Pope Francis shares with the US bishops the concern about migration policy and mass deportations:“I have followed closely the major crisis that is taking place in the United States with the initiation of a program of mass deportations. The rightly formed conscience cannot fail to make a critical judgment and express its disagreement with any measure that tacitly or explicitly identifies the illegal status of some migrants with criminality. The act of deporting people who in many cases have left their own land for reasons of extreme poverty, insecurity, exploitation, persecution or serious deterioration of the environment, damages the dignity of many men and women, and of entire families, and places them in a state of particular vulnerability and defenselessness”.
This is what Pope Francis emphasizes in a letter to the Catholic bishops of the United States with regard to the country’s current migration policy and in particular the mass deportations initiated by President Donald Trump.
” I am writing today to address a few words to you in these delicate moments that you are living as Pastors of the People of God who walk together in the United States of America,” the Pope explains in the letter. In this context, the Bishop of Rome also recalls the Book of Exodus, which describes “the journey from slavery to freedom that the People of Israel traveled.”
The biblical text “invites us to look at the reality of our time, so clearly marked by the phenomenon of migration, as a decisive moment in history,” said the Pope, who recalled “the infinite and transcendent dignity of every human person.”
Jesus Christ, “the Son of God, in becoming man,” also experienced “the drama of immigration,” the Pope emphasizes in the letter. And he quotes the words with which Pius XII “began his Apostolic Constitution on the Care of Migrants, which is considered the “Magna Carta” of the Church’s thinking on migration, where it says: “The “infinite and transcendent dignity,” of the human person surpasses and sustains every other juridical consideration that can be made to regulate life in society.”
Hence the harsh judgment with regard to the US government’s deportation policy. While it is necessary to “recognize the right of a nation to defend itself and keep communities safe from those who have committed violent or serious crimes while in the country or prior to arrival.” “But worrying about personal, community or national identity, apart from these considerations, easily introduces an ideological criterion that distorts social life and imposes the will of the strongest as the criterion of truth.”
In the final part of the message, the Pope thanks the US bishops for their work and efforts on behalf of migrants and refugees. “I exhort all the faithful of the Catholic Church, and all men and women of good will, not to give in to narratives that discriminate against and cause unnecessary suffering to our migrant and refugee brothers and sisters. With charity and clarity we are all called to live in solidarity and fraternity, to build bridges that bring us ever closer together, to avoid walls of ignominy and to learn to give our lives as Jesus Christ gave his for the salvation of all,” the Pope concluded. (F.B.) (Agenzia Fides, 11/2/2025)
The published photos were taken at Biggs Army Airfield at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas, US Customs and Border Protection sources told Fox News. In the pictures, the chained people board a C-17 military transport plane of the 301st Airlift Squadron of the 60th Air Mobility Wing at Travis Air Force Base, reportedly 80 illegal immigrants from Guatemala on Thursday at 5pm local time.
