(LifeSiteNews) — President Donald Trump’s Catholic border chief Tom Homan, asked Wednesday by reporters about Pope Leo XIV’s repeated criticism of the administration’s immigration policy, said he’d be happy to sit down with the pontiff and explain the many dangers of mass illegal immigration and the administration’s policies.
Responding to a question from Breitbart’s Matthew Perdie about Pope Leo’s critiques of Trump’s border policies, Homan stressed that the Church has always supported law enforcement and that the penalty for entering the Vatican illegally is much harsher than in the U.S. The border czar then emphasized that he would gladly sit down with the American pontiff and discuss the tremendous consequences of mass illegal immigration, such as an increase in sex trafficking and fentanyl entering the country.
🚨BREAKING: Tom Homan just PERFECTLY responded to Pope Leo being against President Trump’s mass deportations:
“If we jumped the wall at the Vatican, penalties are much harder than in America.”
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pic.twitter.com/kM9XroeKUA— Bo Loudon (@BoLoudon) February 25, 2026
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“I’m a lifelong Catholic, still a practicing Catholic. (The) Catholic faith is always in support of law enforcement, always has been, and (Pope Leo) should be, too,” Homan said. “I’ve said it many times before, you ought to be fixing the Catholic Church, (because) they’ve got their own issues.”
While Catholic social teaching affirms that immigrants should be treated with dignity and respect, it also notes that a country has a right to secure its borders. In the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB’s) “Catholic Social Teaching on Immigration and the Movement of Peoples,” the conference outlines that countries are under no obligation to accept all who wish to enter.
Homan highlighted how there are far stricter penalties for those who jump over the Vatican wall illegally than for entering the U.S. illegally.
“The bottom line is, if we jumped the wall at the Vatican, the penalties for doing that are much harder than the ones here in the United States, entering the country illegally,” the border czar said.
Indeed, in January 2025, the same month Trump returned to the White House, the Vatican imposed stricter penalties for illegal entry into its territory or violating its strict security measures. Violators now face between one and four years in prison, between 10,000 and 25,000 euros (about $10,200 to $25,700) in fines, and being banned from the Vatican for up to 15 years for a first offense.
In the U.S., on the other hand, migrants who enter the country illegally are charged only with a misdemeanor and face only up to six months in prison and a maximum fine of $250 for their first offense. Not to mention, there are several self-identifying “sanctuary” cities, counties, and states that help illegal aliens evade immigration laws.
Homan noted some of the dangers of mass illegal immigration such as sex and drug trafficking and the murder of innocent American citizens and said he would be happy to sit down and discuss these consequences with the pontiff.
“Look, what (Pope Leo) doesn’t understand is there’s a flip side to illegal immigration, 31% of women get raped making that journey,” he said. “Over 4,000 aliens died making that journey under Joe Biden, a quarter-million Americans died of fentanyl because of the open border. When you overwhelm the border patrol, all the bad things happen: Sex trafficking increases, fentanyl increases.”
Homan recently announced that, thanks to the Trump administration’s efforts to curb illegal immigration, more than 60,000 of the 300,000 unaccompanied migrant children, many of whom were victims of sex trafficking and child labor who were lost under the Biden administration, have been rescued.
The border czar continued:
Securing the border saves lives. And I’d be happy to sit down and explain it to him, that illegal immigration is not a victimless crime. So President Trump (by) having illegal immigration down 96%, he’s saving thousands of lives every year.
READ: Pope Leo clearly opposes Trump’s immigration policies. Here’s what he fails to understand
Pope Leo, following his predecessor Pope Francis, has repeatedly denounced the Trump administration’s attempts to curb mass immigration. The 267th pontiff has said that the faithful will be judged for how they “receive the foreigner,” and even falsely suggested that supporting the purported “inhuman treatment of immigrants in the United States” under Trump is the same as supporting abortion.
The pope, along with the vast majority of Catholic prelates, while correctly stating that countries have an obligation to treat all migrants with human dignity, has largely failed to mention the issue of the heinous crimes committed by MS-13 gang members and others entering the United States illegally, and how they are violating the human dignity of its citizens. The Vatican has also ignored the lives saved by the administration’s policies.
The USCCB and several prominent American bishops have also denounced Trump’s immigration policies. The bishops’ conference notably issued its first “Special Message” in over a decade in November to criticize what they describe as “indiscriminate mass deportation” under this administration.
In December, Homan made similar remarks during an interview with EWTN’s Raymond Arroyo, inviting the U.S. bishops opposed to the administration’s immigration policy to sit down with him to discuss their criticism.
READ: Trump’s Catholic border chief invites bishops to ‘sit down with me’ amid criticism
“I would love to sit down with them. Come sit down with me,” the border chief told Arroyo. “I think as the leaders of my faith, I deserve that. Come talk to me. And let’s work together at this.”
Other bishops, such as Bishop Joseph Strickland, have called out the majority of U.S. bishops and the Vatican for disregarding the crimes of illegal aliens.
“You harm the little ones when you promote lawlessness and turn a blind eye to the rapes, the murders and the attacks of nefarious criminals who waltz across open borders,” the bishop said.
“Some of the little ones are caught up in these mass migrations and trampled upon as they seek a better life. Some of the little ones find their homes and towns invaded as shepherds say ‘we must welcome the stranger,’ and then allow marauders and criminals free rein,” he added.