Pope speaks out against Trump policy of separating children from families

 

Pope Francis has now added his name to the growing list of people who have publicly spoken out about the Trump administration’s mistreatment of immigrant children seeking asylum with their parents.

Wednesday, the religious world leader criticized the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy that has resulted in the separation of families at the Mexican border.

Wednesday Reuters published a wide-ranging interview conducted at his Vatican residence for World Refugee Day. In the sit down Francis shared that he supported the statements made by US Catholic bishops who called the separation of children from their parents “immoral” and “contrary to our Catholic values.”

“I am on the side of the Bishops’ Conference,” Francis told Reuters, referring to the statements. “It’s not easy, but populism is not the solution,” he added.

Many celebrities, activists and politicians have spoken up this week, with Trump receiving bipartisan backlash, most notably from former first lady Laura Bush who expressed her concern in a Washington Post op-ed on Father’s Day.

“I live in a border state,” she writes. “I appreciate the need to enforce and protect our international boundaries, but this zero-tolerance policy is cruel. It is immoral. And it breaks my heart.”

In response to her impassioned plea, our Forever First Lady Michelle Obama retweeted her article along with the caption, “Sometimes truth transcends party.”

As disturbing images and audio of children in cages at the border were made public this week, Trump continues to defend his administration’s actions and attempted to blame the Democrats for his actions.

To that point the Pope opined that what is currently happening was not solely “a Trump issue.”
“During the Obama administration, I celebrated mass at Ciudad Juarez on the border,” he said, referring to his visit to the Mexican border city in 2016. “The problem already existed then. It’s not just a Trump issue but also one of the previous governments.”

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