“I have followed closely the major crisis that is taking place in the United States with the initiation of a program of mass deportations,” Francis wrote. “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.”
It is one thing to develop a policy to regulate migration legally, it is another to expel people purely on the basis of their illegal status, he wrote.
“What is built on the basis of force, and not on the truth about the equal dignity of every human being, begins badly and will end badly,” he said.