Visit to Mexico Border Is Pope's Chance to Expose Trump on Immigration Andres Oppenheimer - Miami Herald
go to original January 31, 2016

They traveled from Mexico to Rome to call for their kidnaped brother's release (Rome Reports)

Pope Francis, who has made the plight of migrants one of the central themes of his papacy, should have no mercy with Republican hopeful Donald Trump when the pontiff visits Mexico in mid-February.

Francis will have a unique opportunity to expose Trump as a pathological liar on immigration matters, just after the key Republican primary in New Hampshire, when most Americans will begin to seriously tune into the race for the U.S. November elections. It will be Francis’ best opportunity to have a real impact on the immigration debate.

I will probably never get a job as a papal speechwriter, but if I were on Francis’ team, this is what I would suggest he say when during his scheduled Feb. 17 visit to the Mexico-U.S. border City of Ciudad Juarez, where he is widely expected to address the immigration issue. Here it goes:

"I greet all of you with special affection!” he should start saying. “As you know, migrants have always been very close to my heart. I come from a country of European migrants, who moved to this continent in search of building new lives, leaving behind wars and economic hardships. My own father was a migrant.

"As we have said since my first official trip abroad when I visited Lampedusa, Sicily, to commemorate the thousands of migrants who died trying to cross the sea from North Africa, we must fight against the globalization of indifference. We have become used to other people’s suffering. We don’t care.

"What’s worse, people running for top political offices in some of the world’s richest countries are using the immigration issue as a demagogic tool to frighten people. They cite false figures to inject fear in their countries’ populations, and to present themselves as saviors of the fatherland."

Read the rest at Miami Herald

Related: Bishop: 'Mexico Is a Cemetery - Government Only Goes to Light a Candle for the Dead' (ICN)

We invite you to add your charity or supporting organizations' news stories and coming events to PVAngels so we can share them with the world. Do it now!