico, where he prayed at the border for people who died trying to reach the U.S. He was asked what he thought of Trump's campaign pledge to build a wall along the entire length of the border. "A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian," he said. While Francis said he would "give the benefit of the doubt" because he had not heard Trump's border plans independently, he added, "I say only that this man is not a Christian if he has said things like that.

View refugees as persons; respond humanely

End inhuman conditions when Mexican migrants come to U.S.

Here are some of the major issues on which Pope Francis differs from most Republican politicians:
• He strongly backs immigration reform. The pope has decried the "inhuman" conditions that migrants face coming to the U.S. from Mexico, and he's prodded Europe to accept more Syrian refugees. "I expect that Francis, in his address to Congress, will challenge our national conscience on immigration and remind us of the growing human toll resulting from our indifference and failures of political will," Jose H. Gomez, the archbishop of Los Angeles, the nation's largest Catholic community, writes in an op-ed for today's Wall Street Journal. "In calling Americans to compassion and hospitality, he will also be calling us to reclaim our roots as a nation of immigrants and a refuge for the world's downtrodden."