Pope Leo XIV has called for a stop to human smuggling and trafficking, warning people smugglers that they will face God’s wrath for exploiting the desperation of migrants.
He made the remarks on his final day in the Canary Islands, the epicenter of the African migration route to Europe, during a meeting with humanitarian aid organizations that help migrants on the island of Tenerife.
Leo directed his remarks to the criminal organizations and individual smugglers who organize “death routes” to Europe. Such smugglers charge thousands of euros a person and often force their passengers into prostitution or other forms of black market labor by withholding their documents to pay off the debt.
“Stop. Repent. For every life lost, every family deceived, every body subjugated, every woman threatened, every worker exploited, you will have to appear before divine justice.
“Repent while there is still time, for God’s mercy can reach even the most hardened sinner, but it enters only through the narrow gate of truth, justice and conversion.”
Pope Leo XIV
The Canary Islands have long been a stepping stone for migrants trying to reach Europe from West Africa and Morocco. While people smugglers and human traffickers operate the Atlantic route, there are also many self-organized boats of migrants, including many former fishermen from Senegal who were left without income due to overfishing in recent years.
Migrant arrivals in the Canary Islands peaked in 2024 at nearly 47,000. They have fallen dramatically, with over 3,000 people landing there in the first five months of 2026.
Due to the vastness of the ocean and scarcity of rescue ships or monitoring, some experts consider the Atlantic route more deadly than the more well-known central Mediterranean smuggling route from Libya and Tunisia to Italy.
Since 2020, several West African boats have been found in the Caribbean and Latin America with only dead bodies on board after drifting across the Atlantic, pushed by trade winds and currents.
Leo wrapped up his weeklong trip to Spain in the Spanish archipelago, which is closer to Africa than the Iberian Peninsula and is a key point of entry for migrants who make the perilous Atlantic crossing from West Africa.
With his two-day visit to the Canary Islands, Leo confirmed himself as the heir of Francis’ migration preaching, which was a priority of Francis’ 12-year pontificate and often caused friction with U.S. and European powers.
He also drew attention to the Catholic Church’s biblically-mandated mantra to “welcome the stranger,” amid anti-migrant sentiment in Europe and the Trump administration’s mass deportation program in his native United States.
Pope Leo Calls For Migrants To Be Integrated Into Society
For the second day in a row in the Canary Islands, the American Pope insisted on the inherent dignity and rights of migrants and demanded they be welcomed and integrated into society. “Break those chains and free those you hold in bondage,” Leo said
During the encounter with aid groups in Tenerife, Leo implored receiving communities to integrate people fleeing war, poverty and climate change and spare them from the “silent shipwreck” of abandonment when they are left on the streets with nothing after surviving perilous crossings.
“A human conscience, and even more so a Christian conscience, cannot remain indifferent in the face of these graveyards of the sea, to the victims of shipwrecks and the lack of aid. Every life lost on these routes is a failure for the human family.”
Pope Leo
Moreover, he noted that for the Catholic Church, the process of integrating migrants into a community can become a chance at spreading the faith, “without imposing” it and in respect of the migrants’ own beliefs
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