US border tsar responds to Pope Francis’s criticism of deportation policies

The «border tsar» of President Donald Trump, Tom Homan, strongly criticized on Tuesday the statements of Pope Francis after the leader of the Catholic Church condemned the mass deportation of immigrants initiated by the current administration in the United States.

Pope Francis criticized Trump’s plans to deport migrants in mass, warning that the forced expulsion of people, simply because of their illegal status, deprives them of their inherent dignity and «will end badly.»

Homan immediately responded to the comments of the Supreme Pontiff, in statements to the press on the outskirts of the White House on Tuesday, pointing out that the Vatican is a city-stood surrounded by walls, and that the Pope must concentrate on the affairs of the Catholic Church.

«I say it as a life of a lifetime … (the Pope) should fix the Catholic Church and concentrate on his work and leave us the control of the borders,» Homan replied to the question of a journalist about the subject.

In a letter to US bishops, Pope Francis urged «all the faithful of the Catholic Church … not to give in to narratives that discriminate and cause unnecessary suffering to our migrant brothers and sisters.»

The White House Secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said last week that more than 8 thousand people had been arrested in immigration control actions since Trump assumed the position, on January 20. Some have been deported and others are arrested in federal prisons and in the Naval Bay of the Guantanamo Bay, in Cuba.

This Tuesday, the American coast guard repatrified Cuba to 16 intercepted bsaeros near Bahamas. Since October, 98 migrants have been returned to Cuba.

Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of Cubans in the United States currently in a migratory limbo with I-220a fear being deported after changes in US immigration policies announced by Trump.

Migrants who entered the United States during the administration of Joe Biden and received a parole could be deported accelerated, according to an immigration and customs control service document that was made public in January.

However, experts consulted by Martí News say that Cubans would be the group that runs less risk. Instead, Nicaraguans, Venezuelans and Haitians who did not qualify for a temporary protection status (TPS) if they could face an accelerated deportation process.

«Any Cuban who has entered the country and who has not committed fraud in its application is eligible to the law of adjustment after being a year in the US,» the constitutional lawyer, Rafael Peñalver, said the week, Rafael Peñalver.

Immigration lawyer Wilfredo Allen pointed out, on the other hand, that Cubans who entered with humanitarian parole do not worry because «they have the protection of the adjustment law, to which they can apply to the year and one day.»

«The Cuban adjustment requires an entry and an inspection, does not require that Parole lasts the rest of the time. Any Cuban who entered with a parole, even if she is revoked, is not prevented from obtaining her residence by the Cuban adjustment,» he added.

For the expert, «the only concern are those who have a deportation order, they did not appear in cut and did not present the asylum. Those cases may be in danger. Apart from that, no Cuban who entered with a humanitarian parole or by CBP One has to worry, «he said.