Donald Trump continues decimating mental health services. In Rome, Pope Leo XIV affirmed the humanity of migrants and the poor.
BY COURTNEY WISE MAY 14, 2025
The following story A New Pope Stands Up for the Humanity of Migrants was produced by MindSite News, an independent, nonprofit journalism site focused on mental health.
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In today’s Daily: From Washington, the latest on Donald Trump’s decimating mental health support during Mental Health Awareness Month. In Rome, Pope Leo XIV affirmed the humanity and rights of migrants and the poor in his inaugural speech last week. And in my hometown of Detroit, fear of the Trump Administration’s deportation agenda is eroding the mental and physical health of Latino seniors.
Plus, this morning we bring you part 3 of our 4-part series “Deadly Denials.” Today, we focus on stereotypes that suggest eating disorders are only for white girls. Yesterday, we looked at advocates fighting for treatment for patients with eating disorders.
Bonus items: News to help Michigan adults aged 55 and up save on groceries and some great ideas to consider and improve your wellbeing this Mental Health Awareness Month. And from the Good News Network, a baby girl – now quite grown up – has finally found her sisters decades after a forced adoption separated her from her mother.
For Mental Health Awareness Month, the Trump administration is eviscerating mental health care
One in five US adults has a mental illness, and less than half of them receive treatment. The Trump administration has apparently committed itself to worsening those statistics – further reducing access to care and weakening or reversing existing federal protections, and is doing so with the implicit approval of Congress, as the majority of lawmakers fail to defend critical programs they championed and funded through bipartisan legislation. People will die as a result of Trump’s cuts, experts Benjamin F. Miller, Norman J. Ornstein, and Kavita Patel write in The New Republic.
MindSite News reported on mass cuts at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration last month. Earlier this week, the administration announced that it would not enforce the expanded federal mental health parity rule introduced last September — and is actually considering rescinding the rule altogether. The 2008 law requires insurers to cover mental health at the level they do physical care. In practice, they still don’t, and the Biden administration rule sought to address that fact, but faced a lawsuit from large companies unwilling to incur additional costs for employee health. The White House has told that committee of big businesses that it plans to capitulate.
Perhaps most significantly, Trump hopes to gut Medicaid, the nation’s largest funder of mental health treatment – turning the program into a federal block grant with work requirements. Experts say this would mean millions of vulnerable people lose coverage. Community behavioral health clinics will close, placing the 988 Crisis Line and its slim infrastructure under greater threat, despite evidence that it has made a significant impact. (The line itself is also facing its own funding cuts.) Children and adolescents, facing an acute mental health crisis, will suffer, as the White House calls for an end to its funding of in-school mental health support. The weight of Trump’s economic policies make circumstances no better: the administration’s decisions already threaten the mental health of working-class and low-income Americans, and future economic damage will only make that worse.
Related: The cruelty behind such cuts has much to do with Trump’s psychopathology, according to MindSite News’ interviews with psychiatrist Bandy X. Lee and psychologist John Gartner.) See:
“A Public Health Emergency: The Crusade to Assess Trump’s Mental Health,” Interview with Dr. Bandy Lee, MindSite News, April 21, 2025
‘The Press Has Sanewashed Trump’s Dementia and Mental Illness’: Interview with Dr. John Gartner, MindSite News, April 1, 2025.
“Like the Cubs winning the World Series”: New pope continues Francis’ advocacy for migrants and the poor
It’s not surprising that people are celebrating Robert Francis Prevost, who took the name Leo XIV upon becoming pope: He exudes a quiet humility, kindness and compassion, which is sorely needed these days. An American with New Orleans Creole heritage, Pope Leo, like his predecessor Pope Francis, is a strong believer in mercy, kindness, and the rights of immigrants, refugees and the poor; he’s international in his outlook, spent two decades in Peru, holds citizenship there, and speaks fluent Spanish (along with English, Italian, French, and Portuguese). Meeting with some of the 6,000 journalists who traveled to Rome to cover his election as the first American pontiff, he called for the release of imprisoned journalists and praised the “precious gift of free speech and the press.” In his first Sunday noon blessing from St. Peter’s Basilica, he also called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and a just peace in Ukraine.
And despite predictable carping from ultra-right pundits, the new pope is getting an exuberant welcome from Catholics, former classmates and people all around the world – and of course, in his hometown of Chicago. – Diana Hembree
