It’s almost the end of Holy Week, the annual Christian commemoration of the betrayal, crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. Faithful across the world are attending services to hear the Gospel, see reenactments of the key moments in the last seven days of his life and rejoice in the Good News — or at least have a big brunch with the family and let the kids look for eggs and chocolate bunnies.

Easter is supposed to be a happy time, but all I can think of is the people who persecuted Jesus. At a time when Christians are called upon to embrace Jesus’ message of love and charity, our president continues to revel in a cruelty that’s, well, biblical.

Even if you’re not a Christian, you’re probably familiar with the Holy Week sayings and characters that illustrate the worst of humanity.

A Judas, for instance, is as terrible a traitor as the apostle who turned Jesus over to the authorities. We accuse people of “washing their hands” when they’re in charge of a bad situation but refuse responsibility — a reference to Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor who ordered the execution of Jesus despite his initial reluctance, as described in the Gospels. Commentators sometimes compare dictators to Herod, the king who ordered the massacre of children in his quest to kill the infant Christ.

President Trump is embodying all of this and worse with his campaign against undocumented immigrants and anything remotely associated with them.

Trump is attempting to deny birthright citizenship, which is guaranteed by the 14th Amendment, to babies born to parents who aren’t citizens or lawful permanent residents. He is seeking to rescind legal status for hundreds of thousands of migrants and has ordered people in the country illegally to register with the federal government under the threat of fines and prosecution. He has also placed thousands of migrants on the Social Security Administration’s list of dead people so they will be financially choked out of the country.

And we’re only three months into his second term.

His underlings ape his ghoulish glee in making life miserable for undocumented immigrants.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has live-tweeted deportations while wearing makeup better suited for a Real Housewife and sporting a shiny Rolex watch. On Valentine’s Day, the official White House Instagram account said, “Roses are red/Violets are blue/Come here illegally/And we’ll deport you,” complete with a pink background, hearts and headshots of Trump and his border czar, Tom Homan. Earlier this month, the White House shared a video on X of handcuffed migrants being escorted by ICE agents, scored to “Na Na Hey Hey (Kiss Him Goodbye).”

This nastiness has reached a crescendo with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national who crossed the border at age 16 to escape gang violence. An immigration judge denied his request for asylum in 2019 but allowed him to remain in the U.S. Since then, he has married, had a child and obtained a work permit.

Abrego Garcia is now imprisoned in El Salvador, booted out of the U.S. without a court hearing and called a “terrorist” and MS-13 member by Trump, even though he’s never been convicted of a crime. The Trump administration admits that deporting him was an “administrative error.”

But instead of doing everything they can to return him to the U.S., they’re doing everything possible not to — damn the law. And damn the human cost of leaving Abrego Garcia to languish in a prison sytem where inmates are crammed into cells and are increasingly being used as photo ops by Republican lawmakers.

Don’t take my word for it. Federal judges have described Trump’s actions as “illegal” or “shocking,” with one judge calling the administration’s insistence that it has no obligation to return Abrego Garcia to the U.S. a “fallacy.”

There’s a reason Trump is using illegal immigration to push the boundaries of America law, if not outright spitting on them: A big chunk of the American population is cheering him on. His supporters think they’re not affected — that the only people being targeted are criminals. And even if immigrants without criminal records are mistreated — like Garcia and hundreds of others who didn’t have a chance to contest their deportations — they had it coming anyway, since they never should have come to this country.

If Trump’s advisors are his apostles in selling his anti-immigrant crusade, the Pontius Pilate in this Passion play is El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, adored by the American right as the ne plus ultra of modern-day Latin American strongmen. Unlike the Roman prelate, though, Bukele is more than happy to keep his hands filthy with an unjust persecution.

In an Oval Office chat this week, Trump said that only Bukele could return Abrego Garcia to the U.S., and the Salvadoran president vowed that wouldn’t happen. When Trump suggested that El Salvador should build more prisons to hold American citizens, Bukele agreed, adding that in order to “liberate” the American people, “you have to imprison some.”

On social media, Bukele mocked a recent meeting between Abrego Garcia and Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen, cracking that Abrego Garcia had “miraculously risen” from “death camps” and was “now sipping margaritas … in the tropical paradise of El Salvador!”

Instead of shuddering at these words, too many Trump supporters — many of whom are professed Christians — simply shrug.

The persecution of Abrego Garcia and other deported migrants reminds me of another Christian — German theologian Martin Niemöller, who wrote the poem that begins, “First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out — Because I was not a socialist.”

Niemöller was decrying the complacency of his countrymen as the Nazis rose to power by first targeting the most despised groups in German society. The prose is as famous as it is cliched, but Niemöller’s message is the same one that we Christians take to heart during Holy Week.

Tyrants never want to stop. Only by standing with the least among us can good win — otherwise, evil rules.

So which is it, Americans?