{"id":26504,"date":"2025-02-20T14:44:02","date_gmt":"2025-02-20T19:44:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?p=26504"},"modified":"2025-06-23T15:07:13","modified_gmt":"2025-06-23T19:07:13","slug":"top-trump-evangelical-ally-jesus-never-broke-immigration-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2025\/02\/top-trump-evangelical-ally-jesus-never-broke-immigration-law","title":{"rendered":"Top Trump Evangelical Ally: Jesus Never Broke Immigration Law"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Kamau360 \/ commons.wikimedia.org<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In recent weeks and months, a number of prominent evangelical leaders associated with President Donald Trump\u2019s unofficial evangelical advisory council, as well as members of Trump\u2019s administration, have used\u00a0Biblical precedent<\/a>\u00a0to defend Trump\u2019s policy of family separation at the US-Mexico border.<\/p>\n

Few, however, have been as brazen as Paula White, the\u00a0prosperity gospel<\/a>\u00a0preacher (and\u00a0Trump\u2019s right-hand woman<\/a>) who told the right-leaning faith-based\u00a0Christian Broadcasting Network<\/a>\u00a0that Jesus could not have broken any immigration laws during his family\u2019s flight to Egypt because Jesus, who was without sin, could not therefore have broken the law.<\/p>\n

White spent the interview defending Trump on his policy of family separation, calling the camps in which migrant children are being detained \u201camazing.\u201d She argued for the Biblical precedent of family separation. \u201cI think so many people have taken biblical scriptures out of context on this, to say stuff like, \u2018Well, Jesus was a refugee,\u2019\u201d White told the network. She added, \u201cYes, [Jesus] did live in Egypt for three-and-a-half years. But it was not illegal. If He had broken the law then He would have been sinful and He would not have been our Messiah.\u201d<\/p>\n

White is referring to a part of the Biblical narrative recounted in the gospel of Matthew, as well as some books of Biblical Apocrypha. According to tradition, the King of Judea at the time of Jesus\u2019s birth, Herod \u2014 fearful of a premonition that another \u201cking of the Jews\u201d has been born \u2014 slaughters all new infant boys in the area. Joseph, Mary, and the infant Jesus find refuge from Herod\u2019s wrath in Egypt, returning only after Herod\u2019s death.<\/p>\n

The story, along with repeated injunctions to care for the oppressed, the poor, refugees, and other vulnerable and displaced persons throughout the Bible (such as\u00a0Isaiah 10,<\/a>\u00a0Leviticus 19:33\u201334<\/a>;\u00a0Jeremiah 7:5\u20137<\/a>;\u00a0Ezekiel 47:22;<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Zechariah 7:9\u201310<\/a>), have been used by a number of Christian public figures to criticize the Trump administration\u2019s position toward refugees. An Indianapolis church even\u00a0went viral<\/a>\u00a0for an art piece depicting Nativity figures of the Holy Family trapped in a cage meant to evoke the fenced-in areas in which migrant children are currently being kept.<\/p>\n

In recent weeks, the Southern Baptist Convention\u00a0passed a resolution<\/a>\u00a0in favor of the dignity of refugees, the United States Council of Catholic Bishops\u00a0has condemned<\/a>\u00a0family separation, and the United Methodist Church has initiated\u00a0formal expulsion proceedings<\/a>\u00a0against Attorney General Jeff Sessions for his role in the family separation crisis.<\/p>\n

White did not mention that Jesus was ultimately executed by Judean colonial authorities for\u00a0perceived political insurrection<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This is not the first time that White has argued for the inalienable, divinely ordained precedence of GOP government authority, nor used the Bible to justify a broad view of government intervention. Last year, she made headlines for telling an interviewer that Trump was \u201craised up by God<\/a>.\u201d (She later\u00a0walked back her comments<\/a>\u00a0under direct questioning, declaring that God chooses\u00a0every<\/em>\u00a0human leader.)<\/p>\n

More broadly, Trump\u2019s evangelical allies frequently use the language of Christian nationalism to code Trump as a divinely chosen figure whose will is therefore no less divinely sanctioned, comparing him to such Biblical figures as\u00a0King Cyrus<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Queen Esther<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Her colleague on the evangelical advisory board, Robert Jeffress, has likewise frequently invoked\u00a0Romans 13<\/a>\u00a0to defend Trump\u2019s ability to do \u201cwhatever\u201d in terms of foreign policy disputes, and\u00a0frequently mixes pro-Trump politics and rally-style rhetoric<\/a>\u00a0into his church services at First Baptist Dallas.<\/p>\n

White\u2019s language reflects a broader and deeply troubling trend on the part of white Christian evangelicals, a full\u00a036 percent<\/a>\u00a0of whom support the family separation policy as of late June.<\/p>\n

For many, Christian observance and Christian religiosity are deeply intertwined with a kind of knee-jerk authoritarianism. As\u00a0Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux<\/a>\u00a0commented on FiveThirtyEight earlier this month about a 2015 Pew study that found evangelicals overwhelmingly privilege following \u201cthe rules\u201d when it comes to immigration issues, \u201cdeference to law and order is fundamental to the way evangelicals think about immigration policy.\u201d<\/p>\n

The idea of laws being inflexible and authority being absolute \u2014 the kind of mentality suggested by the Trump administration\u2019s devotion to one interpretation of Romans 13 \u2014 is central to the conflation of GOP party politics and white evangelicalism.<\/p>\n

Even when it doesn\u2019t hold up to Biblical scrutiny.<\/p>\n

Article written by Tara Isabella Burton and originally appeared on Vox.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In recent weeks and months, a number of prominent evangelical leaders associated with President Donald Trump\u2019s unofficial evangelical advisory council, as well as members of Trump\u2019s administration, have used\u00a0Biblical precedent\u00a0to defend Trump\u2019s policy of family separation at the US-Mexico border. Few, however, have been as brazen as Paula White, the\u00a0prosperity gospel\u00a0preacher (and\u00a0Trump\u2019s right-hand woman) who…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":630,"featured_media":27935,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nTop Trump Evangelical Ally: Jesus Never Broke Immigration Law<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In a recent interview, Trump's spiritual advisor, Paula White, used Jesus\u2019s sinlessness to defend Trump on family separation.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2025\/02\/top-trump-evangelical-ally-jesus-never-broke-immigration-law\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Top Trump Evangelical Ally: Jesus Never Broke Immigration Law\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In a recent interview, Trump's spiritual advisor, Paula White, used Jesus\u2019s sinlessness to defend Trump on family separation.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2025\/02\/top-trump-evangelical-ally-jesus-never-broke-immigration-law\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beliefnet News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-02-20T19:44:02+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-06-23T19:07:13+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/140\/2025\/02\/Paula-White_credit-Kamau360-commons-wikimedia-org.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"900\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Guest Contributor\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Top Trump Evangelical Ally: Jesus Never Broke Immigration Law","description":"In a recent interview, Trump's spiritual advisor, Paula White, used Jesus\u2019s sinlessness to defend Trump on family separation.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2025\/02\/top-trump-evangelical-ally-jesus-never-broke-immigration-law","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Top Trump Evangelical Ally: Jesus Never Broke Immigration Law","og_description":"In a recent interview, Trump's spiritual advisor, Paula White, used Jesus\u2019s sinlessness to defend Trump on family separation.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2025\/02\/top-trump-evangelical-ally-jesus-never-broke-immigration-law","og_site_name":"Beliefnet News","article_published_time":"2025-02-20T19:44:02+00:00","article_modified_time":"2025-06-23T19:07:13+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1200,"height":900,"url":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/140\/2025\/02\/Paula-White_credit-Kamau360-commons-wikimedia-org.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Guest Contributor","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2025\/02\/top-trump-evangelical-ally-jesus-never-broke-immigration-law","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2025\/02\/top-trump-evangelical-ally-jesus-never-broke-immigration-law","name":"Top Trump Evangelical Ally: Jesus Never Broke Immigration Law","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2025\/02\/top-trump-evangelical-ally-jesus-never-broke-immigration-law#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2025\/02\/top-trump-evangelical-ally-jesus-never-broke-immigration-law#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/140\/2025\/02\/Paula-White_credit-Kamau360-commons-wikimedia-org.jpg","datePublished":"2025-02-20T19:44:02+00:00","dateModified":"2025-06-23T19:07:13+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/916540b64e34a34da3d6802d6afd98cb"},"description":"In a recent interview, Trump's spiritual advisor, Paula White, used Jesus\u2019s sinlessness to defend Trump on family separation.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2025\/02\/top-trump-evangelical-ally-jesus-never-broke-immigration-law#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2025\/02\/top-trump-evangelical-ally-jesus-never-broke-immigration-law"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2025\/02\/top-trump-evangelical-ally-jesus-never-broke-immigration-law#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/140\/2025\/02\/Paula-White_credit-Kamau360-commons-wikimedia-org.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/140\/2025\/02\/Paula-White_credit-Kamau360-commons-wikimedia-org.jpg","width":1200,"height":900,"caption":"Kamau360 \/ commons.wikimedia.org"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2025\/02\/top-trump-evangelical-ally-jesus-never-broke-immigration-law#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Top Trump Evangelical Ally: Jesus Never Broke Immigration Law"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/","name":"Beliefnet News","description":"Top Religious News From Around the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/916540b64e34a34da3d6802d6afd98cb","name":"Guest Contributor","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/053\/053c45d63cf4b2fc2d7c79b3376b9d2cx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/053\/053c45d63cf4b2fc2d7c79b3376b9d2cx96.jpg","caption":"Guest Contributor"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/author\/guest"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/630"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26504"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26504\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27938,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26504\/revisions\/27938"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}