Let me make the following two statements assuming the very best of intentions on both sides.
- Trump and his administration deeply care about enforcing the borders of our nation (they’ve added 10,000 immigration agents in a year!). Frankly, since the fatal attacks of September 11, 2001, our national borders have been a focus for several administrations. Indeed, Democrats praised President Obama for penalizing employers of migrants and his mass deportations —back then he had earned the title “Deporter in Chief”.
- The media (and here I include individual influencers and people posting footage) care deeply about the rights of our people to hear the truth and the danger to our nation. Their desire to have constant coverage on the topic that is of growing importance is critical for our nation and grounded in the US Constitution.
Those two statements, even if true and at their best of intentions, ignore that there is something profound happening right now. Profundity is not only about WHAT but in HOW.
Under President Trump’s second term, the topic of border control and deportation has been reinvigorated but now, with cruelty and gross rhetoric from both the administration and the media.
I would like those of us who are Christians to pause. Listen. We are being changed by this rhetoric, folks. What the government and the media emphasizes reflects what those in charge of the government and the medial care about. History will justify or condemn them. But what we the people have allowed (or applauded), even in the short term, shrivels our hearts and freezes the soul of our nation.
Moreso, as Christians, it spoils our unique voice.
Problem: We Don’t Control Our Borders
Don’t get me wrong. Illegal immigration is a problem. Some of these folks are doing awful things. Some awful things are being done to them. Indeed, the fact that we barely control our borders or enforce the laws that we already have on the books is a source of serious problems:
- By 2023, we had 14 million illegal immigrants enter the United States. That number kept growing in 2024. It was so bad that Biden banned asylum seekers and paused a migrant sponsorship program
- An illegal immigrant, previously arrested for drinking and driving, is arrested for the murder of a 19 year old girl.
- An asylum seeker murders a hotel worker by stabbing her 23 times with a screwdriver.
- December 2025, a Salvadorian immigrant man who was linked to MS-13, was in a county jail before charges were dropped. Authorities ignored a deportation detainer request. A day later, he killed another man.
- In NYC, a person who remained in the country since 2013, ignoring deportation orders, killed a cabbie dumping him in a reservoir. He smiled for the camera upon arrest.
- More than 48,000 Americans have died from fentanyl, most of which is sourced from China (but increasingly from India and other sources), largely coming in through our Southern border via Mexico.
- Illegal immigrants are taken advantage of and become the victims of human trafficking in various trafficking schemes.
These stories show that (A) we are not acting on the laws we already have in place (B) failure to protect our borders is a repeated problem (3) the main issues isn’t the majority of the people who are here illegally.
Problem: We Are Disparaging Our Fellow Humans
Acknowledging those real problems doesn’t justify our present rhetoric. Our politicians and the media have embraced storytelling that quickly skews our view of other people. On the one hand, the media tells a rosy story of immigration and sounds the Imperial March whenever President Trump shows up. On the other hand, Trump disparages others and shows gross partiality. In the middle, hearts are getting harder and people are getting hurt.
Although I list many examples below, here is one per category:
- Trump, and this current administration, repeatedly speak about others in dehumanizing turns using terms like “filth” or posting disturbing content as a joke.
- The Media interprets every move from the current administration as a page from Hitler’s manual. When concerning things are done from the party they support, they bury and don’t promote the story. Rage sells.
- Illegal immigrants and Citizens are getting hurt in rhetoric and raids. Fear has increased and recently someone was shot in a high-charged exchange.
We Need to Do Better
Here’s something I wrote in 2009 that is even more relevant today.
… Christians shouldn’t be solely approving all illegal aliens nor barring them from the country but rather trying to figure out the best means to get the illegal to act with respect to our laws but with an understanding of their situation and seeking their improvement. This should mean that illegal aliens are personally cared for and motivated to report their status to follow a proper track of residency. If the laws are overly harsh, the Christian rulers should be concerned about rectifying the laws so that they are not cruel—the things that reflect poorly on the society, reflect poorly on its people. …Christians should be especially concerned for the oppression, victimization and the lack of rights towards the foreigner. Christians should be concerned with their own fellow nationals as well, true, but they should care with more than material concerns. It is in the treatment of strangers, the unknown and unloved, where the true heart of a person, indeed a nation, is most clearly seen.”
Trump supporters (and some of my fellow political conservatives) may try to defend Trump’s talk as a necessary cross to be carried in the name of security and safeguarding our freedoms. But this way of speaking does NOT make the current solutions better or help view people as bearers of the image of God. It just dehumanizes them.
Those who stand against Trump would say it is critical that the evils of the administration are exposed against the existential threat to democracy. The fact is this way of speaking also do not make the current situation any better or help us view governments under the power of God and the watchful eye of His people. Ignoring the evils of one party against the same evils in another does not wake us up to the very real dangers in our democracy. Again, it oversimplifies the complexities and call of a nation that is ruled by the people and for the people while hurting the people in the middle of it all.
People are getting hurt by WHAT is happening combined with HOW we’re speaking about it. The tone set by our leaders and amplified by the story the media and influencers are telling puts a horrid twist on a very serious topic. The tone of these narratives is allowing cruelty to be perpetuated. Our democracy displays darkness that must be reduced and ultimately eradicated.
Proof Points of HOW We’re Talking
Exhibit A: Our Storytellers Telling the Scariest Possible Story
- The media join tells a story that Trump is marching in the staccato steps of the Nazi. Media often spends time dissecting the Administration social media finding a Nazi behind every post.
- Media outlets make sure to highlight how Trump is dismantling democracy and grabbing power (even though these have always been something to think through especially on the outset of our constitution even apart from our republic).
- Newsom sees a way of turning all of this to a win by calling Trumps activities as the markers of an authoritarian government where Trump doesn’t want another election.
Exhibit B: This Administration’s Disparaging Social Media Posts
- Jan 11, 2026 “You don’t get to change the facts because you don’t like them. What happened in Minneapolis was an act of domestic terrorism. Acts of domestic terrorism like this should be condemned…”
- Jan 07, 2026 “I have just viewed the clip of the event which took place in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is a horrible thing to watch. The woman screaming was, obviously, a professional agitator, and the woman driving the car was very disorderly, obstructing and resisting, who then violently, willfully, and viciously ran over the ICE Officer, who seems to have shot her in self defense. Based on the attached clip, it is hard to believe he is alive, but is now recovering in the hospital. The situation is being studied, in its entirety, but the reason these incidents are happening is because the Radical Left is threatening, assaulting, and targeting our Law Enforcement Officers and ICE Agents on a daily basis. They are just trying to do the job of MAKING AMERICA SAFE. We need to stand by and protect our Law Enforcement Officers from this Radical Left Movement of Violence and Hate!”
- December 31, 2025 “Much of the Minnesota Fraud, up to 90%, is caused by people that came into our Country, illegally, from Somalia. “Congresswoman” Omar, an ungrateful loser who only complains and never contributes, is one of the many scammers. Did she really marry her brother? Lowlifes like this can only be a liability to our Country’s greatness. Send them back from where they came, Somalia, perhaps the worst, and most corrupt, country on earth. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!”
- Dec 10, 2025, Trump shows preference for getting immigrants from Sweden and Norway and not Somalia which is, in his words “filthy, dirty, disgusting, ridden with crime.”
- July 29, 2025 “When Ice books you a one-way Jet2 holiday to deportation. Nothing beats it” with a video of people being chained and deported.
- September 06, 2025 ““I love the smell of deportations in the morning…” Chicago about to find out why it’s called the Department of War “”
- Feb 18, 2025 The White House (!!!) Posted a video called ASMR: Illegal Alien Deportation Flight of people being chained and walking up a ramp to be deported
Exhibit C: People Are Getting Hurt
This is list that is limited to the topic of immigration, deportations, or activism. In that vein, you won’t see the assassination of Charlie Kirk or Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband.
- In June 2025, immigration officers detained a sixteen-year-old during a routine check-in with US Immigrations and Customers enforcement. He was finally released from a youth detention facility in Texas six months later. Trump is saying he wants to deport “the worst of the worst” but it’s people like this youth who are getting caught in the dragnet.
- Trump orders ICE to target so-called “sanctuary cities” (essentially Democratic-led states)
- A teen was arrested in NYC also after showing up for a scheduled immigration appointment.
- On November 23, 2025, in Oregon, immigration officers detained a seventeen-year-old high school student (and American citizen) while he was off campus at lunch.
- Long after Texas has been doing it, immigration officers started partnering with traffic officers in Washington dc to capture delivery drivers.
- Recently, an immigration officer and former war veteran shot a protester who was engaged in improperly operating a vehicle during a high-tension exchange. The White House accused the protester as akin to domestic terrorist while making a chilling announcement that immigration officers would be going “door to door” in a so-called sanctuary state.
- I’m also currently watching a video, not yet verified, of a migrant door-dasher running away from ICE agents into a home.
- People are being detained in a facility in the everglades so-called “alligator Alcatraz” who are apparently living in unsafe conditions while barring members of congress to inspect the sites with seven days advance notice.