Yii-Jan Lin, Ph.D., Dec. 12, 2024
“Trump not too long ago appointed Tom Homan as his ‘border czar,’ a primary step towards implementing a scorched-earth immigration policy that features large-scale detention of migrants and mass deportation (maybe even for American citizens). Whereas his insurance policies have been extensively criticized for his or her cruelties, these unfamiliar with the Ebook of Revelation won’t notice that the once-and-future president’s proposed immigration strategy is actually apocalyptic, recalling biblical prophecies of judgement and large-scale violence on the Finish of Days.
Calling immigrants and asylum-seekers animals, criminals, rapists, and never of “our religion,” Trump echoes Revelation which calls these excluded from heaven, “canine and sorcerers and sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters.” The incoming administration appears to take its inspiration for hostility towards and violence in opposition to immigrants from the Bible.
Sounding the Trump/ets
Apocalyptic approaches to immigration coverage are nothing new for Trump, who launched his first presidential marketing campaign in June 2015 by announcing his (perhaps theological) intention to “construct a fantastic, nice wall on our southern border”—a “big” “beautiful” “see-through” wall a thousand miles long. This announcement additionally occurred to echo the Book of Revelation, through which the heavenly metropolis has a wall “clear as crystal,” lovely and so huge that the narrator can’t assist however repeatedly marvel at its colossal measurements.
When the Division of Justice unsealed his indictment for mishandling classified documents, Trump used Revelation rhetoric in a Truth Social post to declare victory and foreshadow his would-be presidential intentions:
NOW THAT THE ‘SEAL’ IS BROKEN… [I WILL BE] CLOSING THE BORDER & REMOVING ALL OF THE ‘CRIMINAL’ ELEMENTS THAT HAVE ILLEGALLY INVADED OUR COUNTRY.
The “seal” damaged in Revelation unleashes God’s wrath on the earth. As journalist Jeff Sharlet notes, this second was Trump’s “declare to divinity,” saying his plans to go to authorized violence upon his enemies. These enemies embody immigrants from whom he has promised to “rescue” Individuals, “millions” of whom Trump (falsely) insists have “invaded and conquered” cities throughout the US, stealing and eating pets.
Framing immigration in apocalyptic biblical phrases is just not distinctive to Trump, after all. Get together members and supporters have additionally linked immigrants and asylum seekers with supernatural evil. Tom Homan predicts Trump “will send a hellfire rocket” to the southern border. Baptist minister and Trump supporter Robert Jeffress endorses Trump’s biblically-inflected xenophobia, saying “God is not against walls, partitions should not ‘un-Christian,’ the Bible says even heaven goes to have a wall round it.”
Georgia consultant Marjorie Taylor Greene claimed in 2022 that “Devil is controlling the church” as a result of non secular organizations present support to undocumented migrants. That very same 12 months, right-wing pundit Lara Logan informed Newsmax (earlier than the outlet banned her) that “[God] is aware of that the open border is Devil’s manner of taking management of the world by means of all these people who find themselves his stooges and his servants.”
Far-right Christian leaders claim that Trump represents the power of good against evil; that “the hand of God is on [Trump] and he can’t be stopped;” that his reelection is the success of divine prophecy; and that he’ll carry on the end of the world as foretold in Revelation. For biblically-minded supporters, Revelation’s excessive language frames Trump’s ascent to energy as an inevitable, sacred triumph of fine over evil—and his anti-immigrant plans as cleaning the US of God’s enemies.
Immigration and apocalypticism
The Christian Bible is, after all, way more than the sum of Revelation’s depictions of violence and dire end-times predictions. The New Testomony additionally celebrates breaking down dividing walls and warns in opposition to oppressing these new to a land, insisting they be proven love and hospitality. Even Revelation itself may be learn as comforting and opposing oppression. However for a lot of, Revelation is primarily and maybe most significantly in regards to the destruction of God’s enemies—which, as I argue, makes Revelation a strong software for Christian nationalists intent on demonizing their political opponents and dehumanizing immigrants and asylum-seekers.
Depicting political opponents as agents of evil is, it seems, a startlingly efficient anti-immigration tactic. Whereas Individuals have at all times been obsessed with the apocalypse and what comes after, the twenty first century has seen a pointy uptick in political speech efficiently utilizing end-of-days rhetoric to rally a right-wing Christian base.
Faith scholar Juli Gittinger argues that Individuals’ funding in “doomsday tradition” cuts throughout denominational and political get together traces, and a latest study exhibits that, much more than race, “perception in supernatural evil is likely one of the strongest predictors of stricter [i.e. negative] immigration attitudes.” Shared funding in xenophobic apocalypticism may assist clarify Trump’s surprising gains amongst historically Democratic voting blocs.
Revelation-inflected immigration messaging has proved profitable in drawing in unlikely compatriots and mobilizing the GOP’s White Christian base, a lot of whom help not merely US Christian nationalism however international Christian dominion backed by American army power. Homan has already promised to “run the most important deportation operation this nation’s ever seen.”
Many have criticized Project 2025’s plan for the US as harmful and dangerous, however few are conscious of its roots within the New Apostolic Reformation—a Christian supersessionist motion hellbent on purifying the nation of immigrants and asylum-seekers it sees as evil invaders and whose presence alerts end-times peril. In a season awash with election explainers, we should always pay shut consideration to only how politically efficient the apocalyptic demonization of immigrants may be.”
Yii-Jan Lin, Associate Professor of New Testament, Yale Divinity School
