Trump recently appointed Tom Homan as his ‘border czar,’ a first step toward implementing a scorched-earth immigration policy that includes large-scale detention of migrants and mass deportation (perhaps even for American citizens). While his policies have been widely criticized for their cruelties, those unfamiliar with the Book of Revelation might not realize that the once-and-future president’s proposed immigration approach is literally apocalyptic, recalling biblical prophecies of judgement and large-scale violence at the End of Days.
Calling immigrants and asylum-seekers animals, criminals, rapists, and not of “our religion,” Trump echoes Revelation which calls those excluded from heaven, “dogs and sorcerers and sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters.” The incoming administration seems to take its inspiration for hostility toward and violence against immigrants from the Bible.
Sounding the Trump/ets
Apocalyptic approaches to immigration policy are nothing new for Trump, who launched his first presidential campaign in June 2015 by announcing his (perhaps theological) intention to “build a great, great wall on our southern border”—a “big” “beautiful” “see-through” wall a thousand miles long. This announcement also happened to echo the Book of Revelation, in which the heavenly city has a wall “clear as crystal,” beautiful and so massive that the narrator can’t help but repeatedly marvel at its colossal measurements.
When the Department of Justice unsealed his indictment for mishandling classified documents, Trump used Revelation rhetoric in a Truth Social post to declare victory and foreshadow his would-be presidential intentions:
NOW THAT THE ‘SEAL’ IS BROKEN… [I WILL BE] CLOSING THE BORDER & REMOVING ALL OF THE ‘CRIMINAL’ ELEMENTS THAT HAVE ILLEGALLY INVADED OUR COUNTRY.
The “seal” broken in Revelation unleashes God’s wrath on the earth. As journalist Jeff Sharlet notes, this moment was Trump’s “claim to divinity,” announcing his plans to visit legal violence upon his enemies. These enemies include immigrants from whom he has promised to “rescue” Americans, “millions” of whom Trump (falsely) insists have “invaded and conquered” towns across the United States, stealing and eating pets.
Framing immigration in apocalyptic biblical terms is not unique to Trump, of course. Party members and supporters have also linked immigrants and asylum seekers with supernatural evil. Tom Homan predicts Trump “will send a hellfire rocket” to the southern border. Baptist minister and Trump supporter Robert Jeffress endorses Trump’s biblically-inflected xenophobia, saying “God is not against walls, walls are not ‘un-Christian,’ the Bible says even heaven is going to have a wall around it.”
Georgia representative Marjorie Taylor Greene claimed in 2022 that “Satan is controlling the church” because religious organizations provide aid to undocumented migrants. That same year, right-wing pundit Lara Logan told Newsmax (before the outlet banned her) that “[God] knows that the open border is Satan’s way of taking control of the world through all these people who are his stooges and his servants.”
Far-right Christian leaders claim that Trump represents the force of good against evil; that “the hand of God is on [Trump] and he cannot be stopped;” that his reelection is the fulfillment of divine prophecy; and that he will bring on the end of the world as foretold in Revelation. For biblically-minded supporters, Revelation’s extreme language frames Trump’s ascent to power as an inevitable, sacred triumph of good over evil—and his anti-immigrant plans as cleansing the United States of God’s enemies.
Immigration and apocalypticism
The Christian Bible is, of course, much more than the sum of Revelation’s depictions of violence and dire end-times predictions. The New Testament also celebrates breaking down dividing walls and warns against oppressing those new to a land, insisting they be shown love and hospitality. Even Revelation itself can be read as comforting and opposing oppression. But for many, Revelation is primarily and perhaps most importantly about the destruction of God’s enemies—which, as I argue, makes Revelation a powerful tool for Christian nationalists intent on demonizing their political opponents and dehumanizing immigrants and asylum-seekers.
Depicting political opponents as agents of evil is, it turns out, a startlingly effective anti-immigration tactic. While Americans have always been obsessed with the apocalypse and what comes after, the 21st century has seen a sharp uptick in political speech successfully using end-of-days rhetoric to rally a right-wing Christian base.
Religion scholar Juli Gittinger argues that Americans’ investment in “doomsday culture” cuts across denominational and political party lines, and a recent study shows that, even more than race, “belief in supernatural evil is one of the strongest predictors of stricter [i.e. negative] immigration attitudes.” Shared investment in xenophobic apocalypticism might help explain Trump’s surprising gains among historically Democratic voting blocs.
Revelation-inflected immigration messaging has proved successful in drawing in unlikely compatriots and mobilizing the GOP’s White Christian base, many of whom support not merely US Christian nationalism but global Christian dominion backed by American military force. Homan has already promised to “run the biggest deportation operation this country’s ever seen.”
Many have criticized Project 2025’s plan for the United States as destructive and dangerous, but few are aware of its roots in the New Apostolic Reformation—a Christian supersessionist movement hellbent on purifying the country of immigrants and asylum-seekers it sees as evil invaders and whose presence signals end-times peril. In a season awash with election explainers, we should pay close attention to just how politically effective the apocalyptic demonization of immigrants can be.
