(RNS) — Jalil Dawood, pastor of the Arabic Church of Dallas, thanks God every day for the U.S. government’s refugee resettlement program, which helped him settle in the United States after he fled persecution during the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s. Dawood, who said the program reflects the best of American values, believes he has President Ronald Reagan to thank for helping to change the course of his life.
“Ronald Reagan helped me make it to America,” Dawood said.
On Friday, (Jan. 24) the Trump administration halted the current resettlement program for refugees, who are legal immigrants who have been vetted by the government, many of them after awaiting resettlement for years. A previous order put a stop to all new arrivals of refugees for the next 90 days.
That is a mistake, said Dawood, an evangelical Christian who holds graduate degrees from Dallas Theological Seminary and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He voted for Donald Trump three times.
Dawood, founder of World Refugee Care, a small Texas nonprofit that provides spiritual and humanitarian support for refugees in the United States and the Middle East, said he understands the president’s concerns about national security. But the refugee resettlement program is not a danger, he said. Instead, it’s a way for the United States to help religious minorities and others facing persecution around the world.
“There a lot of persecuted Christians,” said Dawood, whose group does not receive any federal funds. Saying he believes the Bible tells Christians to be compassionate to refugees, he added, “There is a real need, and America needs to bless those people, bring them in or help them so they might start a new life,” he said. “God will bless America for that. And that’s my concern.”
Since the start of the federal fiscal year on Oct. 1, 2024, more than 32,000 refugees have arrived in the United States, as well as an additional 10,000 Afghans with special visas. They are all entitled to 90 days of housing and other basic support to help them resettle in the United States, find employment and enroll their children in school.
Danilo Zak, director of policy at Church World Service, a faith-based refugee resettlement agency that contracts with the federal government to resettle refugees, said that in the week before Trump’s inauguration alone, more than 5,000 refugees and 1,000 Afghans on Special Immigrant Visas were resettled across the country.
The administration then canceled flights that were supposed to bring in refugees before the Jan. 27 pause. Then it ordered a halt to all assistance for those already here.
“That’s just cruel and heartless,” said the Rev. Randy Carter, pastor of Temple Baptist Church in Durham, North Carolina, and the interim director of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of North Carolina’s Welcome Network, which provides temporary housing to refugees and others. “They’re telling them not to treat them anymore as clients, not to spend more to assist them getting resettled into the United States.”
Carter said he plans to encourage the 60 or so churches in the Welcome Network to make a grant to the refugee agencies it works with to supplement whatever funds the government may be abruptly ending.
Matt Soerens, vice president of advocacy and policy at World Relief, the humanitarian arm of the National Association of Evangelicals, said that faith-based refugee resettlement groups, including World Relief, had expected Trump to put limits on the number of refugees allowed in the United States, as he did in his first term. Those past limits led resettlement groups to lay off staff and close offices, essentially crippling the public-private partnerships that make resettlement work in the United States.
