Pope Leo XIV has blasted an immigration policy favored by President Donald Trump’s administration as not being the “Christian” response to people fleeing war, violence, and conflict.
The Chicago-born pontiff was asked Tuesday to weigh in on “remigration,” a mass deportation plan pushed by the European far-right that has also been embraced by the Trump administration.
Trump used the term on the 2024 campaign trail, and last year the State Department created a secretive “Office of Remigration” that was apparently inspired by Europe’s extremist movements’ bid to expel foreigners simply because they’re foreign, Wired reported last month.
Speaking to reporters outside his summer residence in Castel Gandolfo, the pope stressed that governments must treat immigrants with respect.
“Often, we don’t recognize the reason why these people were forced to leave their home countries. For many reasons—violence, war, conflict,” he said. “To simply say, ‘We’re going to send them away and wash our hands of the problem’ doesn’t seem like the most Christian response.”
Trump has repeatedly called for “remigration” or “reverse migration,” a previously fringe concept that has gained widespread attention in Europe thanks to a former neo-Nazi political activist from Austria, NPR reported in December.
The White House has denied remigration’s European extremist roots, while at the same time using white nationalist rhetoric and imagery to discuss Western values and Western civilization, NPR noted.
During his 2024 presidential campaign against former Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump vowed in a Truth Social post shared by Stephen Miller to “end the migrant invasion of America,” and to “revoke deportation immunity, suspend refugee resettlement, and return Kamala’s illegal migrants to their home countries (also known as remigration).”
When a former Afghan special forces soldier opened fire on two National Guard members in November, the president used the deadly shooting as an excuse to attack immigrants and announce his plans to “permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries” to “allow the U.S. system to fully recover” from a supposed influx of “illegal and disruptive populations.”
“Only REVERSE MIGRATION can fully cure this situation,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post in the days following the shooting. “Other than that, HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL, except those that hate, steal, murder, and destroy everything that America stands for—You won’t be here for long!”
The 80-year-old president has feuded with Pope Leo for months over the pontiff’s criticism of Trump’s foreign wars and his calls for the U.S. to end its “inhuman treatment of immigrants.”
“We really need to respect every person and see their individual cases, and above all treat people as people with respect,” Leo reiterated Tuesday.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House for comment.
