Jeremy L. Berg

Jessica Galván, senior content writer at World Relief, shares a powerful story below that is painfully relevant right now in the Twin Cities and elsewhere. But first, I’m a pastor in a multiethnic denomination of immigrants, originally Swedish immigrants and now other ethnic groups. My brothers and sisters are currently being terrorized by ICE raids and the growing hostility and fear caused by this administration’s rhetoric and actions.

Our immigrant churches are half empty on Sundays, as families are afraid to leave their homes. These same families have no Christmas presents under the tree, and cupboards are growing bare as they are afraid to go shopping.

Stories from my pastor friends are accumulating. One pastor tells of two individuals who were detained a couple weeks ago in separate incidents. One detention involved violence and resulted in the destruction of personal property. Both individuals are in the United States legally, hold valid work permits, and have no criminal history. Each is a primary breadwinner for their family; one owned a small business. Both were active in their church. 

They were forcefully separated from their families without access to personal documentation, including phones, Social Security cards, or passports, and one individual has been transferred out of state. One of those detained is a single parent; their child learned of the detention when they were being picked up from school. 

The church has been able to help secure legal representation. However, both individuals are facing a minimum of 40 or more days before a possible bond hearing, and the prolonged separation is taking a significant emotional toll. 

In another situation, a father is currently in custody, leaving behind a devastated family: his wife and three children, ages 13, 5, and 22 days old. The 13-year-old son was with his father at the time and sustained injuries. My pastor friend and his wife took him to the hospital, where he received care for both his injuries and a pre-existing heart condition that had worsened. 

A church we helped start and supported for years said that 50 out of 100 congregants were absent out of fear this past Sunday. While safe, white suburban churches prepare for quaint candlelight services where the greatest fear is not finding a good parking spot, these ethnic churches are mobilizing to help do the grocery and Christmas shopping for people voluntarily confined to their homes, providing prayer and assistance, as well as financial support to cover basic needs.

If this is some people’s idea of making America great again, fine. Let’s just be clear that it is an America totally at odds with the teachings of Jesus, but eerily similar to the cruelty of the megalomaniac King Herod who terrorized young families that first Christmas. These church-going Christians being apprehended are not the hardened criminals and drug smugglers the president promised to target.

Now to Jess Galvan’s childhood story. She writes:

There’s a Christmas custom from my childhood that I hold dearly — Las Posadas Navideñas, a nine-night celebration rooted in Mexican tradition that reenacts Mary and Joseph’s search for shelter in Bethlehem. We carry candles, knock on doors and sing. And we are turned away. Again and again, until finally, someone lets us in.

Now, as an adult witnessing the rhetoric, raids and rejection surrounding immigrants and refugees in my city and country, I understand the weight of that knock in a new way.

Today, the U.S. is turning away refugees amid the greatest global displacement crisis in recorded history. Over 117 million are forcibly displaced worldwide, yet policies continue to strip protections. The 2025 “One Big Beautiful Bill” dismantles access to food and healthcare, imposes steep asylum fees and expands detention funding — including for children.

This makes Christmas Posadas even more personal to me. It mirrors the desperation of so many families knocking on the doors of border checkpoints, women carrying children through deserts, and asylum seekers met with suspicion, walls or silence.

In Christmas Posadas, we get to decide if we’ll be the one who follows Jesus into places of pain, welcoming the stranger and loosening the chains of injustice. Who will you choose to be? This season, may we live as if the Christ child is still knocking — because he is. (Read full essay here.)

I, Jeremy, sat down our three kids last night and explained that our deepest bond and ultimate allegiance as Christians, according to Scripture, is not to blood lines or national citizenship, but to our baptismal family in Christ. We have an obligation to stand with, by, and for our brothers and sisters in Christ in their time of need. And to stand against and speak truth to those who are harming them.

The New Testament envisions a beautifully interdependent multiethnic Body of churches, and states clearly that “there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it” (1 Cor. 12:25-26). Part of our Body is suffering right now. Do we all feel it?

What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. (James 2:14-17)

“Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world politics.” (James 1:27, my adjustment)