Pontiff was guest of Italian TV show for third time.

Pope Francis criticised US President-elect Donald Trump’s pledge to expel undocumented migrants en masse as a “calamity", during an interview on Italian television on Sunday.

The pontiff, a guest of the popular chat show Che Tempo Che Fa, was asked about Trump's reported plans for a large-scale deportation of migrants living in the US without permission.

“If it is true, it will be a calamity, because it makes the poor wretches who have nothing pay" - the pontiff said - "It won’t do. This is not the way to solve things."

“Trump vuole iniziare l’espulsione dei migranti irregolari”
“Se è vero, sarà una disgrazia perché fa pagare ai poveri disgraziati il conto dello squilibrio”.

- Papa Francesco a #CTCF pic.twitter.com/HbFMAh1J45

— Che Tempo Che Fa (@chetempochefa) January 19, 2025

Trump, who will be inaugurated as US president on Monday, has vowed to carry out the largest deportation programme in American history.

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In 2017 Francis said society should build bridges instead of walls, in what was widely interpreted as a thinly-veiled criticism of Trump's plan to build a fence along the US border with Mexico.