“My prayer is that President Trump will heed the voices of evangelical Christians and restore the U.S. refugee resettlement program, a longstanding, lawful immigration process that protects persecuted Christians and others fleeing persecution,” Greene added.
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On his first day in office, Trump signed an executive order putting a 90-day freeze on the U.S. refugee resettlement program. On Jan. 24, refugee resettlement organizations were instructed by the U.S. State Department to “stop all work” under the grant agreement that provides resources to resettle newly arrived refugees.
“Several of the immigration-related executive orders of the past two weeks have sent a chill up the spine of Latino evangelical churches,” said Gabriel Salguero, president of the National Latino Evangelical Coalition. “As this new polling shows, Latino evangelicals—like evangelicals as a whole—support the deportation of those convicted of violent crimes, but the prioritization of other immigrants for deportation…is unpopular with the vast majority of evangelical Christians.”
“Eighty-five percent of Latino evangelicals and 74 percent of evangelicals of all ethnicities want undocumented immigrants to be able to earn citizenship if they meet appropriate qualifications,” Salguero said. “The administration and Members of Congress in both parties would be cheered by evangelicals if, rather than employing divisive rhetoric and terrifying policies, they would do the hard work of passing these long overdue immigration reforms.”
Walter Kim, president of the National Association of Evangelicals, said, “Evangelical Christians believe that marriage and family are gifts instituted by God for human flourishing and are foundational for vibrant communities.”
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“No society that deliberately breaks up families—whether of immigrants or citizens—can long prosper. More than 90% of evangelicals support immigration reform policies that protect the unity of the immediate family,” said Kim. “A sound pro-family policy can maintain national security and offer alternatives to deportation for mixed status families and legal channels for refugees and immigrants to reunite.”
