A child was taken. Taken from routine. Taken from familiarity. Taken from the quiet assumptions that adults would keep him safe.
Five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, moved across state lines, shipped to Texas and placed into a system that does not know his favorite color, his bedtime ritual or the sound of his parents’ voice when he is afraid.
This is not an unfortunate side effect. It is the cost of a system we have learned to tolerate. And here is the question Christians on both sides of the aisle must stop dodging: Are we OK with children going missing?
Federal immigration agents walk 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos to a vehicle in front of his Minneapolis home on Tuesday. (Photo: Columbia Heights Public Schools)
Not missing in the abstract. Missing from classrooms. Missing from neighborhoods. Missing from churches. Missing from homes. Missing from schools. Missing from the ordinary, sacred rhythms of childhood.
Because whatever political or theological language we reach for, a child disappearing into detention is not neutral. It is not inevitable. It is not invisible to God.
Jesus does not speak softly here. When children are brought to Jesus, the disciples intervene. They try to manage the moment. They believe they are being responsible, orderly and sensible, yet Jesus rebukes them.
“Let the little children come to me,” he says. “Do not stop them.”
That is not a sentimental verse. It is a confrontation. Jesus draws a hard line and says the kingdom of God is revealed precisely in the lives adults are most tempted to inconvenience, control or ignore. Children are not a distraction to God. They are the places where God insists we look.
Scripture presses the point further. A child offers his lunch — five loaves and two fish. The disciples name the inadequacy, the scarcity, the insignificance. Jesus names the gift, the abundance, the gravitas. He receives it and feeds thousands.
Notice what Jesus never does. He never asks whether the child understands the scale of the crisis. He never disqualifies the offering because the problem is too big. He never tells the child to wait until conditions improve. He never chooses neutrality. He acts.
Which makes our current moment revealing. We know how to talk about immigration in ways that sound reasonable and still allow children to be taken. We know how to appeal to law, process and sovereignty while ignoring the small bodies those abstractions land on. We know how to say “this is complicated” while children are moved hundreds of miles away and told to wait. But Jesus never asks his followers to be comfortable with harm because it is administratively tidy or because we don’t like the policies of the left or our neighbors on the right.
“We need to be honest about which Jesus we are following and if we are following Jesus at all.”
If our Christianity can make peace with children being detained, transported and effectively disappeared, then we need to be honest about which Jesus we are following and if we are following Jesus at all.
This is not about tomorrow. This is not about future reform. This is about now. Silence is not patience. Delay is not wisdom. And “both sides” is not a refuge when children are involved.
This is not a moment for the church to manage its tone. This is not a moment for us to choose a side. It is not a moment to say we are Republicans or Democrats. This is a moment to remember who we are. We call ourselves Christians, but too often we do not live as if Jesus or Jesus’ words shape us.
Bearing the name of Christ is not a title we wear. It is a testimony we are accountable to live. And right now, we must face this truth: Jesus is still saying, “Let the children come to me,” but the reality is they cannot, because we have locked them behind cages of policy, in detention facilities of fear, within systems of silence.
Liam Conejo Ramos was kidnapped by a sanctioned U.S. government agency.
Children are going missing today.
And the question before the church is not whether we are troubled by that.
The question is whether we will finally live like people who believe Jesus meant what he said.
Not tomorrow.
Not eventually.
Now.
Braxton Wade
Braxton Wade is a Clemons Fellow with BNG. He is a graduate of the University of Richmond and Chicago Theological Seminary and lives in Richmond, Va.
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