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Border Boss Tom Homan Offers Pope Leo An Invitation He’ll Likely Refuse

Border czar Tom Homan said he’d be happy to invite Pope Leo XIV to get a firsthand look at what ICE officers do following the pope’s public clash with President Donald Trump over his aggressive approach toward migration and the Iran war.

Talking Wednesday about the dispute during a TurningPoint USA event at Texas’ Baylor University, he said, “I’ll sit down and talk to him, because they’re talking about something they don’t understand.” Interviewer Benny Johnson had asked if Homan wanted to invite the pope to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement ride-along.

There are slim chances the offer would be accepted. The Vatican had previously announced the pontiff had no plans to visit the United States this year.

Border czar Tom Homan, here in March, said he'd be happy to invite Pope Leo for a ride-along with ICE officers.

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“An open border is the most inhumane thing you can do,” Homan, a lifelong Catholic, went on to pope-splain. “When you make that promise to the whole world, the most vulnerable people will give their life’s savings to the cartels to make that dangerous journey.”

Celebrating figures that say undocumented immigration has dropped nearly 97% under Trump, Homan asked, “When 97% less people are coming, how many women aren’t being raped? How many children aren’t dying? How many pounds of fentanyl is not getting in to kill Americans?”

The statistic is likely in reference to apprehensions at the U.S.’s southwest border compared with December 2023, when Joe Biden was in office.

Pope Leo XIV, here leading Mass in Equatorial Guinea, called Trump's treatment of immigrants

Leo, who became the first pontiff from the United States following predecessor Pope Francis’ death last year, called Trump’s treatment of immigrants “extremely disrespectful” during comments to the press last November.

“We have to look for ways of treating people humanely, treating people with the dignity that they have,” he said.

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But it appears the pope’s pleas for peace in the Middle East were a tipping point for Trump, who accused Leo of being “weak on crime” while saying he needed to “get his act together” in a long-winded Truth Social post earlier this month.

Responding to the remarks while flying from Cameroon to Angola last Saturday, the pontiff said it was “not in my interest” to debate with the president.