A progressive church in Indianapolis is exploiting the illegal immigration crisis to full effect in a disturbing outdoor display.

Christ Church Cathedral in downtown Indianapolis, Indiana, is showing a life-size display of the Holy Family — Jesus, Mary and Joseph — incarcerated inside a chain-link fence, in an aim to rebuke the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy on illegal immigration.

Last month, President Donald Trump signed an executive order ending the policy, which separated minors from their illegal alien parents or other adults. 
Illegal immigrants separated from their kids after being arrested are now being asked to choose between being deported alone or with their children — a detail the Indianapolis parish has conveniently and pointedly ignored.

“We’re hoping to draw attention to the fact that indefinite family detention is wrong, and that this Holy Family, this family that were refugees seeking asylum in Egypt, are representative of every family in detention,” said the Rev. Curtis Lee, who serves at the progressive church, according to Faithwire.

Lee’s claims that members of the Holy Family were like modern-day refugees is hyperbole at best. During Herod’s time, Egypt and Israel were both part of the Roman Empire, which meant that citizens could come and go as they pleased provided they paid taxes.

Sadly, Lee is peddling a narrative straight from the progressive playbook, which affirms open borders and disregards the rule of law.

“This church is doing a great injustice to the community by oversimplifying the immigration issue and grossly misrepresenting what is actually happening on a daily basis,” David Ray, communications director at FAIR (the Federation of Immigration Reform), based in Washington, D.C., told LifeZette.

“Is this church saying — by this display — that anyone who enters the U.S. illegally with a child should be allowed to enter without any ramifications? That makes children a shield for would-be human traffickers against arrest and entices others to follow suit,” Ray also said.

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Amid this parish’s irresponsible display, Ray set the record straight.

“In nearly all of these cases, these are adults who have knowingly and willingly violated federal law, and the parents are being held accountable for their crime,” he noted. “The open borders mentality messaged by this church would also allow easy entry for criminal aliens, would-be terrorists, and narcotics traffickers.

Ray said that according to Border Patrol authorities, “in many cases, these are actually adults who have kidnapped children and are posing as a family, hoping to be quickly released … Only by apprehending and separating these kids from the adults they are with can we verify if a biological relationship exists or if this is actually child trafficking and human smuggling.”

And don’t let the photos fool you, warned Ray.

“They are being held in a shelter until a safe, permanent home can be found for them.”

“Pictures claim to speak a thousand words, but are they the correct thousand words?” he said. “They certainly don’t explain that in the case of the photos that are circulating of children in detention, some date from the Obama administration. The vast majority of children — nearly 85 percent — arrived in the U.S. alone. They are being held in a shelter until a safe, permanent home can be found for them.”

Such are the facts that the Rev. Lee conveniently omits.

Elizabeth Economou is a former CNBC staff writer and adjunct professor. Follow her on Twitter.

(photo credit, homepage and article: AP/WRTV, YouTube)