To the editor:

JD Vance recently visited Rome. Initially, his hopes for a papal audience were rebuffed, but then-Pope Francis apparently acquiesced so he could expend a few of his precious remaining moments telling Vance to be a better Catholic. With his literal dying breaths, Francis wrote an encyclical officially informing American bishops to fight for migrants’ and prisoners’ rights, calling the Trump administration’s immigration policies a “major crisis.”

Then, as if to drive home the point that this wasn’t a one-off, after the pontiff’s passing, the College of Cardinals met in the briefest conclave in recent history to name the first American pope, Leo XIV–who’d frequently reposted material critical of this administration’s immigration policies, including one post calling Vance “wrong” to suggest Jesus ranked how we should love one another.

And the Holy See wasn’t the only Christian organization to demonstrate they’d both read and understood the red letters in their Bibles. The Anglican Church in the U.S.–the Episcopalians–recently ended a decades-old migration partnership with the U.S. government because Trump’s administration asked them to help relocate white South Afrikaners after the administration granted these champions of Apartheid fast-tracked refugee status. Meanwhile, it refused to resettle actual refugees fleeing real danger in places like the Republic of Congo, Myanmar, and Sudan. Apparently, Black people facing religious and race-based discrimination and physical harm don’t rate the same protections as white colonialist heirs facing the repatriation of some of their families’ stolen farmland. Really, that’s the sole basis of the argument that led Trump to make an exception to his own executive order suspending all refugee status grants: white people problems.

But the worst problem for Trump may be how many Evangelical groups are speaking out against his immigration shenanigans. Trump, as you’ll recall, received broad support from Evangelicals during his campaign. But now that the policies he clearly telegraphed in his voluminous pre-election rallies are being realized, Evangelical support’s begun to wane. Just weeks after he took office, groups such as the National Association of Evangelicals, the Southern Baptist Convention, and others wrote a letter critical of the aforementioned executive order wherein Trump suspended the Refugee Admissions Program.

In another instance, the Quakers sued the administration and won their case, which focused on how a new Trump policy suspending sanctuary laws allowed ICE agents to enter churches, seize, and disappear suspected “illegals.” The Quakers argued (and the judge agreed) this represented a clear violation of the group’s sincerely held religious beliefs and rights.

So, for those of you calling yourselves Christians but still supporting Trump’s immigration antics, allow me to remind you exactly what Jesus said on the matter:

Matthew 25:40 — “Whatever you did for the least of my brothers, you did for me.”

Luke 10:27 — “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart … and your neighbor as yourself.”

Romans 12:13 — “Extend hospitality to strangers.”

Heck, even I can understand and internalize this message–and I’m an atheist. Surely any so-called Christian should get it.

J. David Core

Toronto