As he finished a seven-day visit to Spain, the pope articulated a fuller position on migration, including the “right” of nations to protect their borders.June 12, 2026 at 8:20 a.m. EDT
Pope Leo XIV greets migrants at the “Las Raices” migrant center in San Cristobal de La Laguna, in Tenerife on Friday. (Yara Nardi/Reuters)
SAN CRISTÓBAL DE LA LAGUNA,
Spain — Pope Leo XIV closed his seven-day trip to Spain with appeals for nations to uphold the dignity of migrants — but also for migrants to integrate and reconsider the “siren songs” of traffickers promising “easy paradises” in the West.
By coming to Spain’s Canary Islands off the coast of Africa, surrounded by waters where thousands of migrants have died in route to Europe, Leo plunged himself into the thick of an explosive debate that has roiled many countries and, at times, set off violence.
WorldEuropeAfricaAmericasAsiaMiddle East
Pope Leo defends migrants while saying they should reconsider their journeys
As he finished a seven-day visit to Spain, the pope articulated a fuller position on migration, including the “right” of nations to protect their borders.
June 12, 2026 at 8:20 a.m. EDTToday at 8:20 a.m. EDT
9 min18
Pope Leo XIV greets migrants at the “Las Raices” migrant center in San Cristobal de La Laguna, in Tenerife on Friday. (Yara Nardi/Reuters)
SAN CRISTÓBAL DE LA LAGUNA, Spain — Pope Leo XIV closed his seven-day trip to Spain with appeals for nations to uphold the dignity of migrants — but also for migrants to integrate and reconsider the “siren songs” of traffickers promising “easy paradises” in the West.
Get concise answers to your questions. Try Ask The Post AI.
By coming to Spain’s Canary Islands off the coast of Africa, surrounded by waters where thousands of migrants have died in route to Europe, Leo plunged himself into the thick of an explosive debate that has roiled many countries and, at times, set off violence.
Speaking Thursday at the port of Arguineguín — the so-called “dock of shame” where migrants were crammed by the hundreds into fetid shelters in 2020 — Leo warned Europe, which is in the midst of a new migration crackdown, that it “cannot claim to uphold human dignity while growing accustomed to the Mediterranean and the Atlantic becoming unmarked graves.”
“Human dignity has no passport and does not lose its value when crossing a border,” Leo said before broadening his message to all Christians and casting a bouquet of flowers into the sea to honor the dead.
Leo became the first pontiff in history to visit these islands that have become a symbol of the risk and promise for asylum seekers and economic migrants pursuing the European dream. In doing so, he honored an unrealized wish by Pope Francis, the first Latin American pope, who emerged as something of a patron of migrants.
