If not rooted in love, is it still God’s work?

In video footage that went viral, a family of Haitian immigrants is seen crossing the Rio Grande to return to the migrant camp under the Del Rio International Bridge. A Border Patrol officer on horseback yells at a man, “Hey, you use your women? This is why your country’s (expletive), because you use your women for this.”

It echoed former President Donald Trump’s 2018 remarks in which he called African nations, Haiti and El Salvador “shithole” countries and said the U.S. should welcome immigrants from Norway instead of Haiti.

Asked on CNN about his reaction to mounted officers attempting to corral desperate human beings as if they were cattle, U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-San Antonio, said, “It’s a very desperate situation and they’re doing God’s work, fighting everything they can.”

Juxtaposed with those images, the freshman representative’s comments were jarring and appeared callous in a way I don’t believe Gonzales intended. He’s acknowledging the work and responsibilities of Border Patrol agents but not endorsing abuse, physical or verbal.

“The last thing any of us want to see is the mistreatment of anyone, to include migrants,” Gonzales also said. “But when you have tens of thousands of people and only hundreds of Border Patrol agents, it creates a very desperate situation.”

The thousands of Haitians in the Del Rio migrant camp is the latest reminder of the decadeslong failure on immigration by Democrats and Republicans.

In a later interview with Fox News to counter how his comment was characterized, Gonzales said, “Bottom line is the Border Patrol agents, what I said was I said they’re doing God’s work, keeping our borders safe.”

He also said he wouldn’t accept “demonizing Border Patrol agents.”

Of course, he’s right. No profession,

group of people or individual should be demonized. And as disturbing and horrific as the images are, we’ve also seen images of Border Patrol agents risking their lives to save immigrants, including children, from drowning.

But Gonzales knows, from the Bible he reads, that doing God’s work is expansive and inclusive, and is work rooted in love. Not only in loving God but in loving all of God’s children.

“Truly I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of my brethren

you did it to me.”

Matthew 25:40

Doing God’s work includes saving lives, like those saved by Border Patrol agents. Doing God’s work also includes allowing immigrants, many fleeing for their lives, to find new opportunities to build new lives.

“When they were few, in number, of little account, and strangers in the land, wandering from nation to nation, from one kingdom to another people, he allowed no one to oppress them; he rebuked kings on their account, saying, ‘Do not touch my anointed ones; do my prophets no harm.’ ”

1 Chronicles 16:19-22

Doing God’s work includes not demonizing and scapegoating immigrants but treating them with dignity and being reminded that most of us were once strangers in strange lands.

“Thus says the Lord of hosts: Render true judgments, show kindness and mercy to one another; do not oppress the widow, the orphan, the alien, or the poor; and do not devise evil in your hearts against one another.”

Zechariah 7:9-10

In talking about border security in his Fox interview, Gonzales said, “The last thing any of us should want is another 9/11type event to occur.”

Again, he’s correct. But on Tuesday, FBI Director Christopher Wray told the U.S. Senate’s Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee that the number of U.S. domestic terrorism cases under investigation by the agency has doubled since spring of 2020.

Doing God’s work to keep our nation safe means taking the threats within our border as serious as the ones outside our borders. It’s not Haitians wishing Americans harm. It’s other Americans.

In her novel “The Farming of Bones,” the Haitian-American author Edwidge Danticat writes: “Those who die young, they are cheated. Not cheated out of life because life is penance, but the young, they’re cheated because they don’t know it’s coming.”

Doing what we can to save immigrants and their children from being cheated and dying young is doing God’s work.

Paul Ratje / AFP / Getty Images Images like these have horrified people. U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales recently described Border Patrol agents as “doing God’s work.” That would mean saving immigrants and their children from being cheated and dying young.