Some evangelical groups criticized executive order that privileges Christian refugees over Muslim ones, despite majority of followers voting for president

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

Evangelical leaders are asking Donald Trump to reconsider his refugee ban, joining other Christian groups in arguing that welcoming refugees is an essential part of their faith.

The leader of a prominent US evangelical aid group said Trump’s move to give Christian refugees priority was wrong.

“We oppose any religions test that would place the suffering of one people over another,” said Scott Arbeiter, president of World Relief, the humanitarian arm of the National Association of Evangelicals.

Trump travel ban: president defends order amid worldwide controversy – live Read more

Other Christian leaders also came out strongly against the notion that the US should prioritize Christian refugees, which Trump said in an interview he wanted to do and which the executive order he signed on Friday couched in terms of preferring religious minorities from the seven Muslim-majority countries concerned.

“We need to protect all our brothers and sisters of all faiths, including Muslims, who have lost family, home and country,” Bishop Joe S Vásquez of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops said in a statement on Friday.

Church World Service, an aid group organized by mainstream Protestant churches, “denounces the prioritization of Christian refugees over Muslim refugees”, said Sarah Krause, a senior director at the group’s refugee program.

“We are called on by our faith to love the stranger,” she added. “To do anything other than that is in violation of our Christian principles.”



US travel ban - a brief guide The executive order signed by Donald Trump suspends the entire US refugee admissions system, already one of the most rigorous in the world, for 120 days. It also suspends the Syrian refugee program indefinitely, and bans entry to the US to people from seven majority-Muslim countries – Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen – for 90 days. The order has prompted a series of legal challenges, while thousands of Americans have protested outside airports and courthouses in solidarity with Muslims and migrants.

Even the chief executive of Open Doors USA, a branch of an international organization that advocates for persecuted Christians, was critical.

“President Trump rightly recognizes the incredible rise in persecution of Christians,” David Curry said in a statement. “However, cherry-picking one religion over another only exacerbates the already severe worldwide trend of religious persecution.

“We encourage a need-based approach that treats all faiths equally and works toward the comprehensive strengthening of religious freedom around the world.”

More than other faith groups, white evangelicals voted overwhelmingly for Trump. Eight in 10 cast a vote for him, according to exit poll data – support the president has touted proudly.

Last week, evangelicals praised Trump for reinstating the global gag rule that prevents US-funded aid groups from providing information about abortion. But some groups said the executive order halting refugee resettlement was unnecessary.



“The US refugee resettlement program’s screening process is already extremely thorough,” a group of evangelical leaders wrote in a letter on Sunday to Trump and Vice-President Mike Pence. “We believe that our nation can continue to be both compassionate and secure.”

A whirlwind week: Trump's first 14 official presidential actions Read more

The leaders asked the president to resume the US refugee resettlement program “immediately”.

The letter was signed by the president of the National Association of Evangelicals, which represents more than 45,000 churches; the president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference; the nation’s largest Latino evangelical group; and the leaders of several major evangelical refugee and aid groups.

“It would be a mistake [to think that] because an evangelical voted for Donald Trump, they will support all of his positions,” Arbeiter said.

Opposition to Trump’s refugee ban is, however, not universal among evangelical Christians. The Rev Franklin Graham, son of the influential evangelist Billy Graham, defended the ban in a statement to the Guardian.

“I believe that all people coming from other countries need to be completely vetted,” he said. “We need to be sure their philosophies related to freedom and liberty are in line with ours.

“Sharia law, for instance, is ultimately incompatible with the constitution of this nation. I support safe zones in the countries where refugees can flee and find protection. This is much safer than them trying to cross the sea, risking their lives. Let’s take the help to them.”



A survey conducted in September found that only one in five committed Christians reported they were regularly praying for Syrian refugees.

Fellow white evangelicals: your votes for Trump shook my faith | Sam Thielman Read more

“It’s disappointing to see America’s heart closing to refugees,” Richard Stearns, president of World Vision, the evangelical aid group that commissioned the study, said in a statement last month. “This is not the compassionate and generous nation I know we truly are. And it’s shocking that Christians, who are held to a higher standard by our Lord, are praying even less for refugees.”

Arbeiter said evangelicals who supported Trump’s order probably did not understand how rigorously refugees to the US are vetted.

“Evangelicals, like many other groups, are a bit conflicted,” he said. “On the one hand, they see the world as a dangerous place. Rightly so. And on the other hand, they know that the call of Jesus throughout our Christian history has been to do to others as we would have done to ourselves.”

Americans watching news coverage of refugees from Syria and elsewhere streaming into Europe could easily feel overwhelmed, he said. “We would rightly say that’s a security nightmare. How do you know who’s in what boat?”

But the reality, Arbeiter said, is “no refugee can choose to come to America. They must be chosen.”

Three million refugees have been admitted to the US since the resettlement program began in 1980, and over nearly 40 years “no American life has ever been lost in a terrorist act by a refugee”, Arbeiter said.

The Cato Institute has estimated the risk of an American citizen being killed by a refugee to be 1 in 3.64bn. Trump’s executive order, Arbeiter said, seemed like “an answer that’s bigger than the questions”.

“We are all for careful security,” he said, “but we think that we have targeted the wrong group of people for these extraordinary measures.”

Most of the nine major refugee resettlement organizations who work with the federal government are affiliated with faith groups. World Relief works with a thousand churches and tens of thousands of volunteers, Arbeiter said. Church World Service helped resettle about 10% of the nearly 90,000 refugees who came to the US last year.

The Muslim ban has brought the US close to constitutional crisis | Trevor Timm Read more

For the many Christian organizations working at the frontlines of the refugee crisis, Trump’s executive order was a devastating blow.



“The executive order was signed during Holocaust remembrance week,” said Krause, the senior director at Church World Service. “It was a time we had said, ‘Never again,’ and yet here we are.”

In Kenya, a group of refugees working with Church World Service gave up shelter in a refugee camp and sold all their possessions in preparation for finally being admitted to the US, Krause said. Trump’s order may mean they will be forced to go back to the camp with nothing, she said.

A majority of Protestants and white Catholics also supported Trump, according to early exit poll data analyzed by the Pew Research Center.

Arbeiter, the president of World Relief, said allowing refugees into the country was not a partisan issue: “For us, it is first a biblical issue, and then it’s a human issue.”

The group has organized a petition to galvanize support for refugees among churches, but it is not planning on holding any protests.

“We’re trying to call people to pray and to contact their elected officials to make their views known,” Arbeiter said.