On Tuesday, a group of evangelical Christian leaders gathered at New Life Church in Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood to pray and discern how Chicagoland churches could show and share the love of Jesus with vulnerable immigrant neighbors — particularly those facing family separation amid arrests during the Department of Homeland Security’s Operation Midway Blitz.
Before we got far into our meeting, phones began to buzz with notifications: Border Patrol agents had just made an arrest south of our meeting place and were now two blocks away. Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino returned to Chicago, unannounced.
Whistles blew in the streets, warning community members of approaching federal immigration agents’ vehicles. We bolted outside as SUVs passed the church.
New Life Church sits at West 27th Street and South Lawndale Avenue. Across the street is New Life Centers, a decades-old Christian community development organization that had 800 grocery bags ready for distribution that morning. Nearby is Little Village Academy, an elementary school full of students — many from New Life families.
At West 27th and Ridgeway Avenue, in full view of the school, church and center, we watched agents arrest a Latino father who witnesses said was eating tamales in his car when agents approached him. Amid the kerfuffle, one agent accused the young man of throwing a rock at a Border Patrol vehicle.
As the young man was handcuffed, I, Paco, gathered his home address and next-of-kin details. What happened next felt staged, like reality TV with Little Village residents as unwilling actors in a grim holiday spectacle.
Bovino walked toward the crowd where we gathered, rifle in hand, flanked by agents filming the scene with production-grade cameras. We pleaded for the man’s release. I, Paco, told him how this harmed my church — but that Jesus loved him anyway. Smirking, rifle in hand, Bovino replied: “Jesus loves you.”
Just the day before, on Monday, Bovino posted a video on X quoting Isaiah 6:8 — “Here am I, send me” — over dramatic footage of armed Border Patrol agents in tactical gear driving to operations, overlaid with messages portraying their enforcement as a divine warrior’s calling from God with no excuses, trusting God to equip them for the fight. Yet in Little Village, that self-proclaimed mission appeared devoid of the mercy, humility and love central to the Gospel.
To be clear, we do not oppose the Department of Homeland Security’s stated goal of targeting the “worst of the worst” violent offenders. Noncitizens convicted of serious crimes in accordance with the due process owed each of us should face justice and deportation. But data compiled from the first half of Operation Midway Blitz shows most of the detained do not fit that profile. Tribune reporting indicates two-thirds had no criminal charges; only 1.5% had violent felony or sex crime convictions. Nationally, just 5% of detained immigrants have violent convictions; 73% have no conviction at all.
As evangelicals, we believe God created the family. Our faith in Jesus drives our service to “the least of these” — the strangers among us — because as Matthew 25 says, welcoming them welcomes him. That vocation brought us to Chicagoland: Paco to Moody Bible Institute and Daniel to Wheaton College’s Billy Graham Center and eventually World Relief, the humanitarian arm of the National Association of Evangelicals.
We align with 90% of evangelicals — per recent polling from Lifeway Research — who believe federal policy toward immigrants in the U.S. without legal permission should respect immediate family unity. Even 88% of Donald Trump-voting evangelicals agree, and while most say deporting violent offenders should be an enforcement priority, fewer than one-fifth say the same about those with U.S. citizen children or those willing to pay fines, echoing evangelical-backed reform proposals since the Bush era.
That’s why our churches mobilize biblical hospitality for immigrant families. We serve the God who, at Christmas, became flesh, entered our neighborhoods and experienced migration — fleeing tyranny as a child.
Is this image on the curb of 27th and Ridgeway — a man with an American flag patch, rifle in hand, detaining a father while saying, “Jesus loves you” — a true reflection of American Christianity?
We don’t believe so. Instead, it evoked for us the centurion at the cross where Jesus was crucified or the Philippian jailer — minus compassion, repentance or transformation.
This father seemed to be another random detention, arrested not to curb violent crime but instead to terrorize ordinary people going about daily life, many of whom “look” foreign-born.
True American Christianity is — we hope — a picture of God become flesh, embodied action demonstrating love toward the neighbor. Once the agents left, the New Life pastors headed to the man’s home, coordinating with Ald. Michael Rodriguez to break the news to his wife and young children — one in class across the street.
We spoke to Bovino and his officers because we care for them too. We pleaded with agents to consider not only the impacts on Little Village, but also their own families, souls and consciences. Made in God’s image, they face judgment. Psalm 50 says: “Can a wicked ruler be your ally; one who wreaks havoc by means of the law?” God warns repayment — but through Jesus, offers forgiveness to all, even officers whose actions suggest seared consciences. As fellow sinners saved by grace, we humbly urge agents acting outside of the reasonable enforcement of the law to repent — including Bovino.
For now, it feels like Bovino is stealing Christmas from many Chicagoland immigrants, indifferent to their fear and suffering. Even so, it’s not too late for him to encounter the true Jesus, receive forgiveness and join God’s kingdom welcoming every tribe, tongue and nation.
We grieve with the detained gentleman’s wife, whom the New Life pastors later consoled; for his school-age children; for a community used in a charade shrouded in biblical invocations that did not look like the Jesus we know. All at Christmas.
Paco Amador is the pastor of New Life Little Village. Daniel Yang is senior director of Global Mission and Church Mobilization at World Relief.
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https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/12/19/opinion-gregory-bovino-christmas-immigration-raids/
