The shared immigration story of Jesus, Mary, Joseph, Donald and Melania

At this time of year, if he wanted to so do, Donald Trump could use one of his many public appearances to tell his family’s Jesus, Mary and Joseph story.

He also could take a moment to tell the Jesus, Mary and Joseph story of his wife, Melania.

Every family in the United States has experienced some variation of that story, the one that appears in the Bible (Matthew 2:13-14), the one that goes:

“After they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, ‘Get up, take the child and his mother and flee to Egypt, and stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to look for the child to kill him.’ Then he got up, took the child and his mother during the night, and went to Egypt.”

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In one way or another, in this generation or generations ago, every American family has lived a version of that story.

Trump’s has. Melania’s has.

But that is not the story Trump tells.

These days, Trump says if he becomes president again he will initiate a program to round up undocumented people in the United States by the millions.

He told a gathering in Iowa, “Following the Eisenhower model, we will carry out the largest domestic deportation operation in American history.”

He is referring to a 1954 operation to deport Mexican immigrants, which was named with the ethnic slur “Operation Wetback.”

Chain migration helped Trump's family

Trump has railed against America’s immigration laws, saying things like, “The people that are sent to our country are not the people that we want. They come in through the lottery, they come in through chain migration.”

Trump’s grandfather, from Germany, was welcomed into the United States that way. He was sponsored by a sister.

Trump’s father married an immigrant from Scotland. Trump’s first wife, Ivana, was an immigrant from Czechoslovakia.

His current wife, Melania, is from Slovenia. There have been questions over the years about whether Melania followed all the rules while seeking to remain in the U.S. and whether she was given special treatment to remain here.

Once a citizen, however, she was able to sponsor her parents, Viktor and Amalija Knavas, by way of the immigration process that Trump’s derisively refers to as “chain migration.”

He criticizes others for what his family did

It is not always easy or comfortable for migrants.

The story goes that Trump’s father, Fred, eschewed his German roots and claimed to be Swedish in the days following World War II in order to avoid presumed difficulties with Jewish customers in his real estate business.

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Trump himself claimed to be Swedish in his 1987 book “Art of the Deal.”

This was noted when Trump was calling Sen. Elizabeth Warren “Pocahontas” and saying, “I think what most people find offensive is Elizabeth Warren lying about her heritage to advance her career.”

Trump is like the unwelcoming innkeeper

Given all that, and with a rich heritage he shares with other Americans, Donald Trump, at this time of year, could tell his family’s Jesus, Mary and Joseph story.

He could tell the Jesus, Mary and Joseph story of his wife, Melania.

But he doesn’t.

The story of Jesus, Mary and Joseph does not suit Trump’s ambitions. It does not resonate with the people who would vote for him, who choose to ignore their own Jesus, Mary and Joseph stories.

So Trump, as president, would not be the man who offers the family of weary migrants a place in the stable.

He would be man who tells them there is no room at the inn.

Reach Montini at ed.montini@arizonarepublic.com.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Immigration tale: Jesus, Mary, Joseph, Donald and Melania Trump