ROME (AP) — Pope Francis said Donald Trump’s plans to impose mass deportations of immigrants would be a “disgrace,” as he weighed in on the incoming U.S. president’s pledges nearly a decade after calling him “not Christian” for wanting to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border.

"If it is true, it will be a disgrace, because it makes the poor wretches who have nothing to pay the unpaid bill," Francis said.

It’s also a topic which resonates personally with Francis. In his new autobiography, the Pope recalled how his paternal grandparents and father had planned to sail in 1927 on the Principessa Mafalda from Italy to Argentina, which sank with the loss of many lives, but ended up making a later crossing.

This is not the first time the pope has rebuked the president-elect’s position on illegal immigrants. In September 2024, Francis criticized then-candidates Vice President Kamala Harris and Trump when asked a question about the U.S. presidential election. The pope blasted Harris’s position on abortion and Trump’s immigration stance.

Francis previously said that Trump cannot be a Christian if he plans to build a wall to keep migrants from Mexico out.

The pope has made welcoming migrants a key theme of his nearly 12-year papacy, and he has previously criticized Trump's anti-immigrant rhetoric. During the 2016 election, he said Trump was "not Christian" in his view.

Pope Francis called President-elect Donald Trump's plans for the deportation of illegal immigrants a "disgrace."

If this is true it is a disgrace because it makes the poor unfortunate who have nothing pay the price of imbalance. This is not how things are solved,” the pope said on Italian TV.

The comments provided the latest indication of a potential renewal of friction between the Vatican and the next Trump White House.

This comes after Francis appointed Cardinal Robert McElroy to be the next Archbishop of Washington, D.C. McElroy is a staunch opponent of mass deportations, calling them “inconsistent with Catholic doctrine,” CNN reports.