(RNS) — In a video posted to its X account July 28, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security warned “EVERY CRIMINAL ILLEGAL ALIEN IN AMERICA” that the U.S. Border Patrol’s special operations group was coming to hunt them down.
The video, using an intimidating tone typical of DHS promotional videos on immigration enforcement, also quoted an unexpected religious reference — the Bible.
The 40-second clip shows Border Patrol agents in tactical gear seemingly preparing for an operation as a verse from the Book of Proverbs fades into the screen. “The wicked flee when no man pursueth; but the righteous are bold as a lion,” reads the text, attributed to Proverbs 28:1. The soundtrack features the opening monologue of “The Batman” movie (2022), with actor Robert Pattinson declaring, “They think I’m hiding in the shadow, but I am the shadow,” a nod at immigration agents’ readiness for their mission.
The video received 37,000 likes and had been shared about 9,000 times as of Tuesday (Aug. 19) but irked some X users who were surprised to see a religious text quoted in the governmental agency’s communications. It is one of many posts by the agency since June across Instagram, Facebook and X quoting Scripture or invoking religious imagery to promote its efforts to arrest and deport immigrants.
The agency’s apparent turn to Scripture comes as it seeks to recruit U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement employees, whose agents are pivotal in the Trump administration’s forceful immigration crackdown. The ads connect the agency’s mission to arrest and remove immigrants with a divinely ordained mission.
The agency’s framing of Scripture encapsulates how some Trump administration leaders embrace Christian nationalism, said Guthrie Graves-Fitzsimmons, vice president of programs and strategy at Interfaith Alliance, which promotes religious freedom and democracy.
“I think you see that across the administration, it is not an attempt to reconcile their policies with Christian teaching. It’s just sort of taking a bulldozer to Christian teaching and then sprinkling Bible verses on top,” he said. “We have this really growing sense that the Trump administration is trying to promote Christianity and use Christianity as a defense for its authoritarian actions, and that flies in the face of our religious freedom tradition in the United States.”
Though it invokes the Bible to support its actions, the agency is embattled in multiple lawsuits filed by religious groups, including Christians, over federal agents arresting immigrants on properties used by houses of worship, Graves-Fitzsimmons said. He described what he called the “cognitive dissonance of ICE going into houses of worship to make immigration arrests, while then using the Bible in this inappropriate way to recruit agents and to put a religious facade on the most unreligious of activities.”
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Faith groups fighting the administration’s immigration policies also argue their religious values inform their efforts.
In February, the Episcopal Church, along with several Christian and Jewish groups, sued the Trump administration for rescinding the policy that prevented immigration arrests at houses of worship. The Most Rev. Sean Rowe, presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, called the DHS videos “deeply troubling.”
“Weaponizing Proverbs and Isaiah, our sacred Scripture, in service of ICE recruitment is a level of grotesque that would have seemed unfathomable eight months ago,” Rowe told RNS.
The videos, he said, are consistent with the Trump administration’s embrace of Christian nationalism. Church leaders are called to resist this brand of Christianity, Rowe said.
“This twisting of Scripture to target the most vulnerable, to target immigrants, is antithetical to any kind of Christianity that I or our church would recognize,” he said.
On July 7, the agency posted a different video on X — one that was subsequently deleted — showing Border Patrol agents at work with DHS Secretary Kristi Noem. In the background, a voice says, “Here’s a Bible verse I think about sometimes. Many times. It goes ‘Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying ‘Whom shall I send and who will go for us?’ I said, ‘Here am I, send me,’” quoting a portion of Isaiah 6:8. The video, which is still on the agency’s Facebook account, repurposes a biblical passage in which the Prophet Isaiah expresses his readiness to serve as God’s messenger to the people of Judah and Israel.
In another video, announcing the U.S. Coast Guard’s Force Design 2028, a plan that aims to protect the country from attacks of “nations and criminals that seek to sabotage infrastructure,” Noem is seen addressing Coast Guard officers at a command station in Bahrain, saying: “We all know that Scriptures tell us that without a vision, the people perish. You are people who are stepping into a time of consequence. You will be people of significance,” quoting a portion of Proverbs 29:18.
DHS videos have also summoned religious imagery, specifically “manifest destiny” paintings that promote the idea that American colonists received a divine mandate to expand across North America. On July 14, DHS posted Morgan Weistling’s 2020 painting “A Prayer for a New Life,” showing a white pioneer couple holding an infant as a prairie expands behind them. The post’s caption urged viewers to remember their “homeland’s heritage.” And on July 23, the agency posted John Gast’s 1872 painting “American Progress,” which allegorizes the concept of manifest destiny, depicting a blond woman floating through the sky and holding a schoolbook as scores of pioneers follow her, running after Native Americans fleeing.
In early August, the agency announced it lifted the age limit for ICE agents and offered new hires a maximum signing bonus of $50,000, student loan forgiveness options and enhanced retirement benefits. The hiring package was made possible by the large federal budget bill passed in July. The agency said on Aug. 12 it had received more than 100,000 applications and celebrated the dedication of “patriotic Americans who want to join ICE and help remove the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens from the United States.”
DHS didn’t respond to an RNS request for comment.
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Though it’s unclear whether faith leaders are involved in the production of social media videos quoting the Bible, the clips align with DHS’ stated intention of letting Christian faith guide its work. Noem, a conservative Christian who served as South Dakota governor from 2019 to 2025, has long emphasized how her Christian faith influenced her political decisions.
In a 2022 interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network in which she denied ambitions to run for the White House, Noem said, “I want to be obedient to whatever God has called me to do, and I want to live a life of significance. … Our lives should matter.”
In a 2018 interview with South Dakota Public Broadcasting, Noem affirmed her “relationship with the Lord is my foundation in all things,” adding, “As a result, the values I hold according to biblical principles impact my decisions: We are called to love, but we’re also instructed to stand for truth.”
In January, the Freedom From Religion Foundation, a group that defends separation of church and state, denounced Noem’s appointment as DHS secretary, claiming she was a “Christian nationalist” whose “views and record make her unfit to lead the Department of Homeland Security.”
“She’s going to the Christian nationalist party line, doing everything that Trump wants her to do,” said Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-president of FFRF. “It’s more than dismaying to see religion used in this way and used as a weapon, used as an authority that goes above our civil rights in our country.”
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Gaylor called the July 28 video quoting Proverbs 28:1 and calling immigrants wicked “totally indefensible.” The clips can also be seen as an “affront” to some non-Christian and nonreligious Americans, she added.
While the first-term Trump administration embraced Christian nationalism, the ideology is more pervasive in his current administration, Gaylor said. It appears to closely follow the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 guidelines and counts more Christian nationalists in its ranks, she said, referring to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.
“It’s turning their immigration policy into a religious crusade,” Gaylor said. “That’s very scary. It’s trying to say God is on their side in this.”
The posts could also potentially be illegal, Gaylor said, noting the Constitution established secular government in its establishment clause.
“If they were honoring our secular form of government, they don’t have the right to do this,” she said. “But what’s to stop them?”
