Pope Leo XIV on Saturday visited Italy's Lampedusa island, a major port of call for migrants risking the perilous crossing from Africa, in a stark message to US and EU leaders.
The Catholic Church's first US pope, who has clashed with the administration of President Donald Trump over its treatment of migrants, is marking July 4, the United States' 250th anniversary of independence, on a migration frontline.
Leo's visit also comes just two weeks after the European Union's approval of new migrant rules allowing much broader detention powers and the creation of deportation centers outside the bloc.
After praying at the unmarked graves of shipwreck victims, the 70-year-old stood alone on the island's rocky shoreline, buffeted by the wind as he looked out to sea, where countless migrant boats have been lost to the waves.
He spoke to a migrant family, before taking the children by the hand and standing along with their pregnant mother at the "Door of Europe", a monument dedicated to people who risk everything in search of a better life.
The Chicago-born pontiff has made the defense of migrants a pillar of his papacy, like his predecessor, Francis, praising those who help the needy and decrying mass deportations in the United States.
He was expected to use the half-day trip to the Mediterranean island, a frontier between Africa and Europe, to call for safe and legal pathways for immigration.
Leo's presence "sends a clear message at a time when the global political debate on migration is often framed around borders and deterrence rather than protection and shared responsibility", Filippo Ungaro, spokesman for the UN's refugee agency, UNHCR, told AFP.
Lampedusa sits 90 miles (145 kilometers) off the coast of Tunisia, and is famous for showing compassion to thousands of migrants -- and taking in their dead.
In 2013, more than 360 people died in the island's worst shipwreck, and dozens more have drowned in the years since.
Leo has previously praised the generosity of the islanders, a fishing and tourism community of 6,000.
