BORDER/CHILDREN/IMMIGRATION/POPE FRANCIS/RELIGION/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “Before President Trump’s about-face on Wednesday [6-20-18], Pope Francis criticized the administration’s separation of migrant children from their parents, saying in an interview earlier this week that ‘populism is not the solution’ to a migration crisis that is transforming global politics. In a rare sit-down interview, Francis told Reuters that ‘I am on the side’ of the United States’ Catholic bishops’ conference, which called taking children from their parents ‘immoral’ and ‘contrary to our Catholic values.’ In the face of mounting outrage, Mr. Trump had been sticking to a ‘zero-tolerance’ policy intended to deter illegal immigration by prosecuting all adults apprehended crossing the United States border and putting their children in separate government-run shelters, including behind chain-link cage fencing. By some counts, the government has separated nearly 2,000 children from their families in the past six weeks. But on Wednesday, Mr. Trump signed an executive order to prevent children from being taken from their parents.”
-Jason Horowitz, “Pope Francis Criticized Family Separations Before Policy’s Reversal,” The New York Times online, June 20, 2018