Pope Francis will travel to Mexico on Friday to start a six-day tour of the country which will be his first international trip of the New Year, as well as his first time visiting the U.S.-Mexico border as pontiff.
Pope Francis’ trip comes in the midst of the debate over illegal immigration, an issue the Pope has said many times he holds close to his heart.
“Immigration is incredibly central to the pope,” Harel Shapira, professor at the University of Texas in Austin said, “and I think that is an important part of his motivation for traveling to Mexico and specifically traveling to the U.S.-Mexico border.”
Immigration has also been a hot issue on the campaign trail. Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump said he will deport the more than 11 million immigrants living in the country illegally and build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, if he is elected president. In addition, U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) vowed to end birthright citizenship.
Shapira said immigration is definitely on the pope’s radar. However, Shapira also said when the Pope addresses the issue during his four-city tour of Mexico next week, we can expect a much more open and generous approach than the ideas proposed by the presidential candidates.
“I think what you are going to see,” Shapira said, “is an attempt by the Pope to frame the immigration debate around thinking about immigrants as representative of something very human.”
Bishop Joe S. Vasquez of the Austin Diocese said immigration is more than just a political issue to the pope; it’s about the people.
“He loves people. He is genuinely concerned for their needs, for their security, for their safety,” Vasquez said, “and he is going to speak out on that.”
Bishop Vasquez said he plans to travel to Mexico next week to attend a Holy Mass with Pope Francis at the Mexican border city of Juarez.
Juarez, which is located right across the border from El Paso, will be the closest a pope has been to Texas since 1987 when St. John Paul II visited San Antonio.