(RNS) — As chaos has unfolded in Minneapolis over the past several days, culminating in the killing of Alex Pretti, conservative Christian commentators have naturally taken up the mantle of the real problem: what the women are posting on Instagram.
“On Instagram, it’s 2020 all over again,” Allie Beth Stuckey bemoaned on X. “Women, including many, many Christian women, are being completely duped by the anti-ICE propaganda.”
Stuckey, the author of “Toxic Empathy,” wants us to redirect our attention and our sympathy. Consequently, she has been on a tear of posting horrific, gut-wrenching stories of crimes committed by undocumented immigrants in the U.S. — children murdered, women raped — because she fears that the right is losing the “PR war.”
She seems especially distressed by the outrage that I have seen on my own social media feeds about the detaining of a 5-year-old boy in Minneapolis, Liam Conejo Ramos, calling the story a “debunked lie” and taking umbrage with Phil Vischer’s post below.
Going after the worst of the worst. pic.twitter.com/DH7Th89Zgh
— Phil Vischer (@philvischer) January 24, 2026
But Stuckey seems incapable of explaining what exactly about this case she finds to be a “lie.” Was a preschooler not detained? With his family, Liam legally sought asylum in this country in 2024. Multiple witnesses have attested to ICE agents refusing to allow the child to stay with his pregnant mother. This child is currently being held separately from his father at a detention facility in Dilley, Texas, where hundreds of children have been held beyond court-mandated limits and families have cited profound problems related to basic needs like access to safe food and water.
The “facts don’t care about your feelings” crowd seems to be actually quite focused on feelings right now and uninterested in facts (like that undocumented immigrants are arrested at less than half the rate of native-born U.S. citizens for violent and drug crimes or that as immigration rates have increased within the U.S. over the past 40 years, crime rates have decreased). But the feelings they are focused on are their own.
Dems are winning the media war in Minneapolis. Republicans have played decent defense, but we need more stories and images showing the professionalism and compassion of ICE and border patrol, as well as stories/images of the victims of illegal alien violence
— Allie Beth Stuckey (@conservmillen) January 24, 2026
“More stories and images showing the professionalism and compassion of ICE and border patrol,” as Stuckey calls for, sounds suspiciously like a ploy to help the women of Instagram put themselves in the position of these agents. Empathy strikes again!
I don’t believe that Stuckey thinks all empathy is toxic — she’d simply like to decide who is worthy of our empathy and direct us accordingly. It should be no surprise that this mindset stems back to a reading of Scripture that is filtered through the lens of Christian nationalism.
As Brad Onishi recently pointed out,