Pope Francis has condemned President-elect Donald Trump’s calls for mass deportations in the U.S.
The Catholic Church’s leader called Trump’s plans a “disgrace” in an interview on the Italian talk show Che Tempo Che Fa Sunday.
“If it is true, it will be a disgrace, because it makes the poor wretches who have nothing pay the unpaid bill,” he said. “It won’t do. This is not the way to solve things.”
This comes after Francis appointed Cardinal Robert McElroy to be the next Archbishop of Washington, D.C. McElroy is a staunch opponent of mass deportations, calling them “inconsistent with Catholic doctrine,” CNN reports.
Francis’s comments come as Trump is expected to begin gutting legal immigration paths and carrying out mass deportations within his first days in office.
Trump’s administration is already planning a massive deportation operation in Chicago beginning Tuesday, his first full day in office, The Wall Street Journal reported. The operation is expected to include up to 200 Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.
Immigration experts and advocacy groups are expecting “executive orders, agency actions and requests to Congress for funding and immigration bills to enlarge its authority” and “intimidate all elected officials across the country into going along with his mass deportation agenda,” Naureen Shah, deputy director for government affairs at ACLU, told reporters last week.
This comes as Fox News and ABC News both report that Trump is set to sign more than 200 executive orders on Monday just hours after taking office.
These orders will close the border to all undocumented migrants via proclamation, declare a national emergency at the border and designate cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, according to reports.
Trump is also reportedly set to re-institute the “Remain in Mexico” policy, which forces migrants seeking asylum to stay in Mexico until their immigration court date in the US.
He will also end the practice of “Catch and Release,” in which migrants are allowed to remain in their community — rather than be detained — while awaiting their court date, according to the reports.
Other executive actions will reportedly include mandating federal employees return to in-person work, withdrawing from the Paris Climate Accord and establishing a Department of Government Efficiency hiring freeze.
