Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) has tried to use his position as a pastor to claim the moral high ground on immigration and other matters. This means comparing an alleged MS-13 gang member to Jesus Christ.
Earlier this week, Warnock appeared on ABC’s The View, the toxic liberal media dumping ground that exposes the hatred and ignorance of Democrats and their media allies. During his appearance, Warnock took a (quite literal) holier-than-thou attitude toward Republicans when discussing immigration and the deportation of accused MS-13 member Kilmar Abrego Garcia.
“I think Jesus is the biggest victim of identity theft in this country,” Warnock said. “I don’t know who this Jesus is they’re talking about. The Jesus I know was born in a barrio called Bethlehem, raised in a ghetto called Nazareth. He was an immigrant, smuggled into Egypt.”
This is the same Abrego Garcia who was determined by an immigration judge in 2019 to be affiliated with MS-13, which was upheld on administrative appeal. In 2019, he was arrested while in the company of an MS-13 member who had a rap sheet. Court documents from 2021 detail that his wife “sought a domestic violence restraining order against him, claiming he punched, scratched, and ripped off her shirt, among other harm.” We also know Abrego Garcia was stopped by police in 2022 while driving a car owned by someone convicted of human smuggling, with eight other people in the car, all of whom gave Abrego Garcia’s home address as their home address.
To paraphrase Warnock, I don’t know this Jesus he is talking about.
ABREGO GARCIA’S DEFENDERS JUST DON’T WANT ANYONE DEPORTED
Warnock’s attempt to use his faith as a political cudgel against Republicans rang hollow. Warnock is a Christian who prides himself on being a “pro-choice pastor,” to the extent that he cannot name a single restriction on abortion that he supports. Warnock’s leaning on his religion is a peculiar choice given that he was a youth minister at a church that invited Cuban dictator Fidel Castro to speak and praised him as “the hero of the struggle of peoples around the world.” He also has ties to antisemitic Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
Warnock has no ground to stand on to accuse his political opponents of being hypocritical Christians. Warnock has used his position as a pastor to advance his partisan politics since his first Senate campaign in 2020. Now, he has offered more of the same by invoking Jesus to justify keeping illegal immigrants with (at best) questionable legal histories in the country.