WASHINGTON (AP) – The new leader of Newark’s more than 1 million Catholics carried a strong message against President Donald Trump’s immigration order as he joined the state’s lobbyists on their annual schmooze-fest in Washington.
Newark Archbishop Cardinal Joseph Tobin was one of the nearly 1,000 lobbyists, business people and politicians who rode the rails from Newark to Washington on Thursday as part of the state Chamber of Commerce’s annual pilgrimage to press New Jersey interests in the capital.
Tobin, who went without the silken red robs of a cardinal that Pope Francis conferred on him and instead looked more like a parish priest on the chartered train, has been a critic of Trump’s executive order temporarily banning immigrants from seven Muslim-majority countries.
“Personally I think it was very misbegotten. I think it’s demonizing, playing on irrational fears of people that have been fomented not simply by the political class but also some irresponsible people in the media,” he said.
Tobin leads the state’s biggest archdiocese, with more than 1 million adherents, and says he has been struck by the diversity in the state. He says he thinks Trump and Congress should instead focus on legislation that could fix the country’s immigration laws and that he hasn’t talked to anyone who thinks the laws work well.