ICE will now raid homes but not hotels. They’ll round up families from neighborhoods but not from farms. Why? Because when it comes to immigration, it’s never been about “law and order.” It’s always been about profit and power. Let’s not be fooled: when farms and hotels are exempted from immigration raids, it’s not mercy. It’s exploitation. It’s greed wearing the mask of compassion. It says, you can stay, but only if you pick our fruit, clean our toilets, and stay silent.

However, a human being’s worth is not measured by how fast they can move in the field or how neatly they can make a bed. People are not machines. They are not tools. They are not “the help.” They are children of God, fearfully and wonderfully made, not for our convenience, but for beloved community.

Changing the immigration policy to raid homes but not hotels exposes the hypocrisy at the heart of immigration enforcement in America. It protects the industries that benefit from cheap, undocumented labor while punishing the workers themselves. That’s not justice. That’s not democracy. That’s Pharaoh.

The same Bible many evangelicals use to justify this cruelty also says: “Do not mistreat or oppress a foreigner, for you were foreigners in Egypt” (Exodus 22:21, Exodus 23:9, Leviticus 19:33-34). And let’s not forget Jesus himself was born into a family that fled persecution, crossed borders without papers, and found no room at the inn.

We don’t need immigration policies that ask: “How much can you produce?” We need policies that ask: “How much can we protect?” “How much can we love?” “How much justice can we make real together?”

When we only protect immigrants when they’re useful to us, we are saying that dignity is conditional, that love is earned, and that God’s image in someone can be erased by a lack of paperwork. That is not moral. That is not just. And it is the anithesis of the gospel.

We must fight for policies rooted in human rights, not human labor. We must love people not because of what they can do, but because of who they are. And we must remember that no one is illegal. No one is disposable. No one is worth more because they work harder. In God’s economy, every person matters. Every life counts. Every stranger is a neighbor. Every neighbor is kin.