Erika Kirk—widow of slain Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, current CEO, and the right’s hottest new culture war avatar—has a theological assessment of Americans protesting ICE raids that have torn families apart and left at least one woman dead: they’re “demonic.”
WHAT’S GOING ON: Kirk launched her “Make Heaven Crowded” (what?) religious revival tour Wednesday at a California megachurch, where she took a break from Christian unity messaging to weigh in on the nationwide anti-ICE protests.
Her verdict? Satanic influence, obviously.
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“I can’t even believe I’m saying their names in a church,” she joked about mentioning Rachel Maddow and Jimmy Kimmel, before declaring that people in the streets demanding the government stop ripping apart immigrant communities are doing the devil’s work.
THE DETAILS: In a move that takes some real audacity, Kirk actually co-opted language from the protest movement itself.
She referenced the “3.5% rule”—the research-backed idea that sustained nonviolent protest by 3.5% of a population can force political change—then flipped it to argue that her late husband’s 100,000-person memorial service represents the good version of mass mobilization.
“You showed the difference of when 3.5% of this nation rises up and prays for this nation,” she told the crowd, “compared to the other side of what they think can change this nation but actually destroy it.”
BUT BUT BUT: The anti-ICE protests Kirk is calling “demonic” erupted after ICE agents shot and killed a woman in Minneapolis during an enforcement operation. They used a 5-year-old as bait to lure the rest of his family out of their home. Demonstrators have occupied churches—traditionally places of sanctuary—to protect immigrants from deportation.
But sure, the people forming human chains around their neighbors are the spiritually corrupted ones, not the armed federal agents executing illegal raids that separate parents from children.
OF COURSE: Kirk delivered this message while protesters gathered outside the very church where she spoke. The tour will hit 30+ cities, presumably bringing this “immigrants’ defenders are satanic” message to megachurches nationwide under the banner of Christian love.
WHY IT MATTERS: This is Christian nationalism doing what it does best: blessing state violence with religious legitimacy while casting resistance as spiritual warfare against God himself. When you frame ICE raids as holy and opposition as demonic, you’re not just disagreeing with protesters—you’re placing government immigration enforcement beyond moral criticism. It’s a neat trick: wrap authoritarian policy in scripture, and suddenly questioning it becomes heresy.
BOTTOM LINE: Erika Kirk is telling millions of Christians that the appropriate response to federal agents killing people and destroying families is prayer and revival tours—not protest. That’s not theology. That’s propaganda with a worship band.