Pope Leo XIV on Tuesday strongly backed U.S. bishops who condemned the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown and urged the American people to listen to them and treat migrants humanely.

Leo was asked about the “special message” the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops adopted during their assembly last week. 

The text, the first time since 2013 that the bishops have penned such a message, criticized the mass deportation of migrants and the “vilification” of them in the current migration debate. 

It lamented the fear and anxiety the immigration raids have sown in communities, and the denial of pastoral care to migrants in detention centers.

Leo, who has previously urged local bishops to take the lead on speaking out on matters of social justice, said he appreciated the bishops statement and urged all people of goodwill to listen to what they said.

“I think we have to look for ways of treating people humanely, treating people with the dignity that they have,” he said. “If people are in the United States illegally, there are ways to treat that. There are courts, there's a system of justice.”

He acknowledged there are problems in the U.S. migration system, but stressed that no one has said the U.S. should have open borders, and that every country has the right to determine who can enter and how. 

“But when people are living good lives, and many of them for 10, 15, 20 years, to treat them in in a way that is extremely disrespectful to say the least, and there's been some violence unfortunately, I think I think that the bishops have been very clear in what they said,” he said.

“And I think that I I would just invite all people in the United States to listen to them.”

Leo spoke to reporters gathered outside his villa in Castel Gandolfo, where he usually spends Monday afternoons and Tuesdays relaxing, playing tennis and swimming in the estate’s indoor pool.

He suggested that he is planning more travel starting in 2026, after his Rome commitments ease up with the end of the Holy Year.

Asked if he would return to Peru, where he spent some 20 years as a missionary, Leo said “of course.”

But he also hinted at other possible destinations, including the Fatima shrine in Portugal, the Guadalupe shrine in Mexico, and visits to Argentina and Uruguay.

AP Video by Andrea Rosa

Production by: Trisha Thomas