Pope Francis says fear of migration is hurting people all over the world and driving them mad.
During a trip to Panama this week, Francis was asked by reporters what he thought of the ongoing debate regarding immigration and President Trump’s push for a border wall between the United States and Mexico.
“It is the fear that makes us crazy,” he said, according to the New York Post.
Francis is the Catholic Church’s first Latin American Pope and is the child of Italian immigrants to Argentina.
He has routinely denounced Trump’s calls for stricter immigration laws and a wall along the southern border with Mexico.
For instance, Pope Francis said in 2016: “A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian. This is not the gospel.”
With Trump and Senate Republican leadership declining to accept any spending legislation without the funds for a border wall, and Democrats refusing any bills with it attached, a partial government shutdown has left 800,000 federal employees without pay for more than a month.
