Laura Marti – June 17, 2025
Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about the way undocumented immigrants are being treated in this country. And honestly, it breaks my heart. The disregard for dignity and the dehumanization is difficult for me to see play out every day. Their treatment implies that they are disposable—tossed aside with no regard for the violence they were escaping, or for their families being broken apart and their futures being destroyed. I feel like we’ve lost something deeply human in how we are responding.
I lived in the Los Angeles area for 18 years and still visit family there. We have friends and relatives who immigrated to the U.S., and I’ve seen firsthand the strength, the struggle, and the sadness behind those journeys. I still feel connected; I still feel like I belong to that community. So what I have seen in recent days feels very personal—and very wrong, and it’s painful to see them being traumatized.
WHO IS MY NEIGHBOR?
What especially confuses me is the attitudes coming from people of Christian faith, especially evangelicals. New 2025 data from Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) shows White Christian groups most likely to support deportations without due process — with two-thirds of white evangelical Protestants in favor (65%).
This is the faith tradition I was raised in. As I grew up in church and went to Sunday School, I learned that kindness and compassion are foundational to how we should treat others. They are seemingly simple concepts, such as: “Consider others as more important than yourself” (written by the apostle Paul in the epistles) and “Love your neighbor as yourself” (part of a discussion a religious leader has with Jesus, asking what is the most important commandment).
But these admonitions are often incredibly difficult to practice, as we’re asked to put aside our own priorities, our own opinions, and even our own needs in order to care for others. We’re asked to not just tolerate our neighbors—but to love them as much as we love ourselves.
In the Gospels, when that religious leader then asked Jesus “Who is my neighbor?” he responded with the story of the Good Samaritan. The person who was considered an outsider—the despised Samaritan—was the one who stopped to help a stranger who had been beaten and left for dead. Jesus made it clear: the one who shows mercy to those who suffer is the true neighbor. His story teaches us that compassion matters more than status, empathy matters more than borders.
Sadly, in the real world, these values often crumble. When faced with the choice between showing compassion to an undocumented immigrant or meeting a quota—a person may be snatched up without considering the full story of their circumstances or giving them a chance to defend themselves. What if that person was fleeing violence, where staying in their home country meant certain danger, and they came here seeking safety? What if they originally crossed the border legally, haven’t committed any crimes, only to have the rules changed on them? What if they have been waiting through the long process of our broken immigration system to become a citizen, following all the right steps of the legal process, only to be rounded up at a scheduled court appearance?
In moments that call for compassion, I have been seeing cruelty. Instead of mercy, people cheer as parents are deported away from their children, or children from their parents. Families are torn apart. Farm workers run in fear from ICE. Mothers and fathers are taken from schools, courthouses, and job sites—many while complying with legal check-ins. Where is the kindness and compassion? How is this Christian?
WELCOME THE STRANGER
The call of Jesus goes further. In Matthew 25, he said, “I was a stranger and you welcomed me.” He was not being polite. The clarity of his call is to welcome the stranger, to invite them into our homes, our communities, and our lives. He knew from his own life and his own community what it meant to be marginalized.
final judgement (NLT)
Yet, today, many who claim to follow Jesus are justifying policies and actions rooted in fear, not love; rooted in exclusion, not embrace…policies that contradict Jesus’ own teachings. It doesn’t make sense to me.
RECLAIM THE NARRATIVE
The cruel treatment of immigrants upholds the ideals of white supremacy by treating them as less than. The already broken system has been altered to exclude anyone who doesn’t fit the preference. Immigration is complex, but complexity is not an excuse to strip people of their humanity and their dignity. Vulnerability should not be a condition to punish but something to protect. And the Christian Church—the body that loudly claims to follow Jesus’ teachings—should be leading the charge in caring for the most vulnerable.
The lack of action by evangelical churches has been profoundly disappointing to me. In many ways I feel betrayed. Perhaps we have lost our collective sense of empathy—of kindness and compassion. Somewhere along the way, we stopped seeing each other as neighbors. The loudest narrative evident in mainstream and social media too often sounds cold and indifferent.
It’s unfortunate that some of the cruelest, most judgmental voices are coming from people who claim to follow Jesus. To be fair, there are without a doubt people and churches who act according to the teachings of Jesus, like The Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS), now known as Global Refuge.
I don’t know all the answers, but I know we’re called to something better. Humanity is here together, and we must take care of each other.
We’re called to love.
To care and to care for.
To listen and to help.
To act with justice and mercy.
To forgive.
It’s time to reclaim the narrative and bring kindness and compassion back. For a person of Christian faith, that begins with remembering this truth:
Every person—no matter where they’re from or how they got here—is made in the image of God.
And for all of us, that means recognizing the dignity of every human being.
I still believe in a world where we can lead with compassion.
Where everyone is our neighbor, and
Where welcoming the stranger isn’t radical, but is the norm.
I still believe we can choose love.
Let’s start there.
Let’s build something better together.
Resources
Immigration “Invasion” Rhetoric Has a Long, Ugly History – Boundless
Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS), now known as Global Refuge
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