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On Christmas Eve, the American Pope, Leo XIV, highlighted a basic Christian value:

"There is no room for God if there is no room for the human person."

"To refuse one is to refuse the other."

Christopher Hale describes the pope's message in his first Christmas homily as pontiff:

Leo urged the faithful not to look for God in distant stars or abstract ideologies, but in the flesh-and-blood reality of our brothers and sisters.

In his homily, Pope Leo XIV essentially re-issued the Gospel challenge for our age: Will we make room?

Will we make room for the migrant family at the border, for the child in the womb and the child in poverty, for the neighbor who is lonely or the stranger who is different?

The pope was drawing on a message that echoes throughout the Judeo-Christian tradition and scriptures:1 And on this Christmas 2025, we were reminded of the radical challenge of that Christian vision.

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Hours before the pope spoke, the bishops of Florida called on the Trump Administration "to pause immigration enforcement activities during the Christmas holidays."

"We request that the government pause apprehension and roundup activities during the Christmas season. Such a pause would show a decent regard for the humanity of these families," the bishops said in a Dec. 22 statement.

"Don't be the Grinch that stole Christmas," Archbishop Thomas Wenski of Miami said in a news conference. "Give people these two weeks to be with their families without fear of being arrested or taken into custody and ending up at Alligator Alcatraz or at Krome or other places to await deportation."

Their plea was flatly and bluntly rebuffed by the White House, which issued a brief statement: "President Trump was elected based on his promise to the American people to deport criminal illegal aliens. And he's keeping that promise."

Indeed, on Christmas Eve, we got this news: "ICE plans to hold 80,000 immigrants in warehouses across the country" - The Washington Post. (As of last week, ICE had more than 68,000 individuals in detention facilities.)

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Newly arrested detainees would be booked into processing sites for a few weeks before being funneled into one of seven large-scale warehouses holding 5,000 to 10,000 people each, where they would be staged for deportation.

The large warehouses would be located close to major logistics hubs in Virginia, Texas, Louisiana, Arizona, Georgia and Missouri. Sixteen smaller warehouses would hold up to 1,500 people each ... .

The warehouse plan would be the next step in President Donald Trump's campaign to detain and deport millions of immigrants, which began with a scramble to expand the nation's immigrant detention system, the largest in the world. Armed with $45 billion Congress set aside for locking up immigrants, his administration this year revived dormant prisons, repurposed sections of military bases and partnered with Republican governors to build immigrant tent encampments in remote regions.

Meanwhile, our Most Christian President marked the birth of Our Savior with his usual effusions of piety and good will. In a lengthy Truth Social post on Christmas Day, Trump warned Democrats: "Enjoy what may be your last Merry Christmas!"2

This followed his Christmas Eve post in which he wished a merry Christmas to all, "including the Radical Left Scum that is doing everything possible to destroy our Country ... ."