Stephen Colbert soberly smacks down Jeff Sessions for separating families, using the Bible to justify it

(Image credit: Screenshot/YouTube/The Late Show)

last updated 15 June 2018

Normally, Stephen Colbert said on Thursday's Late Show, he makes jokes about news stories "everybody's already talking about. ... But this story is different, because this is the conversation everybody should be having." Under the new policy by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, more than 1,300 migrant children have been taken from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border. "Now, if that sounds evil, then good news: Your ears are working," Colbert said. The "bad news" is that Americans "are putting up with our government saying to immigrants, 'If you come to the United States, the worst thing imaginable will happen to you: We will take your children away from you with no guarantee you'll see them again.'"

"Now clearly, no decent human being could defend that, so Jeff Sessions did," Colbert said, and Sessions cited the Bible as backup. "I will give Sessions this: That is what Romans 13:1 says: You've got to have laws," he added. "But if he had just read a little bit further, into Romans 13:10, it says: 'Love your neighbor as yourself. Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.' But I'm not surprised Sessions didn't read the whole thing. After all, Jesus said, 'Suffer the children to come unto me,' but I'm pretty sure all Sessions saw was the words 'children' and 'suffer' and said, 'I'm on it!'"

The Trump administration is storing these kids in abandoned Walmarts and building "tent cities" on military bases, "but it wouldn't matter if you took these children to really nice hotels, or Trump hotels, we'd still be the only country in the whole damn world doing it, because it's just plain wrong," Colbert said. "So for Father's Day, call your elected representatives and demand they do something. Because I sincerely believe that it doesn't matter who you voted for — if we let this happen in our names, we are a feckless country." Peter Weber

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.