After President Donald Trump returned in January 2025, the administration blocked most asylum requests at the southern border. That move erased a legal path, and it left families stranded in Juarez, Mexico. The new film Jesus Was a Migrant puts that rupture in plain view. It tracks the border fallout, and it asks why some believers celebrate exclusion as they claim to follow a refugee Savior. The documentary frames the border not as an abstract debate, but as a moral test.
Jemar Tisby Turns Tension Into a Documentary
Historian Jemar Tisby built a reputation confronting Christian contradictions. His 2019 book The Color of Compromise challenged churches on complicity with racism, and it drew backlash from many conservatives. Now he extends that critique through film. Jesus Was a Migrant premiered in Los Angeles, and it marks the first production from Tisby Studios. The documentary links theology with U.S. immigration policy, keeping people at the center. Tisby says the goal is clarity, and he wants viewers to move from empathy to action.
Migrant Stories Take Center Stage in Juarez
On a border pilgrimage with the Christian nonprofit FaithWorks, Tisby entered shelters and listened. Families shared gut-wrenching accounts, so a short recap no longer felt adequate. The team chose a documentary format because migrants asked for one thing: tell our stories. Tisby says the filmmakers worked carefully to center migrants, and they pressed a direct question: how can American Christians help? Those conversations, he says, shaped every creative decision, including pacing and interviews.
Racism Lessons Shape the Immigration Lens
Tisby ties immigration politics to earlier tactics used against Black Americans. He cites Martin Luther King Jr.’s “network of mutuality,” and he rejects the idea that immigrants’ suffering sits outside Black concerns. He argues that solidarity must extend to anyone targeted by injustice. That approach fits his broader work on race, but widens the frame to include the border. He warns that strategies of exclusion rarely stay confined to one group.
Evangelical Shifts, Assimilation Claims, and the Film’s Call
Tisby recalls a long evangelical legacy of supporting refugees, but he says nationalism slowly poisoned that tradition. Cold War “Christian America” language elevated U.S. superiority, and later rhetoric about immigrants amplified fear. He also rejects assimilation demands as “faulty theology,” arguing the New Covenant allows unity without uniformity. Jesus Was a Migrant aims at “a coalition of the willing,” not hardline white Christian nationalists. Supporters desire dialogue and action through hosted screenings, guides, and border trips, and they see the film as a catalyst for policy-minded compassion. But detractors resist the film’s critique of nationalism, dispute its reading of scripture, and object to its challenge of stricter border policies.
In ‘Jesus Was a Migrant,’ Jemar Tisby makes a Christian case for humanizing immigrants
Photo by Kyle Glenn on Unsplash
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