What Does Jesus Say?
About Children?
Jesus urged us to care about children.
Jesus cared about and blessed little children.
“.... little children were brought to Him that He might put His hands on them and pray.... Jesus said ‘Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them.... And He laid His hands on them....”
He equated receiving a child to receiving Him.
“Take heed that you do not despise one of these little ones.”
“Whoever receives one of these little children in My name receives Me.”
Have President Trump and his team treated children like we would want them to treat Jesus?
Starvation, Poverty and Death
Overnight, the United States Aid Agency (USAID) that was ensuring the survival of hundreds of thousands of children around the world was gutted, with the President’s knowledge and approval. People on the ground have borne witness to the devastating impact of these cuts, as children over the past year have died of both starvation and/or illness. We all agree that wise and efficient use of funds is important, but no efforts were made to evaluate or improve the efficiency of these programs; they were simply slashed, with no collaboration on how the impact of the cuts on children could be minimized.
Journalist and USAID expert Nicholas Kristof took a nine-day trip through East African villages in March of 2025 to assess the impact of the USAID cuts. Click here for his report, which includes estimates from the Center for Global Development of the number of lives now at risk. Kristof reports on deaths that had already occurred in March due to Trump Administration decisions. His assessment was that “the toll is likely to soar in the coming months as stockpiles of medicines and food are drawn down and as people become weaker and sicker.”
An April 2025 report on the impact of the Trump Administration USAID cuts in Sudan highlights the starvation and deaths of children due to the closure of feeding stations supported by USAID. Click here for the report.
See more recent reports on USAID cuts below.
Is this how Jesus wants us to treat children?
Children in Detention Camps
Children now living in immigration detention centers in the U.S. are denied proper medical care, as well as decent food and living conditions.
Listen to or read this article about the experience of a family from Russia during 4 months at the Dilley Detention Center in Texas. Says father Nikita “Even in Russia, they don’t treat children like this.” Mother Oksana describes the physical and emotional damage to her children (panic attacks, hearing loss, symptoms of depression). They’ve suffered from sleep deprivation under fluorescent lights that never fully go dark. They’ve been presented with worm-contaminated food to eat. They’ve experienced guards shouting orders and snatching toys from small hands. They’ve spent hours in line for a single pill and been unable to obtain appropriate or adequate medical care.
Children Being Bombed
It is unlikely that this administration would ever deliberately bomb children.
However, Jesus calls us to CARE about children, and this administration has shown a careless and callous indifference to the suffering and lives of children.
165 died when a U.S. missile hit an Iranian school for girls. The school was targeted based on obsolete information. Historic satellite imagery shows that, while the school’s building was once part of the wider IRGC complex, it has been walled off from the barracks for at least nine years. It has had clear visual indications that it is an educational facility, including colourful murals on the walls and small sports playing fields.The special Pentagon office to prevent the accidental targeting of civilians was scaled back by 90% by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, who has criticized "stupid rules of engagement," and said such rules interfere with winning.
The Trump administration, perhaps the only entity in the world with a capacity to influence Benjamin Netanyahu, made no effort to hold back Israel from the indiscriminate bombings that have taken place in Gaza in the past few years in violation of international agreements about the rules of engagement. The Trump administration has instead continued U.S. complicity through weapons sales (note: the Biden administration also participated in weapons sales to Israel while the indiscriminate bombing was occurring). Estimates are that somewhere between 20,000 and 64,000 children have been killed, and at least 20,000 more are permanently disabled. According to Unicef, “International humanitarian law is clear: …. to ensure the full protection of the lives of all civilians…. The principles of distinction, proportionality and precaution must guide all military actions and civilians …. must always be protected.”
Family Separations
The callous indifference of President Trump to the welfare of children was already evident in his first administration, when approximately 5,500 immigrant children were separated from their parents.
These separations were done without any strategy for eventually reuniting the children with their families. As of 2025, approximately 1000 children were still separated, with no clear pathway to reunification.
A 2018 study referenced in Wikipedia looked at “the impact of parent-child separation and child detention on the mental health and development of children. The author interviewed parents and children who had experienced separation and reported that the separation of the children from their parents together with a background of chronic and acute adversity has created a "perfect storm for attachment damage, toxic stress and trauma". The author mentioned “complex patterns of protective responses that can include hyperarousal—hypervigilance, agitation, flashbacks and emotional reactivity, or hypoarousal—dissociative responses, emotional numbing (self-harm may be used as a tool to 'feel alive'), passive compliance and poor access to cognitive functioning". The study's findings suggested "serious health challenges and risks for lifelong mental illness in children".
During the period of the family separations, Pramila Jayapal visited a detention center where some of the mothers were being held. According to Jayapal, “not a single one of them had been allowed to say goodbye or explain to them what was happening." The mothers reported being told by some Border Patrol agents that "their families don't exist anymore.”
President Trump’s indifference toward the suffering of children under the separation policy was further confirmed by his recent appointment of Tom Homan as so-called “border tzar.” Homan was Director of ICE at the time of the separation policy and responsible for its implementation.
More on the Impact of USAID cuts
Kristof made additional visits in June 2025 to USAID locations, and confirmed the extent of the tragedy through what he learned and witnessed. Click Here for more on-the-ground reporting on the impact of the Trump Administration’s gutting of USAID.
The medical journal The Lancet published a study in July 2025 with a retrospective on the impact of USAID on reducing child mortality over the past 2 decades, and an assessment of the impact of the cuts. This assessment evaluates that by the end of 2025 there will have been hundreds of thousands of deaths of children under the age of five, and between 4 and 5 million excess deaths in that age group over the next five years. Click here to read the study.
In September, Kristof again visited locations in Africa and reported back on the impact of USAID funding cuts. From Uganda he observed and discussed with the victims the impact of the withdrawn funding, including the accelerating toll in child deaths. Read here for personal stories of tragic child deaths, as well as Kristof’s larger assessment of the situation on the ground. Estimates from multiple credible sources are now in the hundreds of thousands of child deaths this year alone, with that toll accelerating.
In the same article, Kristof addresses the hope of many Americans that these cuts will at least be saving us money. He points out that a June 3, 2025 State Department memo, headed “sensitive but unclassified,” says that the shutdown of USAID will “cost taxpayers $6.4 billion over two years” for the management of “litigation, claims, residual payments and closeout activities.” He also points out that the government is paying $10,000 per day, ($600,00 so far this year), for storage facilities in the U.S. for 300,000 cases of inexpensive lifesaving peanut-based nutritional packets that could make all the difference for starving children.
“88 children dying each hour of Trump’s second term because of his aid policy.”
More from Kristof on the impact of the USAID cuts in particular on girls and women.
Is this how Jesus wants us to treat children?
In seeking to help children around the world have better, healthier lives through the work of USAID, our country was aligned with something that Jesus cared about and highlighted during his ministry on this earth.