'The Bible is not a policy manual’: Christians reckon with immigration under Trump

What It Covers

NPR's Brittney Loos speaks with religion correspondent Jason DeRose and Reverend Dr. Gabriel Salguero, president of the National Latino Evangelical Coalition, examining how the Trump administration uses biblical scripture to justify immigration enforcement, and how diverse Christian communities are responding to ICE actions across the United States.

Key Questions Answered

• •Evangelical diversity: When media reports "evangelicals support" a policy, they typically mean white evangelicals — a subset that excludes nearly 10 million Latino evangelicals, plus Asian, African, Haitian, and Somali evangelical communities. Latino evangelicals report 25–30% drops in worship attendance directly linked to indiscriminate ICE enforcement actions in their congregations.
• •Biblical proof-texting risk: Seminary training warns that removing a text from its context turns it into a pretext. Romans 13 — frequently cited to justify government authority — immediately follows Romans 12, which instructs against conforming to worldly systems. Reading isolated verses without surrounding chapters produces conclusions that contradict the broader biblical narrative.
• •Scripture's dominant immigration theme: Across Matthew 25, Hebrews 13, and Leviticus, the consistent biblical instruction is hospitality toward strangers — the Greek word *xenophilia* literally means "love of the stranger." Salguero argues the overwhelming weight of scripture favors immigrants, orphans, widows, and the poor, making selective enforcement-supporting citations statistically marginal.
• •Government scripture use is escalating: DHS social media videos now open with Beatitudes verses while showing military-style helicopter raids. Speaker Mike Johnson published a 1,300-word tweet offering biblical justification for border enforcement. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth used Mark 8 at the National Prayer Breakfast to frame military sacrifice as a path to eternal life.
• •Internal contradiction in administration messaging: A World Relief report found that the majority of people detained under current immigration enforcement are evangelical or Catholic Christians — the same faith communities the administration publicly claims to champion. Recognizing this inconsistency gives faith communities a concrete, data-backed argument when engaging policymakers on enforcement policy.