'Listen to them': Pope Leo backs US bishops message against Trump's immigration crackdown

• Pope Leo XIV expressed concern over the treatment of immigrants under President Donald Trump.
• The Pope stated that while countries can control their borders, immigrants should be treated humanely and with dignity.

Pope Leo XIV has raised further concern with the anti-immigrant policies of President Donald Trump, saying foreigners living the U.S. were being treated "extremely disrespectfully."

The Pope's comment came as he spoke with journalists outside Castle Gandolfo, his residence outside of Rome on Tuesday, Nov. 18. He said he is "troubled" by the violence against immigrants.

"No one has said that the United States should have open borders," the Pope told reporters. "I think every country has the right to determine who enters, how, and when, but when people have lived good lives — many of them for 10, 15, 20 years — treating them in a way that is, to say the least, extremely disrespectful, and with instances of violence, is troubling."

He called for the humane treatment of immigrants in the U.S.

"We have to look for ways of treating people humanely, treating people with the dignity that they have," the Pope told reporters. "If people are in the United States illegally, there are ways to treat that. There are courts. There's a system of justice."

He also defended the recent Special Pastoral Message that the U. S. Conference of Catholic Bishops issued, telling reporters, "the bishops have been very clear in what they said … I would just like that all people in the United States to listen to them."

Leo was appointed on May 8. He is the first Pope to have been born in the United States.

Bishops decry immigration crackdown

The Special Pastoral Message was published on Nov. 12. It expressed the bishop's concern with the growing immigration crackdown in the U.S. and advocates for meaningful reform.

"We oppose the indiscriminate mass deportation of people," the bishops wrote in the Special Pastoral Message. "We pray for an end to dehumanizing rhetoric and violence, whether directed at immigrants or at law enforcement."

But the letter received criticism from President Donald Trump's Border Czar Tom Homan. He responded to the letter during a news conference outside the White House, saying the bishops should focus on fixing the church, while the Trump administration has the right to focus on "securing the borders.".

“The Catholic Church is wrong, I’m sorry,” Homan told reporters. “I’m saying it not only as the border czar, I’m saying it as a Catholic.”

But Bishop Mark Seitz of the Diocese of El Paso, who was part of the team that brought the special message to vote in the Fall Plenary Assembly in Baltimore, Maryland, said the message was not meant to be confrontational.

"What we are doing is simply restating what the church believes and teaches," Seitz said. "It has always taught about the dignity of the human person and especially the dignity of the poor and vulnerable."

Jeff Abbott covers the border for the El Paso Times and can be reached at:[email protected]; @palabrasdeabajo on Twitter or @palabrasdeabajo.bsky.social on Bluesky.