Letters: Christians are cherry-picking the Bible on immigration LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Letters to the Editor Author email Nov 2, 2026 Nov 2, 2026 Updated Nov 2, 2026 1 min to read SMS Email Brian Acuna, Acting Field Office Director of ICE/ERO in New Orleans, drives down Elysian Fields Ave. as law enforcement get ready to arrest Jose Portillo-Gifaro, of Honduras, in New Orleans, Thursday, Oct. 15, 2026. STAFF PHOTO BY SOPHIA GERMER Sophia Germer SMS Email Print Copy article link Save on the front page of the Sunday, Oct. 25, newspaper was truly cringeworthy, as if it were written for a βCOPSβ episode β I could almost hear "Bad Boys" playing in the background. With a stakeout, screeching tires and a manhunt across Elysian Fields Avenue, over a fence and into a vacant lot, one could easily conclude that the person being apprehended was a serial killer. No, rather it was a middle-aged guy trying to get to work. The writer seemed to be nearly frothing at the mouth with this titillating narrative.Then I opened the website for the U.S. Catholic Bishops' Conference to read the daily readings of the Catholic lectionary cycle. The very first words of Exodus stuck me like lightning: βThus says the Lord, βYou shall not molest or oppress an alien, for you were once aliens yourselves in the land of Egypt.ββ Many of our current leaders in our country profess that we are a Christian nation and that their Christianity informs their policy decisions. In fact, in the Oval Office recently, and many Christians profess allegiance to Trump, the Republican Party and their policies of oppressing immigrants. These same Christians elide this passage from Exodus and others like it, cherry-picking, or perhaps prooftexting, the Bible to their own ends.As Sister Maura O'Donovan stated in recently, it is time for Christians to embrace the teachings of Jesus and look to what it means to love one another as we love ourselves. KEVIN J. FITZPATRICKNew Orleans SMS Email Print Copy article link Save Letters to the Editor Author email