Dr. James Dobson is a leader in the Christian Conservative movement. He recently wrote a newsletter about a recent trip he took to the border where he toured a facility where refugees and immigrants are kept. He gives the whole experience such a partisan spin it was dizzying for someone like me who hadn’t heard much from him since I was a young christian kid hearing his programs on the radio.

It is a great tragedy that Dr. James Dobson abandons Jesus in favor of Donald J. Trump. Yes, he pays lip service to God, and mentions Christian ideals, but he passes the immigrants by, leaving them on the side of the road just as the Levite and the Priest do in Jesus’s parable of the good Samaritan. He goes and visits the border camps (a good thing) at the White House’s request (questionable). Then repeatedly “others” the immigrants he finds there. He casts fear, uncertainty, and doubt about the people he saw. He cites no sources for some of the “facts” he shares and writes in such a way that does nothing other than make readers feel justified in their hesitancy to help.

He writes, “An unknown number of these men are hardened criminals and drug runners, and they are difficult to identify.” This is a misleading and dangerous statement; it accelerates prejudice and feeds into stereotypes. It is not a technically a lie, there may be an unknown number. However, I suspect he did little to find the true number of prosecutions. The point is he doesn’t seem to want to get numbers. This statement seems to just spread fear that any one of the men that are coming in could be dangerous. And therefore we are justified in treating them like criminals, and locking them up.

Shockingly, he also explicitly makes an anti biblical call “I have wondered, with you, why the authorities don’t just deny these refugees access to this nation.” As a supposed Christian leader he should be familiar with all of the places in the bible that God’s people are called to welcome the stranger. For example:

Deuteronomy 27:19 (NRSV)

“Cursed be anyone who deprives the alien, the orphan, and the widow of justice.” All the people shall say, “Amen!”

Zechariah 7:9–10 (NRSV)

Thus says the Lord of hosts: Render true judgments, show kindness and mercy to one another; do not oppress the widow, the orphan, the alien, or the poor; and do not devise evil in your hearts against one another.

Deuteronomy 1:16 (NRSV)

Give the members of your community a fair hearing, and judge rightly between one person and another, whether citizen or resident alien.

Exodus 22:21 (NRSV)

You shall not wrong or oppress a resident alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.

Matthew 25:35 (NRSV)

35 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 welcomed me,

Matthew 22:39 (NRSV)

39 And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’

Dobson’s newsletter seems to fly in the face of all of that. He talks negatively about the Flores Settlement. This was a judgement issued after a 15 year old girl, the Flores in the settlement, was taken to a detention facility where she was held among adults of both sexes, was daily strip searched, and was told she would only be released to the custody of her parents. The settlement sets a standard for safe and sanitary conditions. The Trump administration argued against that standard requiring to included soap, toothbrushes, and sleep just last week.

His newsletter ends on a profoundly disgusting note.

“I can only report that without an overhaul of the law and the allocation of resources, millions of illegal immigrants will continue flooding to this great land from around the world. Many of them have no marketable skills. They are illiterate and unhealthy. Some are violent criminals. Their numbers will soon overwhelm the culture as we have known it, and it could bankrupt the nation. America has been a wonderfully generous and caring country since its founding. That is our Christian nature. But in this instance, we have met a worldwide wave of poverty that will take us down if we don’t deal with it.“

He says they have no marketable skills even though earlier in the letter he claims republicans want them for their labor. He says that they could bankrupt us. Jesus, who told the rich young ruler to sell all he had and give it to the poor if he wanted to be saved, would probably think that that would be a good start. It is indeed hard for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!Dobson has seemingly forgotten all of this.

He writes about the Christian nature of our country. It’s embarrassing to me how little Christ there is in this newsletter. As a Christian leader, you’d think he’d be writing about how Christ died for everyone, even the illiterate and criminals. Christ died for them. And knowing that, we are to love, welcome, and care for our neighbors. But Dobson preaches against giving into our Christian nature. Instead of extending a hand of mercy and trusting God to provide for us in the face of this worldwide wave of poverty, he says the only solution is Trump’s wall. Calling for us to close ourselves off. Dobson ends with a call to pray for Trump, but you’d be forgiven if you confused it with a call to pray to Trump, such is the deference he pays the president. It is incredible; he claims there is no one else with political influence that even cares about this crisis.

I’d expect a Christian leader to be at least equally concerned with the people fleeing trying circumstances, to get into America as he is with the people in America. After all, it’s God so loved the world, not God only loved America.