Pope Leo XIV stood alone on a jagged jetty at Lampedusa’s harbour, his white cassock snapping in the wind as the sea stretched emptily toward Africa. His white zucchetto skullcap flew from his head, a small disc of fabric lost to the same waters that have swallowed thousands of men, women and children attempting the crossing.

The 70-year-old American pontiff had chosen the Fourth of July – the 250th anniversary of United States independence – for a pilgrimage to this treeless rock, closer to Tunisia than to Italy, that has become ground zero of Europe’s migration debate. Walking in the footsteps of his predecessor Francis, who made Lampedusa his first trip in 2013, Leo XIV visited a migrant cemetery, laid a wreath, and blessed a plaque renaming the dock in Francis’s honour. At an open-air Mass, he called on Europe to fashion a “long-term strategic plan” that could “welcome, protect, promote and integrate” those arriving by sea, while also investing in home countries so that no one is forced to flee. His homily was punctuated by a direct denunciation: “The dead in this sea are victims of decisions taken and of decisions not taken.”

Lampedusa’s symbolic weight has grown heavier in the dozen years since Francis’s visit. The central Mediterranean route remains the world’s deadliest; the International Organization for Migration records at least 1,330 dead or missing in 2025 alone. Yet European capitals have shifted toward deterrence: just weeks before the papal visit, the European Union brought into force new migration rules that expand detention and envisage holding centres outside the bloc’s borders. Humanitarian organisations accuse Brussels of failing to prevent shipwrecks, while the number of rescue vessels patrolling the waters has dwindled.

The visit’s calendar placement was no coincidence. In a letter to Americans marking the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, Leo XIV directly tied the nation’s immigrant roots to a contemporary moral obligation. “To receive them with compassion and generosity is not only an act of charity, but also a recognition of the dignity that belongs to every human person,” he wrote. He had previously labelled the Trump administration’s treatment of migrants “inhumane” and this week used a Medal of Freedom address in Philadelphia to recall that successive waves of immigrants had built the country. The pontiff’s dual lenses – a pope in Europe and a son of the American experiment – gave his Lampedusa pilgrimage a transatlantic echo, noted Vatican observers.

As the afternoon wind whipped the sea into whitecaps, Leo XIV descended from the rocky outcrop, his vestments still flapping. He had stood where Francis once threw a floral wreath into the waves; today, he left a plaque. In the crowded sports field that became an open-air cathedral, the Pope bid farewell to islanders with a local endearment – “O’scià,” meaning “my breath” – the same word Lampedusans use to comfort the exhausted arrivals who disembark on their shores.