‘We Reject That’: White House Fires Back After Pope’s Criticism

White House Push­es Back Against Pope Leo XIV’s Crit­i­cism of U.S. Immi­gra­tion Pol­i­cy

White House Press Sec­re­tary Karo­line Leav­itt deliv­ered a firm response to Pope Leo XIV’s recent state­ments crit­i­ciz­ing the Unit­ed QDover its immi­gra­tion prac­tices, call­ing the alle­ga­tions of inhu­mane treat­ment “com­plete­ly false” and “deeply mis­in­formed.”

Dur­ing Friday’s White House press brief­ing, Leav­itt addressed ques­tions from reporters about the Pope’s com­ments, which were made ear­li­er this week dur­ing a Vat­i­can address high­light­ing glob­al human­i­tar­i­an con­cerns. Pope Leo XIV had accused the U.S. of “moral incon­sis­ten­cy,” point­ing to reports of migrant fam­i­lies being detained in harsh con­di­tions and link­ing America’s sup­port for the death penal­ty to what he described as “a con­tra­dic­tion with­in the nation’s pro-life iden­ti­ty.”

Leav­itt began her remarks by reaf­firm­ing the administration’s com­mit­ment to enforc­ing immi­gra­tion laws “in a man­ner con­sis­tent with human dig­ni­ty and com­pas­sion.” She stressed that the Biden administration’s poli­cies pri­or­i­tize both bor­der secu­ri­ty and human­i­tar­i­an pro­tec­tion, cit­ing expand­ed asy­lum pro­cess­ing pro­grams, human­i­tar­i­an parole ini­tia­tives, and coop­er­a­tion with Latin Amer­i­can nations to man­age migra­tion safe­ly and respon­si­bly.

“The sug­ges­tion that our gov­ern­ment treats migrants inhu­mane­ly is sim­ply not true,” Leav­itt said. “We have tak­en exten­sive steps to reform a bro­ken sys­tem, ensur­ing that indi­vid­u­als and fam­i­lies are treat­ed fair­ly and that our laws are upheld.”

Leav­itt went on to address the Pope’s broad­er moral cri­tique, par­tic­u­lar­ly his remarks tying U.S. immi­gra­tion prac­tices and sup­port for cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment to con­tra­dic­tions in pro-life val­ues. “The Pres­i­dent has made it clear that every per­son deserves to be treat­ed with respect and fair­ness,” she said. “While we val­ue the Pope’s moral per­spec­tive, it’s impor­tant to dis­tin­guish between spir­i­tu­al appeals and the com­plex real­i­ties of gov­er­nance. This admin­is­tra­tion acts on the basis of law, com­pas­sion, and respon­si­bil­i­ty.”

In defend­ing the record of the Depart­ment of Home­land Secu­ri­ty and relat­ed agen­cies, Leav­itt point­ed to the clo­sure of sev­er­al large-scale deten­tion cen­ters that were heav­i­ly crit­i­cized under pre­vi­ous admin­is­tra­tions, as well as increased over­sight of Bor­der Patrol oper­a­tions. She also not­ed that thou­sands of migrants have been grant­ed human­i­tar­i­an parole or tem­po­rary pro­tect­ed sta­tus, reflect­ing the administration’s effort to bal­ance secu­ri­ty with empa­thy.

“We wel­come moral debate, but facts mat­ter,” Leav­itt con­tin­ued. “The Unit­ed States con­tin­ues to uphold both com­pas­sion and account­abil­i­ty in its immi­gra­tion sys­tem. Our focus remains on main­tain­ing secure bor­ders, sup­port­ing law­ful path­ways, and treat­ing every­one who arrives at our bor­ders with human­i­ty.”

While the Vat­i­can has not issued an offi­cial response to Leavitt’s remarks, the Pope’s com­ments have drawn both praise and crit­i­cism inter­na­tion­al­ly — some applaud­ing his moral clar­i­ty, oth­ers accus­ing him of over­step­ping into polit­i­cal ter­ri­to­ry.

For now, the White House appears intent on defend­ing its record and draw­ing a firm line between faith-based moral appeals and the real­i­ties of nation­al pol­i­cy — a ten­sion that con­tin­ues to define the inter­sec­tion of reli­gion and pol­i­tics in the Unit­ed States.