“He did not remember to show kindness, but pursued the poor and needy and the brokenhearted.”

That line from Scripture reads like a modern indictment.

It describes a style of power the country is watching again: authority exercised without restraint, policy stripped of compassion and enforcement elevated above human consequence.

President Donald Trump has made aggressive immigration enforcement a defining feature of his leadership. ICE, acting under that direction, has been expanded, emboldened and politically defended as its operations grow more forceful and violent. The message from the top has been consistent: harshness is strength, mercy is weakness and criticism is disloyalty.

Scripture rejects that logic.

It does not measure leadership by how feared it becomes or how loudly it asserts control. It measures leadership by whether kindness is remembered and whether the vulnerable are protected rather than hunted.

The psalm does not condemn weakness. It condemns cruelty.

“He loved to curse. He did not delight in blessing.”

That is what happens when rhetoric turns people into threats and policy turns neighbors into targets. It is what happens when human beings are reduced to statistics, headlines or political tools. The machinery of government keeps moving, but conscience is left behind.

Supporters of President Trump and ICE argue that the law must be enforced. No serious society disputes that. But law without restraint becomes punishment for its own sake. Order without accountability becomes intimidation. Authority without compassion becomes something darker than governance.

The psalmist speaks from the position of the powerless: poor, exhausted, publicly scorned and treated as disposable. That voice still exists in this country. It belongs to families who live in fear of raids, to workers who avoid hospitals, to children who learn early that uniforms can mean danger, not safety.

It also belongs to communities forced to absorb the damage when enforcement becomes theater and toughness becomes policy.

Scripture does not promise that such power will last. It offers a different alignment:

“He stands at the right hand of the needy one, to save him from those who condemn his soul to death.”

Not at the right hand of presidents.

Not at the right hand of agencies.

At the right hand of the needy.

That is the moral claim.

History will not only record how many arrests were made or how loudly authority was asserted. It will record who was harmed, who was silenced and who was treated as expendable in the process.

President Trump may call his approach strength. ICE may call its tactics necessary. But Scripture calls leadership something else entirely.

It calls it kindness remembered.

And when that is forgotten, no amount of power can make the result just.