Building walls will make citizens prisoners, says Pope Francis

Aboard papal plane — Pope Francis says leaders who want walls and other barriers to keep migrants out “will end up becoming prisoners of the walls they build”.

The pope said this on the papal plane on Sunday returning from Morocco in response to a question about migration and US President Donald Trump’s threat to shut down the southern border with Mexico.

“Builders of walls, be they made of razor wire or bricks, will end up becoming prisoners of the walls they build,” he said.

Francis, who did not mention Trump, has sparred with the US president before about migration, which was a theme of several questions on the plane as well as during the trip to Morocco.

Trump has declared a national emergency to justify redirecting money earmarked for the military to pay for his promised US-Mexico border wall.

“I realise that with this problem (of migration), a government has a hot potato in its hands, but it must be resolved differently, humanely, not with razor wire,” the pope said.

He told Moroccan leaders on Saturday that migration problems would never be resolved by physical barriers but instead required social justice and correcting the world’s economic imbalances.

“With fear, we will not move forward; with walls, we will remain closed within these walls,” he said on Sunday.

Besides the US, migration has again risen to the fore of national political debates in several North African and European countries.

Francis repeated some of the key views on migration. He said wealthy countries should help eliminate the root causes of migration such as poverty, war and political instability.

Migrants should be accepted, protected and integrated. If a country cannot handle the numbers, the migrants should be distributed among other countries, he said.

Reuters