Pope Francis called President-elect Donald Trump's plans for the deportation of illegal immigrants as a "disgrace."

The pope has made welcoming migrants a key theme of his nearly 12-year papacy, and he has previously criticized Trump's anti-immigrant rhetoric. During the 2016 election, he said Trump was "not Christian" in his view.

The pope’s comments provided the latest indication of a potential rekindling of frictions between the Vatican and the next Trump White House.

"If it is true, it will be a disgrace, because it makes the poor wretches who have nothing to pay the unpaid bill," Francis said.

It’s also a topic which resonates personally with Francis. In his new autobiography, the Pope recalled how his paternal grandparents and father had planned to sail in 1927 on the Principessa Mafalda from Italy to Argentina, which sank with the loss of many lives, but ended up making a later crossing.

As bishop of San Diego, a diocese along the U.S.-Mexico border, McElroy frequently defended immigrants and criticized Trump's immigration policies, calling them acts of injustice. McElroy, 70, has been a staunch ally of Pope Francis, championing the pope's agenda on issues such as migration, the environment and LGBTQ+ inclusion, CNN reported.

Pope Francis has criticised US President-elect Donald Trump’s proposed mass deportation of immigrants, describing the plan as a “disgrace.” Speaking in an interview on the Italian talk show Che Tempo Che Fa on Sunday,

Pope Francis has made his thoughts on President-elect Donald Trump’s immigrant deportation plans abundantly clear, dubbing them a “disgrace” in an interview Sunday. Whilst appearing on Italian television show Che Tempo Che Fa,

ROME (AP) — Pope Francis said Donald Trump’s plans to impose mass deportations of immigrants would be a “disgrace,” as he weighed in on the incoming U.S. president’s pledges nearly a decade after calling him “not Christian” for wanting to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border.

This comes after Francis appointed Cardinal Robert McElroy to be the next Archbishop of Washington, D.C. McElroy is a staunch opponent of mass deportations, calling them “inconsistent with Catholic doctrine,” CNN reports.

Trump took a similar hard line on immigration during his previous term in office ― and the pope was critical then as well. When asked about Trump’s promise to build a border w