Comments Vice President J.D. Vance made this week explaining what he called a “Christian concept” are generating heated debate among Christians online. During an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity, Hannity and Vance were discussing President Donald Trump’s immigration approach when Vance explained his belief that Americans should have a hierarchy of affections towards others.
“As an American leader, but also just as an American citizen, your compassion belongs first to your fellow citizens,” Vance said in an appearance on “Hannity.” “It doesn’t mean you hate people from outside of your own borders. But there’s this old school—and I think it’s a very Christian concept, by the way—that you love your family, and then you love your neighbor, and then you love your community.”
“And then you love your fellow citizens in your own country, and then, after that, you can focus and prioritize the rest of the world,” Vance continued. “A lot of the far left has completely inverted that. They seem to hate the citizens of their own country and care more about people outside their own borders.”
JD Vance References St. Augustine in Defense of His Views
Immigration has been front and center as Trump has taken office, with the president signing a number of executive orders (EO) impacting immigration in the U.S. One EO suspended the United States Refugee Admission Program (USRAP), another sought to eliminate birthright citizenship for children of undocumented immigrants, and another paused the disbursement of foreign development assistance funds.
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The president says his actions are to prevent an “invasion” into the country, and he said Wednesday he plans to detain up to 30,000 migrants at Guantanamo Bay. The administration has been conducting raids to arrest illegal immigrants, as well as empowering law enforcement officials to carry out deportations. The president has also now made it possible for officials to arrest people in houses of worship.
However, some Christian leaders are troubled by the actions that the Trump administration has taken. A pastor in Tennessee was criticized for expressing concern that officials might arrest people during a church service. Christian humanitarian organization World Relief published a statement saying that President Trump’s actions in pausing USRAP threatens persecuted Christians around the world.
On Jan. 22, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) responded to Trump’s executive orders, stating, “Some provisions contained in the Executive Orders, such as those focused on the treatment of immigrants and refugees, foreign aid, expansion of the death penalty, and the environment, are deeply troubling and will have negative consequences, many of which will harm the most vulnerable among us.”
Vance is Catholic, and in an interview on Jan. 26, he responded to the statement from USCCB, saying he was “heartbroken” by it. Vance defended the Trump administration’s intention to protect Americans from criminals and suggested the bishops were more worried about their “bottom line” than they were about “humanitarian concerns.”
Speaking to Hannity, Vance said that caring more about foreigners than American citizens “is no way to run a society. I think the profound difference that Donald Trump brings to the leadership of this country is the simple concept: America first. It doesn’t mean you hate anybody else. It means that you have leadership.”