Pope Francis Slams U.S. Immigrant Deportations: Illegals Are Not Criminals

ROME — Pope Francis weighed in on U.S. politics Tuesday, slamming new measures to deport irregular immigrants and insisting that illegal entry into the country is not a crime.

The pontiff has taken the extraordinary step of writing an open letter to the U.S. bishops in which he opposes the mass deportation of migrants, while also berating U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance for allegedly misinterpreting the Augustinian concept of “ordo amoris” (the order of love).

“I have followed closely the major crisis that is taking place in the United States with the initiation of a program of mass deportations,” he states. “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,” he writes, “damages the dignity of many men and women, and of entire families, and places them in a state of particular vulnerability and defenselessness.”

We live in a decisive moment in history in which we are called to reaffirm “our faith in a God who is always close, incarnate, migrant and refugee,” the pope writes.

Jesus Christ faced “the difficult experience of being expelled from his own land because of an imminent risk to his life, and from the experience of having to take refuge in a society and a culture foreign to his own,” he writes.

The true common good is promoted when society and government “welcomes, protects, promotes and integrates the most fragile, unprotected and vulnerable,” he contends.

In his letter, the pope takes aim at arguments recently employed by J.D. Vance, a convert to Catholicism, to explain U.S. immigration policy, namely the responsibility of governments prioritize the good of their own citizens before that of the rest of the world, under the concept of ordo amoris.

“Christian love is not a concentric expansion of interests that little by little extend to other persons and groups,” the pope argues. “In other words: the human person is not a mere individual, relatively expansive, with some philanthropic feelings!”

“The true ordo amoris that must be promoted is that which we discover by meditating constantly on the parable of the ‘Good Samaritan,’” he asserts, apparently drawing on arguments made by his fellow Jesuit Father James Martin in his own critique of Vance.

The pope concludes by exhorting 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.”

“Let us ask Our Lady of Guadalupe to protect individuals and families who live in fear or pain due to migration and/or deportation,” he states.

In a curious juxtaposition of events, the Vatican recently announced it would be tightening its own border controls, promising stiff penalties for anyone entering its territory or violating its airspace without permission.

The Vatican said that violators of its borders will face monetary fines ranging from 10,000 to 25,000 euros and prison sentences from one to four years. The decree does not explain how such a stern policy comports with the parable of the Good Samaritan.

Anyone who “enters the territory of Vatican City State with violence, threat, or deception will be punished with imprisonment from one year to four years and a fine from €10,000.00 to €25,000.00,” the Italian-language text reads.

“Entry by fraudulent circumvention of the State’s security and protection systems or by evading border controls shall be deemed to have occurred ‘by deception,’” the decree elucidates.

Apparently, in the minds of some, entering the Vatican illegally is a crime worthy of punishment, while entering the United States illegally is not.

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