What Does It Mean to Say Jesus Was a Refugee?

On December 25, 2019, then-presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg tweeted a Christmas message celebrating "the arrival of divinity on earth, who came into this world not in riches but in poverty, not as a citizen but as a refugee." A few weeks earlier, the Claremont United Methodist Church in Southern California unveiled their annual Nativity scene, depicting the Holy Family separated and caged at the border. A year before that, the United Church of Christ released a new Christmas yard sign specifically in support of current refugees, adorned with the words: "This Christmas, we remember that Jesus was a refugee."