A little boy in a blue hat with floppy white rabbit ears, staring helplessly while a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agent holds on to the five-year-old’s Spider-Man backpack. That troubling image of Liam Conejo Ramos went around the world. He and his father, Adrian, an Ecuadorean asylum seeker, were taken from their home in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to Dilley Immigration Processing Center, Texas, some 1,884km away by air.
Liam and Adrian were released last week after Judge Fred Biery granted their petition for a writ of habeas corpus. In a blistering 500-word judgment, Biery managed to mention the Magna Carta of 1215 (considered to be the first written document limiting the power of a king) and the 1776 Declaration of Independence.
The judge wrote that “33-year-old Thomas Jefferson enumerated grievances against a would-be authoritarian king over our nascent nation. Among others were:
- He has sent hither Swarms of Officers to harass our People.
- He has excited domestic Insurrection among us.
- For quartering large Bodies of Armed Troops among us.
- He has kept among us, in Times of Peace, Standing Armies without the consent of our Legislatures.”
The reference is to King George III, known in UK primary school textbooks for decades as “the mad king who lost America”.
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Under his signature, Biery appended the photo of Liam, with the words, “Credit: Bystander” and two gospel references, Matthew 19:14 and John 11:35.
He did not write the verses in full. Even in a rapidly secularising America, many people, particularly those raised in a Protestant, Evangelical tradition, would recognise them instantly.
In Ireland, John 11:35 is often reduced to a crude epithet: “Jesus wept.”
Instead, in one of the most affecting New Testament passages, when Jesus is told of the death of his friend, Lazarus, he is described twice as “deeply moved” and troubled. He cries for his friend and his grieving family.
In older translations of Matthew 19:4, Jesus says, “Suffer the little children to come unto me”, and in more recent versions, “Let the little children come to me”.
In those few words appended below his signature, Biery challenges Christians. Will they continue to be bystanders to the detention of children and the fatal shooting of protesting citizens like Renée Good and Alex Pretti, or will they live up to the demands of the gospel?
[ The misogynistic abuse of dying Renee Good is all too familiarOpens in new window ]
Christians were key to Trump’s electoral success. Eighty-one per cent of white Evangelicals voted for Trump. He won 55 per cent of the Catholic vote to Harris’s 43 per cent.
It is long past time for Christians to repudiate Trump. They tolerated his crass, misogynistic, narcissistic rhetoric because they believed he would help to end abortion. The equal right to life of humans before and after birth is an essential value. But Dobbs, the judgment that overturned Roe v Wade, has not ended abortion or anything like it.
JD Vance, a relatively recent convert to Catholicism, recently spoke at the National March for Life. For many pro-lifers, it was disturbing to see him say that “we know that treating everyone with dignity isn’t always easy. It’s not always convenient, but it’s the right thing to do”.
Elsewhere, Vance described the death of Renée Good, shot by an Ice agent, as “a tragedy of the making of the far left”.
He has refused to apologise for reposting a tweet from Stephen Miller declaring Alex Pretti an assassin. How is that treating everyone with dignity?
Vance juxtaposes open borders as the only alternative to mass deportations, even though what most people want, in the words of Biery, is a “more orderly and humane [deportation] policy than currently in place”.
At the March for Life, Vance says he wants “every American from all walks of life, to have happy, healthy children” and see them “have access to good jobs, great schools, safe streets, and warm houses in which to raise their kids”.
What about the children in developing countries who will die unnecessarily due to USAid cuts? Or non-American children in the US? Do they not deserve to be happy and healthy?
Vance is not even delivering on pro-life promises. Abortion drugs account for nearly two-thirds of US abortions, and 27 per cent are prescribed through telehealth, where there is no physical exam to rule out ectopic pregnancy or establish gestational age. The Trump administration refuses to place restrictions on telehealth or abortion drugs, resulting in an overall rise in US abortions.
In the same way that I believe the small human before birth and the woman with an unwanted pregnancy have the right to life, Charlie Kirk, Renée Good, Alex Pretti and even the man I find odious, Donald Trump, all have the right to life. Violence just begets more violence.
The list of anti-Christian statements and actions by Trump is endless: virulent anti-immigrant rhetoric, describing Somali Americans as garbage, threatening and bullying Greenland, constant blatant lying, petty vindictiveness and personal enrichment as the economy tanks.
Christians are beginning to stand up in the US against the grotesque parody of Christian values embodied in Trump. More must do so.
