Tom Homan, President Trump's border czar, told reporters outside the White House that he would "welcome" a sit-down with Pope Leo XIV, and then made clear exactly what he'd say if he got one. The Vatican, Homan argued, has no business lecturing the United States on immigration enforcement because its leaders have never seen what he has seen in four decades on the border.
The exchange is the latest and sharpest turn in an escalating public dispute between the Trump administration and the Holy See over deportation policy, border security, and, more recently, the Iran conflict. Within days, Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and Homan each took aim at the pope's public statements, while Leo fired back that he has "no fear of the Trump administration."
What makes Homan's broadside notable is not just its bluntness but its specificity. He did not speak in abstractions about sovereignty or diplomacy. He spoke about a nine-year-old girl who was raped, about nineteen people found dead in the back of a tractor trailer, about a five-year-old boy who, in Homan's words, "baked to death." These are the realities, Homan said, that Vatican officials simply do not understand.
Speaking to reporters, Homan was direct about what he thinks the Catholic hierarchy gets wrong. As Fox News Digital reported, Homan laid out his case in personal terms:
"If they wore my shoes for 40 years, and talked to a 9-year-old girl that got raped multiple times, or stood in the back of a tractor trailer with 19 dead aliens at my feet, including a 5-year-old boy that baked to death, if they understood the atrocities that happened on the open border, I think their opinion would change."
Homan then said he would welcome a conversation with any Vatican leader, "because they don't understand illegal immigration is not a victimless crime." He credited Trump directly with saving lives through tighter enforcement.
"Where President Trump had the most secure border in the lifetime of this nation, right now, lives are being saved."
He went further, arguing that human traffickers "are out of business" and that cartels "are going bankrupt because of that secure border." His bottom line was plain: "I wish they'd stay out of immigration, they don't know what they're talking about."
This is not the first time Homan has clashed with Catholic leaders. Earlier this year, he rebuked the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops after they condemned the administration's deportation operations and arrests. The bishops said the administration had created a "climate of fear and anxiety" around immigration and race. Homan, identifying himself as a lifelong Catholic, rejected their framing. As Just The News reported, Homan said bluntly: "The Catholic Church is wrong. I'm a lifelong Catholic, but I'm saying it not only as a border czar, but I'm also saying this as a Catholic."
Homan's remarks came after Trump opened the confrontation on Sunday with a Truth Social post calling Pope Leo "WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy." Trump urged the pope to "get his act together," "use Common Sense," and "stop catering to the Radical Left." He warned that Leo's conduct was "hurting him very badly and, more importantly, it's hurting the Catholic Church."
Trump also told reporters: "We don't like a pope that's going to say that it's OK to have a nuclear weapon. We don't want a pope that says crime is OK in our cities. I don't like it." He described Leo as "a very liberal person" who "doesn't believe in stopping crime."
On Monday, Vance offered a more measured version of the same argument in an interview with Fox News's Bret Baier. The vice president, who has visited the Vatican twice in office, including a meeting with Pope Leo XIV in Vatican City on May 19, 2025, acknowledged a "good relationship" with the Holy See but drew a firm line.
"I certainly think that in some cases, it would be best for the Vatican to stick to matters of morality... and let the president of the United States stick to dictating American public policy."
Vance added that disagreements with the Vatican on "substantive questions from time to time" are "a totally reasonable thing." The tone was diplomatic. The message was the same one Homan delivered with a harder edge: stay in your lane.
Homan has consistently positioned himself as the administration's most aggressive voice on enforcement, whether the target is congressional Democrats, media hosts trying to shift blame for DHS funding fights, or foreign religious leaders.
Pope Leo XIV responded to the criticism on Monday, telling reporters he has "no fear of the Trump administration." But his actual policy statements were more nuanced than the administration's framing might suggest. Leo said plainly: "No one has said that the United States should have open borders." He added: "I think every country has a right to determine who and how and when people enter."
Where Leo broke with the administration was on the treatment of illegal immigrants already living in the country. He referenced people who have been in the U.S. for "10, 15, 20 years" and said treating them "in a way that is extremely disrespectful, to say the least", including instances of violence, was wrong. He urged Americans to listen to the U.S. bishops on the matter.
Leo also framed his broader mission in terms that went beyond immigration, saying he would "continue to speak out loudly against war, looking to promote peace, promoting dialogue and multilateral relationships among the states to look for just solutions to problems." He insisted his statements were "certainly not meant as attacks on anyone."
The pope's attempt to walk a middle line, affirming border sovereignty while criticizing enforcement methods, is precisely the position that draws fire from the administration. Homan and his allies see it as a distinction without a difference: if you condemn the enforcement but accept the principle, you effectively side with the status quo that produced the open-border crisis in the first place.
Homan has not limited his pushback to the current pope. He has made the Vatican-walls comparison a recurring talking point. As the Washington Examiner reported, Homan told reporters: "Bottom line is, if we jumped the wall at the Vatican, the penalties for doing that are much harder than the ones here in the United States." He argued that Leo should focus on problems within the Catholic Church rather than criticizing U.S. border enforcement.
The comparison is pointed. Vatican City is one of the most physically secured sovereign territories on earth, ringed by walls, guarded by the Swiss Guard, and accessible only through controlled entry points. Homan's argument is that the pope enjoys the protection of hard borders while telling Americans they should be more lenient about theirs.
Earlier in the administration, the Trump team deployed Homan to some of the country's most contested enforcement zones. The White House described him as the "perfect guy" for a high-profile immigration situation in Minneapolis, and he personally oversaw enforcement surges in major metro areas.
Homan's operational record is central to his credibility in these exchanges. He is not a commentator. He ran ICE operations, oversaw deportation logistics, and, as he repeatedly reminds critics, spent decades confronting the human cost of illegal border crossings firsthand. That is the foundation of his claim that church leaders "don't know what they're talking about."
The clash with Pope Leo is part of a broader pattern in which Homan has shown little interest in diplomatic niceties when he believes enforcement is being undermined. He has publicly sparred with congressional Democrats over DHS funding, pushed back against media framing he considers dishonest, and even appeared to take issue with members of his own team when he felt enforcement was lagging.
Homan's willingness to publicly air differences even within the administration makes him an unusual figure in Washington. Most officials in his position would tread carefully around a pope. Homan's approach is the opposite: he treats the Vatican's immigration commentary as just another obstacle to clear.
The administration's enforcement numbers back up at least part of his case. National Review reported that the Trump administration expects to deport approximately 1.4 million immigrants who have committed crimes or are otherwise in the country illegally. As of an earlier reporting period, nearly 600 aliens had been arrested by ICE and deportation flights to Mexico and Guatemala had already begun.
Homan has also completed large-scale enforcement operations in American cities, including wrapping up Operation Metro Surge, which targeted illegal immigrants in major metropolitan areas. These operations form the practical backdrop to his argument that border enforcement saves lives, an argument the Vatican has so far declined to engage on those terms.
Fox News Digital reached out to the Holy See for comment. Whether the Vatican responded is not reported. That silence is worth noting. Homan offered a direct, public invitation to discuss the realities of illegal immigration. The pope's public statements acknowledged border sovereignty in principle but condemned enforcement in practice. The gap between those two positions is where the real argument lives.
Pope Leo said "too many people are suffering in the world today" and that "someone has to stand up and say there's a better way." Homan would likely agree, and point out that the suffering he has witnessed over forty years was caused not by enforcement but by its absence.
The administration's position is clear: secure borders are not a moral failing. They are a moral obligation. If the Vatican disagrees, Homan says he is ready to talk. But he is not going to wait for permission.
When the people making immigration policy have stood over the bodies of trafficking victims, and the people criticizing that policy live behind the most fortified walls in Europe, the lecture lands a little differently.
