Border czar Homan fires back at Pope Leo, explains what Vatican leaders ‘don't know’ about immigration

By Fox News · Fox News

President Donald Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan , revealed that he would "welcome" a discussion with Pope Leo XIV amid the administration’s ongoing spat with the Vatican over disagreements on immigration policy and the Iran conflict. Differing from Vice President JD Vance , who said that "in some cases it would be best for the Vatican to stick to matters of morality," Homan said he is "open to discussion with any of them." Speaking to reporters outside the White House, Homan, a "lifelong Catholic," said, "I wish they’d stay out of immigration, they don’t know what they’re talking about." However, Homan asserted that the pope’s opinion would change if he understood that " illegal immigration is not a victimless crime." POPE LEO CALLS OUT TRUMP’S IRAN RHETORIC BEFORE LAST-MINUTE CEASEFIRE EMERGES "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," he said. Trump’s border czar went on to say that despite intense criticism over the president’s immigration policy, "He's saving thousands of lives a year because he has a secure border ." "Where President Trump had the most secure border in the lifetime of this nation, right now, lives are being saved," he emphasized. In light of this, Homan said, "I welcome discussion with any of them, because they don't understand illegal immigration is not a victimless crime." "Human traffickers are out of business, right? The cartels are going bankrupt because of that secure border. I wish they'd understand that," he lamented. "Because if they did, I think they'd have a different opinion." Fox News Digital reached out to the Holy See for comment. POPE LEO PICKS NEW VATICAN AMBASSADOR TO US AS TRUMP TENSIONS MOUNT OVER POLICIES Leo has said that "no one has said that…