My hometown of Chicago is one of several cities being targeted by the newly inaugurated Trump administration for the arrest, detention, and eventual deportation of people referred to as undocumented persons. Trump himself spoke to this plan in his inaugural address on Jan. 20, 2025, when he said, “We will begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places from which they came.”
But this deportation plan does not seem to be targeted toward those undocumented persons who may have committed violent crimes while living in this country.
All undocumented persons are now at risk of deportation, even if they have lived, worked, raised families, and contributed to the strength of communities across this country.
The Pew Research Center calculated last July that at least 11 million undocumented persons were living in this country as of 2022, based on Census figures. All could now be subject to this mass deportation.
It is interesting that migrants in cities like Chicago, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles with large numbers of Democratic voters are being mentioned as targets of mass deportation. For years, the nation had been led to believe that cities in Texas and Arizona were at the epicenter of the immigration issue. One wonders whether this deportation plan is driven more by partisan politics than by any serious plan to secure the nation’s borders.
For the last 50 years, I have been a Christian preacher, pastor, and seminary professor. In that capacity, I want to remind people that Jesus himself was a migrant and the son of two undocumented persons when they fled from Bethlehem and took refuge in Egypt. The Holy Family was seeking to avoid politically motivated violence against them, because King Herod had dispatched soldiers to kill male children under the age of 2 as a way of safeguarding his own political position.
I wonder if the Christian Nationalists and white, so-called evangelicals who love Donald Trump so blindly and invoke the name of Jesus so passionately realize that the one they call Savior and Lord would be forcibly removed from this country with his entire family under the policies that are now in effect.
Jesus mentioned the issue of immigration in Matthew 25:35, where he said “I was a stranger, and you took me in.” Whether the word is stranger, migrant, or undocumented person, the meaning is the same. For the Christian faith, but not for Christian Nationalism, which is a perverse oxymoron, the care of and compassion for the stranger or immigrant among us is a core value.
The Rev. Marvin McMickle in a 2008 file photo inside Cleveland's Antioch Baptist Church. (John Kuntz / The Plain Dealer) The Plain Dealer
Pope Francis recently declared President Donald Trump’s policy of mass deportation to be “a disgrace” and appointed as the next Roman Catholic Archbishop of Washington, D.C., Cardinal Robert McElroy, who has described mass deportation plans as “incompatible with Catholic doctrine.” The Episcopal bishop of Washington, D.C., spoke directly to Donald Trump during the Inaugural Prayer Service, asking him “to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now.”
It is impossible to call ourselves a Christian nation when the nation engages in a practice that is so out-of-step with one of the core values of the Christian faith. According to Exodus 22:21 and 23:9, care for the stranger or migrant is a core value of the Jewish community, as well. We can and must do better as people of faith, and as a nation.
The Rev. Marvin A. McMickle is Pastor Emeritus of Antioch Baptist Church of Cleveland and retired president of Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School in Rochester, New York.
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