VATICAN CITY, Holy See (AFP) — Pope Francis said Sunday that US President-elect Donald Trump’s promised large-scale deportation operation of undocumented migrants would be “a calamity”.

Trump, who returns to the White House today, has pledged to take a hard-line stance against an estimated 11 million undocumented migrants in the United States.

“If it is true, it will be a calamity because it makes the poor wretches who have nothing pay,” Francis said during an interview with Italian television channel
Nove.

The Republican billionaire has vowed to carry out, “The largest deportation operation in American history,” though any deportation programme will face legal challenges as well as potential refusals by some countries to accept deportees.

Francis, who received Trump at the Vatican during his first term in the White House in 2017 for a half-hour meeting, has criticised him for his anti-migrant policies in the past.

In February 2016, when asked about the then-US presidential hopeful’s anti-immigration stance, he said: “Anyone, whoever he is, who only wants to build walls and not bridges is not a Christian.”

And last year the Argentine Jesuit made a rare foray into the US election season to call harsh anti-migrant attitudes “madness” and criticise right-wing US Catholic figures for overly conservative stances.

Trump, 78, has also vowed to end birthright citizenship, calling it “ridiculous”, though it is guaranteed by the US constitution.

Analysts also expect him to issue executive orders on other aspects of immigration policy, and he is weighing declaring a national emergency, which would allow him to unlock Pentagon resources.