Episode No. 161: Immigration, Trump, and the Bible

Jewish texts, Christian texts, neither of them matter to the man who claims he wants to make America a Christian nation espousing Christian values. Immigration is the perfect example. On a scale of 1 to 10, when it comes to honoring biblical law regarding "the stranger," Trump rates a ZERO!

Transcript

Episode No. 161: Immigration, Trump, and the Bible

Welcome to Keep the Faith, the podcast in which we explore contemporary issues through the prism of Jewish law and tradition. Actually, in this episode, we’re not only going to explore what Jewish law, and specifically the Torah, has to say about this week’s topic—immigration, and specifically how to deal with people who cross our borders seeking asylum—but we’ll also explore Christian biblical texts that were based on those Torah laws.

We’re discussing immigration in this episode because it tops the domestic news agenda this week, for various reasons, all of which relate to the Trump Administration sending National Guard and Marine units into Los Angeles. This has resulted in mass demonstrations taking place or gearing up in other major cities like New York, Chicago, Las Vegas, and Seattle. Trump’s action has also prompted Texas’ governor to call out the National Guard to put down demonstrations in the Lone Star State, and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis giving license to drivers to run down protestors who get in their way.

The Jewish texts are more than enough to discuss this topic, of course, but there’s a reason that I’m bringing in the Christian texts: Trump, the bible-thumpers among the GOPers in Congress who support him, and Trump’s far-right white Christian nationalist followers all proudly proclaim how they rely on “the word of God” in deciding what actions to take, but I doubt that any of them care anything for God’s words. Just the opposite—and especially when it comes to what the Torah and the Christian bible have to say about how we’re to treat “the stranger.”

That this crowd ignores what the Torah says is no surprise. The Torah is a Jewish text, not a Christian one. To these people, the Torah is the first part of the “Old” Testament, which was replaced by the “New” Testament. But they also don’t seem to care anything about what Jesus had to say about the issue as he’s quoted in three of the books in this “New” Testament—the Gospels of Mark, Matthew, and Luke—or what’s said in the anonymously written Letter to the Hebrews.

Certainly, if Trump believed in the Word of God, there wouldn’t be 700 National Guardsmen and 400 Marines parading through Los Angeles right now arresting people who are protesting his immigration policies. In fact, there wouldn’t be any protests if he had any respect for the “Word of God” because God is very clear about how “the stranger” must be treated. 

In at least three places—Exodus 12:49, Numbers 9:14, and Numbers 15:14-16—the Torah insists that “there shall be one law for the citizen and for the stranger who dwells among you.” As Leviticus 24:22 puts it: “You shall have one mishpat (one judgment) for stranger and citizen alike.”

Numbers 15:14-16 makes clear that this is an across-the-board commandment. “You and the stranger shall be alike before the Lord,” it says, adding that “one torah (meaning one teaching) and one mishpat (meaning one judgment) shall apply to you and to the stranger who resides among you.”

As explained by the biblical scholar Richard Elliot Friedman, “In these verses, the text says in four different ways that the law is the same for a citizen and a resident alien. Thus it again emphasizes that this is an essential principle of the Torah: Israelites are not privileged over anyone else. A country must treat everyone who lives in it fairly, with equality under the law.”

The Torah makes this point in other ways, as well. Exodus 22:20 and Exodus 23:9 both warn against wronging a stranger or oppressing him or her. Leviticus 19:33-34 adds to it with this: “The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as one of your citizens; you shall love him [or her] as yourself….”

According to Deuteronomy 24:14 and 17, “You shall not abuse a needy and destitute laborer, whether a fellow countryman or a stranger in one of the communities of your land….You shall not subvert the rights of the stranger.”

In Deuteronomy 10:17-19, the Torah takes this to yet another level. We are, after all, supposed to emulate God, to walk in God’s ways. Thus, because “the Lord your God…befriends the stranger…you too must befriend the stranger.”

Now, if some would argue that these laws apply to strangers who are already here and have nothing to do with asylum seekers and others wanting to live in a land that is safe and that allows people to live freely, the Torah disabuses any such argument in the law found in Deuteronomy 23:16 and 17. It states that, “You shall not turn over to the master a slave who seeks refuge with you from that master. Such individuals shall live with you in any place they may choose among the settlements in your midst, wherever they please; you must not ill-treat them.” In our modern context, what else is a runaway slave if not someone who’s fleeing persecution and oppression? 

Since Trump and his most ardent supporters on the far right aren’t Jewish—most of them actually hate Jews—what a Jewish text has to say is irrelevant to them, but surely what Jesus had to say should be relevant, even though he was Jewish, and even though he said this in his Sermon on the Mount, as Matthew 5:18 recorded it: “For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until 

its purpose is achieved.” The law Jesus was talking about was Torah law.

Perhaps the most direct statement by Jesus on the immigration issue is found in Matthew 25:31-46. Jesus is quoted as saying that when people provide for those in need—when they provide for the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the sick, the imprisoned, and the stranger—they are, in fact, doing it for him, as well. Here are his words as Matthew reported them:

“For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty, and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger, and you invited me in, I needed clothes, and you clothed me, I was ill, and you looked after me, I was in prison, and you came to visit me.” Since the people he was addressing had no idea what he was talking about, because those things never happened, they asked him to explain. Said Jesus to them, again as Matthew reported it, “I tell you truthfully, whenever you did any of these things to one of the least of [the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the ill and the imprisoned], you were doing it to me!”

Then there’s this statement in the anonymously written Letter to the Hebrews 13:2: “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers….”

There’s no way of getting around what our Torah and their bible say about “the stranger.”

So let’s look at how Trump’s policies compare to what these texts have to say. Trump claims to be a devout Christian, and he has vowed to run this country based on Christian teachings and values, so comparing his actions to what the Bible says is fair game. On a scale of 1 to 10, Trump gets a zero. 

His policies, both during his first term and those he’s already begun to put in place or plans to enact this time around, don’t stack up at all to the Torah, especially the runaway slave law in Deuteronomy that requires housing asylum-seekers and seeing to their basic needs. But they also violate what Jesus is quoted as saying in Matthew 25 and what we find in other Christian biblical texts.

The Trump administration, for example, has significantly lowered the number of refugee admissions to its lowest levels in the history of the U.S. refugee program. So much for “inviting in” strangers and providing them refuge.

This week, he went even further when he issued Executive Orders imposing a total ban on entry into the United States for nationals of 12 countries and partial bans on entry for nationals of seven other countries, effectively closing the door on asylum seekers from those countries. This runs contrary to the runaway slave law in Deuteronomy, and it also ignores Letter to the Hebrews 13:2, which says that asylum seekers are to be made to feel welcome, not unwelcome.

In 2019, Trump instituted what’s formally known as the Migrant Protection Protocols, or Em-Pee-Peas, forcing asylum seekers to wait in Mexico, often in dangerous conditions, until their U.S. immigration court hearings, hearings that might never come because the immigration court caseload is so heavy and there are too few resources available to move these cases along. In his first term and now in his second, Trump is doing whatever he can to effectively rig the asylum hearing process, including by speeding up those asylum cases that do get called by shortening those hearings in a way that almost guarantees denials of asylum.

Asylum cases are inherently complex, often involving the asylum seeker to testify to the traumatic experiences they were put through, and requiring testimony confirming their testimony, and the submission of significant documentation. Rushing these cases through means that asylum seekers can’t fully present their cases, leading to asylum being denied because of it.

The Biden administration rescinded these Em-Pee-Pea protocols, but Trump reinstated them on January 20, 2025, almost immediately after he took the Oath of Office, when he issued Executive Order 1-4-1-6-5. As we saw the first time around, these protocols made it harder for asylum seekers to provide for their basic needs (food, water, shelter, safety), which violates what Matthew 25 says about clothing and feeding strangers, asylum seekers included, as that verse implies.

From the perspective of the verses in the Torah and in the Christian bible, with their emphasis on hospitality and compassion for the vulnerable, Trump’s policies are blatantly in violation of those teachings.

He and all the right-wing GOP bible-thumpers in Congress who support him, and his supporters among the White Christian Nationalist crowd, can wave their bibles all they want, but they would do better heeding its words, not defying them.

This is Rabbi Shammai Engelmayer. I hope you come back for my next podcast, whenever that drops, and I’d like to hear what you have to say about this or my other podcasts. Go to www.shammai.dot.org — w-w-w-dot-s-h-a-m-m-a-i-dot-o-r-g — and email me, please.

Shah-baht Shah-loam, stay healthy, keep taking all precautions necessary to protect against all the viral diseases currently afflicting us, and, above all, stay safe!