Fox News contributor Raymond Arroyo called out Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson (D) on Friday for his meeting with Pope Leo XIV, claiming the mayor and his delegation were “misusing” the pontiff’s “hospitality.”

Arroyo joined Friday’s edition of Fox and Friends to discuss the meeting between Johnson, Pope Leo, and a group of Chicago leaders that took place Thursday at the Vatican. The mayor claimed they spoke about the pope’s recent statements about the church’s role in slavery, along with President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement efforts.

“We did talk about ICE. He wanted to know how ICE was, first of all, how it impacted our city and whether or not there were still examples of ICE raids happening in our city,” he told reporters.

When host Ainsley Earhardt asked Arroyo for his reaction to the meeting, the Fox News contributor said that Johnson was attempting to “recruit the Pope.”

“So, what the mayor is trying to do here, Ainsley, is recruit the pope and wash his own negligence and terrible policies in Chicago by proximity,” Arroyo said.

He continued:

And he has these conversations with the pope about ICE and ICE enforcement. Well, wait a minute, ICE is law enforcement. They are enforcing retainers and trying to collect people who either have a criminal record and are from out of country or people whose visas have expired. That’s the law. If you don’t like that, change the law. But you can’t obstruct it, and that’s what Mayor Brandon does on a daily basis. Johnson has a community activist group; they literally notify one another when ICE is coming. And again, he’s trying to wrap it in the papacy. I think the pope and his advisers may have gone, and I would urge them to be very careful when they allow politicians, particularly local politicians, to come into the Vatican this way because they’re misusing his hospitality. He met with them for an hour. I know they are all from Chicago, but it makes it look like the pope is somehow behind these policies. And when the mayor says he told the pope that Chicago is strong and transforming. It’s transforming, Ainsley, as you well know, into Gotham City. There were 7,000 people shot in the last three years in Chicago. And it’s a killing field every weekend. To claim that the pope is somehow endorsing this is really nefarious on the part of the mayor, and it’s a shame it happened.

Watch above via Fox News

New: The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters"
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!