URBANDALE, Iowa — Many Americans are in tears reading stories of children being ripped from their parents’ arms at the United States-Mexican border. Stories of families separated with no certainty of when they’ll be reunited.

This is a collective gut-check moment for America. President Trump and the Department of Justice have taken a stand on justice, on enforcing the law. And that means that parents who break the law (in this case, in crossing the border) will be temporarily separated from their children. As Americans, we already accept this premise, knowing that parents who break other laws — on theft, drugs, abuse — are necessarily removed from their children as well.

But is the Department of Justice administering this justice with the proper measure of mercy?

As a Christian, I find that the Bible’s Book of Micah offers a guiding principle of doing right: “He has shown you, O man, what is good, and what does the Lord require of you, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God” (emphasis added). This is biblical.

That means we should execute justice, yes. But not with the kind of cruelty we’re reading about from the border with Mexico.