Trump’s plan for mass deportation of migrants is a “disgrace”

Pope Francis has said Donald Trump’s plans to deport illegal migrants from the US would be a “disgrace” if they came to fruition.

Speaking in an interview with an Italian television program from his Vatican residence, Francis said that if the plans are implemented, Trump will make “poor people who have nothing.”

“This is wrong. This is not how problems can be solved,” he said.

Trump has promised to begin the largest-ever deportation of undocumented immigrants in US history immediately after taking office.

In a message to Trump released on Monday, Pope Francis sent him “heartfelt greetings” and called on him to lead a society in which “there is no place for hatred, discrimination or exclusion” and to promote “peace and reconciliation between peoples”.

The Pope is known to be very concerned about the problem of migrants. During a public audience last August, he said that “systematically working by all means to expel migrants” is a “grave sin.”

In 2016, before the first presidential election, which Trump won, Pope Francis said that “a person who thinks only about building walls … and not about building bridges is not a Christian.”

Referring to Trump’s promise to build a wall on the Mexican border to keep migrants out of the US, Francis said: “All I’m saying is that this man is not a Christian if he said such things. We should check if he said something in that way, and I’ll give him a favor.”

Francis and Trump later met when Trump and his family visited Rome in 2017.

Ahead of the 2024 US presidential election, the Pope refused to say whether people should vote for Trump or his Democratic opponent Kamala Harris, simply urging people to choose the “lesser evil” according to their conscience.

During an interview on Sunday night, Francis also addressed the issue of migration to Europe, saying there is “a lot of brutality” and that everyone has “the right to stay at home and the right to emigrate.”

The Pope also added that some southern European countries, which receive the largest number of migrants, “do not have children and are in need of labor.”

“In some of these countries there are entire villages that are empty. A good, well-thought-out migration policy would also help countries like Italy and Spain,” he said.

In another part of the interview, Francis was asked about the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, and he said he did not know why making peace was so difficult.

“I don’t know why… it’s as if there was an international drive towards self-destruction,” the Pope said.

Francis, 88, has held the post since 2013, when he was elected to succeed Pope Benedict XVI.