The Catholic pontiff criticized the heavy-handed policy proposed by the president-elect of the United States, Donald Trump, to control immigration to the country.
Pope Francis on Sunday criticized President-elect Donald Trump's plan to dramatically ramp up immigration enforcement in the United States in the days after his inauguration.
In an interview on Italian television, the pontiff said it would be a “disgrace” if Trump went ahead with the plan, in unusually forceful language for the leader of the Catholic Church.
“It would make migrants, who have nothing, foot the bill,” the pope said. “It doesn't work. That's not how problems are solved.”
Francis, leader of the 1.4 billion-member Church, is typically cautious about intervening in political issues.
Francis has made welcoming migrants a key issue of his nearly 12 years of papacy, and has previously criticized Trump's anti-immigration rhetoric. During the 2016 election campaign, he said the Republican was “not Christian” in his vision.
Future Trump administration officials said Saturday that the president-elect was reconsidering immigration raids in Chicago next week following reports of the plans.
Earlier on Sunday, Chicago's Catholic archbishop, Cardinal Blase Cupich, also criticized the raids. “It would be an affront to the dignity of all people and communities,” the cardinal said in a statement.