Aboard his plane Monday morning, Pope Francis put the onus back on President Donald Trump to make sure that Dreamers are protected. | Andrew Medichini/AP Pope Francis: Trump may not be 'pro-life' if he ends DACA

President Donald Trump may not be as “pro-life” as he has previously professed himself to be, Pope Francis said Monday, if he does indeed rescind a program that grants work permits to undocumented immigrants who arrived in the U.S. as children, thereby exposing them to possible deportation.

"The President of the United States presents himself as pro-life and if he is a good pro-lifer, he understands that family is the cradle of life and its unity must be protected," the Pope said Monday, according to a CNN report, aboard his plane as he returned to the Vatican from a trip to Colombia.


The Trump administration announced earlier this month that he would end DACA, the Obama-era program that shielded so-called Dreamers from deportation, citing concerns about its constitutionality. The White House has framed the move as a compassionate one, allowing for a six-month wind down of the program instead of leaving it open to an immediate end via the courts.

The six-month window, the Trump administration has said, leaves Congress time to act and more permanently protect Dreamers. The president, who once vowed to deport every single undocumented immigrant in the U.S., has vowed to treat Dreamers with “great heart” and has suggested that he wants Congress to find a more permanent solution for them. If Congress fails to act, Trump has pledged to “revisit this issue.”

POLITICO Playbook newsletter Sign up today to receive the #1-rated newsletter in politics Email Sign Up By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or alerts from POLITICO. You can unsubscribe at any time. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Aboard his plane Monday morning, the Pope put the onus back on the president to make sure that Dreamers are protected. "I think this law comes not from parliament but from the executive," the Pope said. "If that is so, I am hopeful that it will be re-thought."

During last year’s campaign, Pope Francis suggested that Trump was “not Christian” because of his pledge to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. During a visit to Mexico, the Pope also celebrated mass in Ciudad Juarez, just across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas, and prayed near the U.S.-Mexico border.

In a statement released by his campaign, Trump responded to the Pope’s “not Christian” remark by saying that “if and when the Vatican is attacked by ISIS, which as everyone knows is ISIS’s ultimate trophy, I can promise you that the Pope would have only wished and prayed that Donald Trump would have been President because this would not have happened.”

More recently, the two men met face to face last May at the Vatican, exchanging gifts during a meeting that the president characterized as “fantastic.” As their time together ended, Trump promised the Pope “I won’t forget what you said.”