by Rev. Faith Totushek

Growing up in a Pentecostal and Charismatic church environment, I often heard the phrase—speak life. I was taught that our words mattered and in some sense created reality. This teaching was based on the scripture found in the first chapters of Genesis when God spoke, and life came into being. Others showed how Jesus himself was the full communication of God referenced in John 1. “In the beginning was the word, the word was with God and the word was God. So, words in some sense reveal the character of God.”

This teaching is so ingrained that when I hear words that dehumanize and degrade other human beings, I cringe recognizing that somehow these words did not represent the heart of God.

This election has been full of dehumanizing words especially spoken against immigrants, migrants and refugees. If words truly do in some sense create reality, I shutter to consider what kind of reality such words are creating.

Former President Trump has said these dehumanizing words.

• Immigrants are poisoning the blood of our people.
• Immigrants have bad DNA that makes them violent.
• Immigrants eat cats and dogs
• Immigrants are taking our jobs
• Immigrants are voting illegally
• Immigrants are criminals and the crime rate has risen
• Immigrants are taking our jobs
• Immigrants are the cause of our high home prices
• Immigrants are coming for welfare benefits
• Immigrants were given all the FEMA funds so there is none left for victims of hurricanes and floods.

Essentially, Trump claims that immigrants are the cause of all our problems. This is illogical.

Not since the Holocaust or Darfur (when people were called cockroaches) have I heard such demonizing and dehumanizing words said about human beings. It is easy to deport, lock up or even harm those whom we have already dehumanized. Trump continues to lie and dehumanize real people that God loves.

Words matter and we can choose to speak life or death.

Many of the above statements are false and have zero evidence to affirm their validity. Former President Trump just makes them up to create fear that people of color will replace Americans. He often says they are invading our country and one day, we won’t have a country.

Many in the GOP and those who support former President Trump say they want the 10 commandments back in the schools. Yet they fail to obey them. Bearing false witness against their brothers and sisters is the commandment being broken. The facts reveal that these dehumanizing words are false and real people are being harmed because of them.

In Springfield Ohio, there has been a recent migration of people from Haiti. During the debates Former President Trump repeated the falsehood that Haitians are eating pets—cats and dogs. He made the claim that Haitians were here illegally when in fact they were admitted legally through parole and temporary protected status. These words were all falsehoods. The net effect was tragic when bomb threats were made to schools and government offices and real people were harmed. Tragically many of these image bearers are fellow believers—Christians who love Jesus.

This lie was invalidated by the mayor of Springfield and even the Governor. Yet it was repeated and repeated and defended by politicos who continued to form the narrative that immigrants were somehow to be blamed for all of our problems.

Words matter and in some sense create reality.

Project 2025 is a plan for the Trump administration if he should get elected. Within that document is a plan to round up and deport massive numbers of immigrants. Some also want to change our constitution to withdraw citizenship from children born of undocumented immigrants. Imagine the human cost.

Jesus said, that whatever is done to the least of these is done to Christ. We are speaking these evil things of people, many of whom are fellow believers. Are we also doing this to Christ who comes in these precious human beings?

We have problems at the border, and we do need to tackle the variety of issues around immigration. But dehumanizing migrants, immigrants and refugees is not helping to solve those problems. It is creating a narrative that they are the root cause of all of our problems and if we just remove them, our problems will be solved. I contend that without meaningful reforms and measures to deal humanely with migrants, refugees, and immigrants, we will exacerbate our problems at the border.

Meaningful immigration reform would address criminals that slip through because we can screen them, do background checks and take biometric data to admit them legally.

We must address border security but also how we admit migrants, how many, and what to do with the 11 million people who are already in this country.

A massive deportation plan would break up families and tear communities apart. Citizen spouses would lose their marital partners and children would lose any parents here without documents. Additionally, siblings would be torn apart when some have citizenship and others do not.

I often ask people to consider what a massive round-up of 11-12 million people would look like in their own community. What would be the human cost? How much would it cost for our nation to do this? What would be the economic cost to our farms, construction companies and factories who hire them.

Instead of using dehumanizing words, it would be better to address our immigration system and take responsibility for our part in the issues.

I shutter to think of how our world would be affected by the dehumanizing words spoken by the former President and other politicos. Speak Life, out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks.

References:

Immigrants and voting
https://www.migrationpolicy.org/sites/default/files/mpi-noncitizen-voting-explainer-2024_final.pdf?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=35bb6101-43eb-48a0-a43b-ccfd0df40216
Immigrants and crime
https://www.migrationpolicy.org/sites/default/files/publications/mpi-explainer-immigration-crime-2024_final.pdf?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=35bb6101-43eb-48a0-a43b-ccfd0df40216
Immigrants and public benefits
https://www.migrationpolicy.org/sites/default/files/publications/mpi-immigrants-benefits-explainer-2024-final.pdf?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=35bb6101-43eb-48a0-a43b-ccfd0df40216
Immigrants and the economy
https://www.migrationpolicy.org/sites/default/files/publications/mpi-immigrants-us-economy-explainer-2024_final.pdf?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=35bb6101-43eb-48a0-a43b-ccfd0df40216
Springfield Ohio and Haitians Immigrants
https://springfieldohio.gov/immigration-faqs/
Springfield, OH and churches
https://apnews.com/article/springfield-ohio-haitian-immigrants-sunday-church-aa7827f1236f207c9f64ae07096e3977
Immigrant Fact checking Madison Square Garden
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/fact-checking-trumps-claims-at-madison-square-garden-rally
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-expected-highlight-murder-michigan-woman-immigration-speech-2024-04-02/
Immigrant poising our blood comments
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-repeats-poisoning-blood-anti-immigrant-remark-2023-12-16/
Immigrants have bad genes \https://www.vox.com/politics/376797/trump-immigrants-bad-genes-nationalism
Fema claims
https://www.npr.org/2024/10/07/nx-s1-5144159/fema-funding-migrants-disaster-relief-fund

Project 2025
https://immigrationimpact.com/2024/08/23/what-project-2025-says-about-immigration/