Churches turn to Christmas migrant story amid deportation fears
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
Photo illustration: Brendan Lynch/Axios. Photo: Qian Weizhong/VCG via Getty Images
Some Catholic and evangelical leaders say they will unpack the Holy Family's immigration plight during Christmas services to offer hope for immigrants worried about what's coming under President-elect Trump.
Why it matters: Trump and his incoming administration are promising immigration raids — even inside churches — as part of their mass deportation plan, and church leaders say that's already prompting some immigrants to go into hiding.
State of play: Undocumented immigrants appear to be taking Trump at his word — some have left the country, stopped coming to work or disappeared, Allen Sánchez, New Mexico Conference of Catholic Bishops executive director, tells Axios.
- Others are emotionally asking evangelical pastors for protection, Gabriel Salguero, president and co-founder of the National Latino Evangelical Coalition, tells Axios.
- "What I'm telling people in this advent of Christmas is ... Jesus understands you because he lived your reality."
Context: In the Gospel of Matthew, Joseph is told through a dream that King Herod is sending soldiers to kill Baby Jesus over fears He's the new King of the Jews.
- Joseph then gathers Mary and Jesus in the dead of night to flee to Egypt, making them refugees who are escaping persecution.
- They only return to the land of Judea after King Herod has died.
In the Gospel of Luke, Joseph is forced to take a pregnant Mary to Bethlehem to register for the required Roman Empire census.
- She must give birth to Jesus and place Him in a manger because "there was no room for them in the inn."
- The dire situation highlights the humbleness and poverty of the Holy Family, who were forced to travel by order of the government.
Zoom in: Latino evangelical churches will be telling attendees at Christmas services to remember Jesus and his family were forced to migrate to Egypt for reasons that they could not control, Salguero says.
- Salguero says the immigrant story is Christ's story. "Our primary call is to love our neighbors and love the immigrant and love the stranger, and we're going to live that through."
- "There may not be room at the inn, but there is room at the church."
- Similarly, Catholic churches will share the Christmas story as a call to action to everyone, Sánchez says.
Zoom out: New Mexico's three Catholic bishops, in the state with the largest percentage of Hispanic residents in the nation, called on Trump this month to reconsider his plan to carry out the largest deportation in U.S. history.
- Frank Schuster, the Auxiliary Bishop of Seattle, also released a video saying the church does not have the right to "ask for papers."
Yes, but: Conservative white evangelical church leaders, many of whom supported Trump, have endorsed mass deportations and some have used racist language to describe immigrants.
- That view comes from how some white evangelicals interpret the Bible's Book of Revelation as Heaven being a closed-off place, Yale Divinity professor Yii-Jan Lin tells Axios.
- Some English-speaking Latino evangelicals who belong to white-majority churches also supported Trump..
The big picture: Religious leaders of many faiths have long played a role in immigrant rights.
- Some have allowed undocumented immigrants to find sanctuary in churches, where immigration authorities have typically not arrested people.
- During Trump's first term, some churches erected nativity installations depicting Mary, Joseph and Jesus separated in cages to protest Trump's immigrant family separation policy.
Now, church leaders say they want to use Christmas to send immigrants a message: The family of Jesus experienced what you experienced, and the church will be a place of refuge in the coming months.
