(Picture supply: Jorge Salcedo/Shutterstock)
“I used to say, ‘I’m a Republican – no ifs, ands, or buts,’” stated Summer season (pseudonyms used all through this text), an evangelical Christian who runs a meals pantry for resettled refugees within the Midwest. “Now, I don’t even know what I’m,” she laughed. Summer season began volunteering with a faith-based refugee resettlement company over a decade in the past. She has since helped to arrange residences for brand new arrivals, offered transportation to grocery shops and medical doctors’ appointments, and taught English to resettled refugees. Now, she runs the resettlement company’s meals pantry program, which offers culturally applicable groceries for upwards of 60 households per 30 days.
Recalling the array of anti-immigrant insurance policies enacted in the course of the first Trump presidential administration, she mirrored, “I didn’t agree with how Trump was treating the immigrants, however then, I had mates that have been like ‘nicely, he’s doing an excellent factor’ that go to the identical church that I do.”
Summer season says her expertise with resettled refugees has modified the way in which that she thinks about immigration. “I grew up in a white city, a small city,” she defined. “Numerous white Christians keep in their very own bubble, they usually lose the empathy for folks totally different than them as a result of they isolate.” However after constructing relationships with resettled households from Sudan, Myanmar, and Cuba, Summer season couldn’t ignore the results of Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric and insurance policies on the lives of her immigrant mates—insurance policies that sowed worry, stoked xenophobia, and additional marginalized many, resembling Muslim immigrants.
When Donald Trump ran once more for president in 2020, Summer season reconsidered her vote, and located that her political beliefs differed considerably from shut household and mates: “They’re like, ‘nicely, you’ve obtained to vote Republican’—and I’m like, ‘No, you don’t. You’ve obtained to consider every little thing, the [candidate], and what precisely they’re standing for.’”
Whereas some American evangelical teams have welcomed refugees and different immigrants for a long time, current years have seen a hardening of political opinion on immigration within the U.S., with white evangelicals persistently polling because the demographic with essentially the most restrictive and destructive views. In 2016, almost 81 p.c of white evangelicals voted for Donald Trump, a candidate synonymous with xenophobic rhetoric and restrictive immigration insurance policies. Exit polling means that former President Trump obtained comparable ranges of electoral assist from this demographic once more in 2024. But throughout the nation, evangelical Christians like Summer season work to assist asylum seekers, welcome immigrants into their communities, and resettle refugees. These welcoming actions, typically undertaken at important price to volunteers’ personal time or monetary assets, quietly complicate homogenous xenophobic characterizations of American evangelicalism and divisive nationwide politics.
Since 2016, I’ve interviewed over 50 evangelical Christians who volunteer or are employed with refugee resettlement actions. What I’ve discovered is that though the Biblical directive to “welcome the stranger” is evident, American evangelicals differ on what it seems wish to obey this command right this moment—and precisely who ought to be answerable for offering this “welcome.” In addition they wrestle with how their religion ought to have an effect on their politics, typically coming to divergent conclusions about the way to weigh their experiences with immigrants as they formulate their political beliefs about immigration coverage.
***
America has traditionally hosted the most important refugee resettlement program on the planet, working with the United Nations’ refugee company to resettle a few of the world’s most susceptible refugees. Though refugee resettlement has loved relative ranges of assist amongst most Individuals because the Eighties, the U.S. resettlement program turned more and more politicized within the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election.
Following the onset of the Syrian Civil Struggle in 2011, the variety of folks forcibly displaced by battle around the globe soared to record-breaking heights. By 2014, worldwide information media was heralding a world “refugee disaster,” as hundreds of refugees from North Africa and the Jap Mediterranean sought passage to Europe in quest of security. In response, President Obama introduced in September 2015 that the US would broaden that yr’s resettlement admissions ceiling to incorporate 10,000 extra Syrian refugees.
In November 2015, a gaggle of terrorists, a few of whom entered the European Union falsely claiming to be Syrian refugees, perpetrated a devastating assault in Paris. Inside days of the assault, 31 U.S. governors declared that their states wouldn’t settle for Syrian refugees. Then-candidate Donald Trump seized on the prospect to advance his anti-immigrant marketing campaign rhetoric, characterizing Syrian refugees as a “nice Malicious program” and casting aspersions on the safety of the refugee vetting course of. A mere seven days after his 2016 presidential inauguration, President Trump issued a sequence of govt orders geared toward halting the refugee resettlement program and curbing immigration from seven Muslim-majority nations.
The so-called “Muslim Ban” sparked instant controversy. Inside hours, protests towards the ban erupted in airports and main U.S. cities. Authorized challenges to its implementation started instantly as advocacy teams filed fits towards the administration to halt the order. Two days after the ban’s announcement, leaders of distinguished evangelical teams such because the Nationwide Affiliation of Evangelicals, the Wesleyan Church, and World Imaginative and prescient, amongst others, wrote an open letter to President Trump and Vice President Pence asking that the administration “rethink” the coverage, “permitting for resettlement of refugees to renew instantly.” Regardless of such pushback, Pew Analysis discovered that 76 p.c of white evangelical Protestants accepted of the ban, greater than every other socio-religious group. In the meantime, 59 p.c of Individuals opposed the ban.
But the Muslim Ban was not welcomed as a political victory by all evangelicals. As a substitute, many evangelicals responded by in search of to study extra about refugees to the US, what occurs as soon as they arrive, and the way to welcome them. World Reduction, a nationwide evangelical resettlement company, reported over 6,000 new volunteer purposes in 2017 alone. Jenny Yang, the group’s former Vice President of Advocacy and Coverage, described this “overwhelming response” because of “folks needing to behave regionally in response to the worldwide refugee disaster.”
Different evangelical resettlement efforts skilled an analogous surge in curiosity. I spoke with Naomi, a volunteer coordinator at an area evangelical group in Kentucky that supplied post-resettlement assist to refugees. She recalled the tumultuous political atmosphere of 2016, explaining that her group had skilled an uptick in destructive suggestions through on-line feedback and telephone calls in the course of the election season. Native detractors, a lot of them evangelicals, questioned why a Christian group would spend money and time to welcome refugees from “Muslim nations” to their metropolis.
But after the January 2017 Muslim Ban, the group started to expertise a big improve in donations and volunteer curiosity from evangelical church buildings and people. “The Ban itself is a horrible factor,” Naomi stated, however “we’ve had much more folks desirous to get entangled [in resettlement work].” She understood this shift to be a results of elevated consciousness about world displacement amongst evangelicals in her city: “[The] refugee disaster is extra within the media, folks have discovered extra about [refugees] they usually’re simply extra empathetic towards refugees, in order that they’re extra keen to provide in the direction of causes that assist.”
By the top of 2017, the group noticed 55 congregations and over 750 new volunteers throughout Kentucky get entangled in resettlement assist work. Nathan, the group’s director, considered this new volunteer curiosity as immediately associated to current assaults on refugees and the resettlement system throughout Trump’s first yr in workplace. “We didn’t count on it to be like that, this sort of explosion of volunteers and folks being keen to assist,” he defined. Looking back, he reasoned that the Trump administration’s polarizing rhetoric and anti-immigrant insurance policies, just like the Muslim Ban, had catalyzed extra evangelicals to get entangled with serving to immigrants of their native communities. “Now individuals are like, ‘Okay, I’ve to decide now on how I really feel about this, and I really feel like I have to take some motion.’” But in 2017, it remained unclear if this unprecedented outpouring of evangelical resettlement volunteerism would considerably affect white evangelicals’ electoral decisions or political conduct.
***
As evangelicals throughout the nation entered resettlement work to “take some motion,” as Nathan put it, many encountered the tough realities of resettlement for the primary time, a far cry from the primarily white, suburban, evangelical circles during which most reside. Many evangelicals I talked to discovered it difficult to replicate on their experiences in resettlement with out recounting how this work had shifted their views on immigration.
Some, like Summer season, have skilled a metamorphosis of their political beliefs after serving immigrants and refugees of their communities. Others, though moved to compassion, are reluctant to attach their experiences to any overt political stance.
Evelyn, an evangelical worker at a Christian resettlement non-profit in Illinois, shared her frustration that her household and mates have a “stigma” about immigrants. “I by no means actually obtained that, as a result of within the Bible there are such a lot of necessary figures that have been immigrants themselves, and refugees.”
Evelyn spends her days connecting refugee shoppers with employment alternatives and helps educate neighborhood members about resettlement. She shared that her religion values and a need to assist these in want motivated her work, and that she is pissed off by the dearth of empathy for immigrants in her evangelical neighborhood. As a substitute of their shared religion informing how her household and mates see immigrants, she feels that politics maintain sway as a substitute. “Actually, it’s [their] political view seeping into their religion. And that’s not the way it ought to be.”
Though many evangelicals like Evelyn see a transparent connection between the tenets of their Christian religion and their efforts to satisfy resettled refugees’ wants, few interpret the Biblical command to welcome the stranger as having implications for his or her political conduct.
When requested how her religion and resettlement experiences form her opinions on immigration coverage, she equivocated, saying as a substitute, “God himself just isn’t political. So why ought to I be political relating to that?”
(Picture supply: Adam McLane/Flickr)
Many evangelicals I talked to shared how their experiences with resettled refugees challenged them to rethink their earlier issues about immigration. Trevor, a self-identified evangelical and legislation enforcement skilled, volunteers usually with a faith-based refugee resettlement company in Iowa. “It’s fairly polarized, even right here,” he stated. “Even within the church circles, folks may be anti-refugee.” Reflecting on his volunteer expertise, Trevor says he started with a “superficial stage” of compassion. However as soon as he started to attach with refugees and study from their experiences, his idea of immigration developed from an summary understanding to 1 based mostly in witnessing the challenges of resettlement firsthand—“It was theoretical earlier than, [but] now it’s the true factor.”
Whereas Trevor believes Christians have an ethical accountability to welcome immigrants, he’s cautious of coverage adjustments that will search to considerably improve the variety of immigrants and refugees within the nation. Like many different evangelicals, he helps the concept of compassionate immigration coverage. “I’m my brother’s keeper,” he quotes, echoing comparable sentiments from dozens of others who spoke with me. However, as with many different evangelicals I met, Trevor stays undecided as to what this compassion ought to seem like in follow. “You’ve obtained to embrace your limits. You possibly can’t assist everyone on a regular basis,” he stated, referring to the resettlement program.
Different evangelicals oppose insurance policies that convey immigrants to the US however select to point out hospitality to newcomers to their native communities however, welcoming refugees regardless of, moderately than due to, their private politics. Rachel, a volunteer with an evangelical resettlement group in Illinois, was motivated to hitch resettlement efforts in her space following new waves of displaced folks from Ukraine and Afghanistan because of escalating conflicts in these nations between 2021 and 2022.
Regardless of her need to assist refugees displaced by these violent conflicts, Rachel instructed me that she has critical issues about safety within the immigrant admissions course of and needs to see “some form of, throttle—to regulate, [not] letting [just] anybody in, due to the implications to America, if only a billion folks determine they wish to reside right here.” She remained involved that the resettlement course of, particularly for Afghans arriving on humanitarian visas, doesn’t sufficiently vet the backgrounds and motivations of potential newcomers. “Simply because they [Afghan refugees] helped America, they should be an excellent individual […] that’s an inaccurate assumption,” she stated.
Regardless of reservations about resettlement coverage and issues about safety, she doesn’t consider her political beliefs ought to affect her interactions with immigrants, nor do they forestall her from working to welcome not too long ago arrived refugees as a volunteer. “I consider that no matter how [refugees] obtained right here, they’re right here. And they don’t seem to be simply in America. They’re in my city,” she defined (emphasis unique). She insisted that her politics don’t govern the crucial to point out hospitality to newcomers in Jesus’ title.
Rachel’s resolution to volunteer with refugees has garnered blended responses from her evangelical household and mates. “I haven’t had many individuals come out and say disparaging issues,” she says, however, “political feedback are made.” Her response? “I all the time return to the truth that these are human beings which are right here, no matter how they obtained right here.” Though emphasizing the humanity of resettled refugees, Rachel’s place sidesteps bigger political implications by specializing in individualized, native wants moderately than broader systemic causes or insurance policies.
Like Rachel, some evangelicals ignore the political implications of their work, as a substitute specializing in the bodily and “non secular” wants of refugees. Kate, an evangelical worker of a faith-based non-profit, instructed me that she was initially drawn to resettlement work as a result of she imagined that she would have the chance to “unfold the title of Jesus” amongst refugees who’re arriving in the US. Nonetheless, after studying extra in regards to the resettlement course of, she was fast to make clear that volunteers are usually not allowed to proselytize, which she outlined as “[saying] ‘for those who don’t consider what I consider, then I’m not going that can assist you,” As a substitute, Kate seeks to share her religion by “displaying love,” however eschews any type of overt evangelism or coercion in her work, saying that such an method wouldn’t be “Biblical” in any respect.
No matter how evangelicals make sense of their resettlement experiences, I discovered that few carry their convictions about immigration by means of to significant political motion or advocacy, as a substitute containing their experiences on the stage of private transformation moderately than political engagement. These evangelicals argue that it’s not the federal government however “the Church” (and “believers,” or evangelical Christians), who’re finest suited to welcome the stranger within the U.S. right this moment, no matter who wins an election.
Reuben, an evangelical pastor-turned-resettlement-entrepreneur, helps to run a post-resettlement assist group within the southeast United States. Reuben’s group works to “fill the gaps” within the federal resettlement program by offering long-term assist resembling vocational coaching, language and citizenship courses, and persevering with schooling to refugees. Throughout Trump’s first administration, his group grew considerably, working to welcome refugees into their native space regardless of important cuts to the resettlement system and restrictive federal immigration insurance policies.
Whereas Reuben and his volunteers are nicely conscious of the restrictions of the federal resettlement program and the Trump administration’s disruptive govt actions, the group’s ethos embodies a distinct response. Quite than advocate for higher or extra inclusive immigration and resettlement coverage, Reuben doesn’t consider the options lie in political motion—as a substitute, “the Church” ought to fill the hole. “There is no such thing as a one who’s higher geared up to point out hospitality and welcome than a [Christian] believer,” he argues. Echoing a standard chorus in evangelical theology, God has forgiven and “welcomed” folks into his family by means of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
On this view, resettlement companies, authorities packages, and immigration insurance policies shouldn’t in the end be answerable for welcoming immigrants and assembly the wants of resettled refugees—as a substitute, as a result of Christian believers have “themselves been welcomed by God,” Reuben and different evangelicals I talked to argue that it’s not primarily the accountability of the federal government or of federal packages to welcome the stranger; moderately, they interpret the Biblical directive to welcome the stranger as a command that has been given on to Christians. “We simply assume that they [government programs] don’t have the capability […] like a believer does,” Reuben explains.
***
In 2020, exit polls indicated sweeping assist for then-candidate Trump amongst white evangelicals, with someplace between 76 and 81 p.c casting their vote for the previous president. And in 2024, these ranges of electoral assist remained unchanged—almost 81 p.c of white evangelicals voted once more for President Trump, preliminary polls present. Regardless of pushback from some evangelical leaders and establishments, and a surge of white evangelicals curious about welcoming immigrants in the course of the first Trump administration, total white evangelical assist for Trump, and his exclusionary immigration insurance policies, stays excessive.
Quite than voting for politicians and insurance policies that will serve to raised “welcome the stranger,” evangelicals concerned in resettlement primarily select to translate their convictions, issues, and compassion about immigration points into particular person motion that takes the type of localized volunteer efforts.
This kind of resettlement work sometimes requires effort, a sacrifice of money and time, and a willingness to come across and empathize with people from totally different backgrounds. And evangelicals who work carefully with immigrants and refugees in these roles are fast to expound on how these encounters have modified their very own lives and views.
But even believers united by a shared religion and moved to take widespread motion within the type of native resettlement work arrive at conflicting conclusions about what the Biblical command to “welcome the stranger” ought to imply personally and politically. For a lot of white evangelicals, even profound private experiences with immigrants and refugees don’t seem like sufficient to sever their ties with anti-immigrant Republican Social gathering politics.
These variations level to the truth that appeals to widespread beliefs and even “Biblical directives” are usually not assured to mobilize evangelicals to behave on pro-immigrant politics or type a cohesive welcoming motion.
Emily Frazier is an assistant professor of human geography at Missouri State College. She researches and writes about refugee resettlement and faith-based humanitarianism in the US, and her work has been printed in a number of tutorial and public-facing retailers.
(Picture supply: Jorge Salcedo/Shutterstock)
“I used to say, ‘I’m a Republican – no ifs, ands, or buts,’” stated Summer season (pseudonyms used all through this text), an evangelical Christian who runs a meals pantry for resettled refugees within the Midwest. “Now, I don’t even know what I’m,” she laughed. Summer season began volunteering with a faith-based refugee resettlement company over a decade in the past. She has since helped to arrange residences for brand new arrivals, offered transportation to grocery shops and medical doctors’ appointments, and taught English to resettled refugees. Now, she runs the resettlement company’s meals pantry program, which offers culturally applicable groceries for upwards of 60 households per 30 days.
Recalling the array of anti-immigrant insurance policies enacted in the course of the first Trump presidential administration, she mirrored, “I didn’t agree with how Trump was treating the immigrants, however then, I had mates that have been like ‘nicely, he’s doing an excellent factor’ that go to the identical church that I do.”
Summer season says her expertise with resettled refugees has modified the way in which that she thinks about immigration. “I grew up in a white city, a small city,” she defined. “Numerous white Christians keep in their very own bubble, they usually lose the empathy for folks totally different than them as a result of they isolate.” However after constructing relationships with resettled households from Sudan, Myanmar, and Cuba, Summer season couldn’t ignore the results of Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric and insurance policies on the lives of her immigrant mates—insurance policies that sowed worry, stoked xenophobia, and additional marginalized many, resembling Muslim immigrants.
When Donald Trump ran once more for president in 2020, Summer season reconsidered her vote, and located that her political beliefs differed considerably from shut household and mates: “They’re like, ‘nicely, you’ve obtained to vote Republican’—and I’m like, ‘No, you don’t. You’ve obtained to consider every little thing, the [candidate], and what precisely they’re standing for.’”
Whereas some American evangelical teams have welcomed refugees and different immigrants for a long time, current years have seen a hardening of political opinion on immigration within the U.S., with white evangelicals persistently polling because the demographic with essentially the most restrictive and destructive views. In 2016, almost 81 p.c of white evangelicals voted for Donald Trump, a candidate synonymous with xenophobic rhetoric and restrictive immigration insurance policies. Exit polling means that former President Trump obtained comparable ranges of electoral assist from this demographic once more in 2024. But throughout the nation, evangelical Christians like Summer season work to assist asylum seekers, welcome immigrants into their communities, and resettle refugees. These welcoming actions, typically undertaken at important price to volunteers’ personal time or monetary assets, quietly complicate homogenous xenophobic characterizations of American evangelicalism and divisive nationwide politics.
Since 2016, I’ve interviewed over 50 evangelical Christians who volunteer or are employed with refugee resettlement actions. What I’ve discovered is that though the Biblical directive to “welcome the stranger” is evident, American evangelicals differ on what it seems wish to obey this command right this moment—and precisely who ought to be answerable for offering this “welcome.” In addition they wrestle with how their religion ought to have an effect on their politics, typically coming to divergent conclusions about the way to weigh their experiences with immigrants as they formulate their political beliefs about immigration coverage.
***
America has traditionally hosted the most important refugee resettlement program on the planet, working with the United Nations’ refugee company to resettle a few of the world’s most susceptible refugees. Though refugee resettlement has loved relative ranges of assist amongst most Individuals because the Eighties, the U.S. resettlement program turned more and more politicized within the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election.
Following the onset of the Syrian Civil Struggle in 2011, the variety of folks forcibly displaced by battle around the globe soared to record-breaking heights. By 2014, worldwide information media was heralding a world “refugee disaster,” as hundreds of refugees from North Africa and the Jap Mediterranean sought passage to Europe in quest of security. In response, President Obama introduced in September 2015 that the US would broaden that yr’s resettlement admissions ceiling to incorporate 10,000 extra Syrian refugees.
In November 2015, a gaggle of terrorists, a few of whom entered the European Union falsely claiming to be Syrian refugees, perpetrated a devastating assault in Paris. Inside days of the assault, 31 U.S. governors declared that their states wouldn’t settle for Syrian refugees. Then-candidate Donald Trump seized on the prospect to advance his anti-immigrant marketing campaign rhetoric, characterizing Syrian refugees as a “nice Malicious program” and casting aspersions on the safety of the refugee vetting course of. A mere seven days after his 2016 presidential inauguration, President Trump issued a sequence of govt orders geared toward halting the refugee resettlement program and curbing immigration from seven Muslim-majority nations.
The so-called “Muslim Ban” sparked instant controversy. Inside hours, protests towards the ban erupted in airports and main U.S. cities. Authorized challenges to its implementation started instantly as advocacy teams filed fits towards the administration to halt the order. Two days after the ban’s announcement, leaders of distinguished evangelical teams such because the Nationwide Affiliation of Evangelicals, the Wesleyan Church, and World Imaginative and prescient, amongst others, wrote an open letter to President Trump and Vice President Pence asking that the administration “rethink” the coverage, “permitting for resettlement of refugees to renew instantly.” Regardless of such pushback, Pew Analysis discovered that 76 p.c of white evangelical Protestants accepted of the ban, greater than every other socio-religious group. In the meantime, 59 p.c of Individuals opposed the ban.
But the Muslim Ban was not welcomed as a political victory by all evangelicals. As a substitute, many evangelicals responded by in search of to study extra about refugees to the US, what occurs as soon as they arrive, and the way to welcome them. World Reduction, a nationwide evangelical resettlement company, reported over 6,000 new volunteer purposes in 2017 alone. Jenny Yang, the group’s former Vice President of Advocacy and Coverage, described this “overwhelming response” because of “folks needing to behave regionally in response to the worldwide refugee disaster.”
Different evangelical resettlement efforts skilled an analogous surge in curiosity. I spoke with Naomi, a volunteer coordinator at an area evangelical group in Kentucky that supplied post-resettlement assist to refugees. She recalled the tumultuous political atmosphere of 2016, explaining that her group had skilled an uptick in destructive suggestions through on-line feedback and telephone calls in the course of the election season. Native detractors, a lot of them evangelicals, questioned why a Christian group would spend money and time to welcome refugees from “Muslim nations” to their metropolis.
But after the January 2017 Muslim Ban, the group started to expertise a big improve in donations and volunteer curiosity from evangelical church buildings and people. “The Ban itself is a horrible factor,” Naomi stated, however “we’ve had much more folks desirous to get entangled [in resettlement work].” She understood this shift to be a results of elevated consciousness about world displacement amongst evangelicals in her city: “[The] refugee disaster is extra within the media, folks have discovered extra about [refugees] they usually’re simply extra empathetic towards refugees, in order that they’re extra keen to provide in the direction of causes that assist.”
By the top of 2017, the group noticed 55 congregations and over 750 new volunteers throughout Kentucky get entangled in resettlement assist work. Nathan, the group’s director, considered this new volunteer curiosity as immediately associated to current assaults on refugees and the resettlement system throughout Trump’s first yr in workplace. “We didn’t count on it to be like that, this sort of explosion of volunteers and folks being keen to assist,” he defined. Looking back, he reasoned that the Trump administration’s polarizing rhetoric and anti-immigrant insurance policies, just like the Muslim Ban, had catalyzed extra evangelicals to get entangled with serving to immigrants of their native communities. “Now individuals are like, ‘Okay, I’ve to decide now on how I really feel about this, and I really feel like I have to take some motion.’” But in 2017, it remained unclear if this unprecedented outpouring of evangelical resettlement volunteerism would considerably affect white evangelicals’ electoral decisions or political conduct.
***
As evangelicals throughout the nation entered resettlement work to “take some motion,” as Nathan put it, many encountered the tough realities of resettlement for the primary time, a far cry from the primarily white, suburban, evangelical circles during which most reside. Many evangelicals I talked to discovered it difficult to replicate on their experiences in resettlement with out recounting how this work had shifted their views on immigration.
Some, like Summer season, have skilled a metamorphosis of their political beliefs after serving immigrants and refugees of their communities. Others, though moved to compassion, are reluctant to attach their experiences to any overt political stance.
Evelyn, an evangelical worker at a Christian resettlement non-profit in Illinois, shared her frustration that her household and mates have a “stigma” about immigrants. “I by no means actually obtained that, as a result of within the Bible there are such a lot of necessary figures that have been immigrants themselves, and refugees.”
Evelyn spends her days connecting refugee shoppers with employment alternatives and helps educate neighborhood members about resettlement. She shared that her religion values and a need to assist these in want motivated her work, and that she is pissed off by the dearth of empathy for immigrants in her evangelical neighborhood. As a substitute of their shared religion informing how her household and mates see immigrants, she feels that politics maintain sway as a substitute. “Actually, it’s [their] political view seeping into their religion. And that’s not the way it ought to be.”
Though many evangelicals like Evelyn see a transparent connection between the tenets of their Christian religion and their efforts to satisfy resettled refugees’ wants, few interpret the Biblical command to welcome the stranger as having implications for his or her political conduct.
When requested how her religion and resettlement experiences form her opinions on immigration coverage, she equivocated, saying as a substitute, “God himself just isn’t political. So why ought to I be political relating to that?”
(Picture supply: Adam McLane/Flickr)
Many evangelicals I talked to shared how their experiences with resettled refugees challenged them to rethink their earlier issues about immigration. Trevor, a self-identified evangelical and legislation enforcement skilled, volunteers usually with a faith-based refugee resettlement company in Iowa. “It’s fairly polarized, even right here,” he stated. “Even within the church circles, folks may be anti-refugee.” Reflecting on his volunteer expertise, Trevor says he started with a “superficial stage” of compassion. However as soon as he started to attach with refugees and study from their experiences, his idea of immigration developed from an summary understanding to 1 based mostly in witnessing the challenges of resettlement firsthand—“It was theoretical earlier than, [but] now it’s the true factor.”
Whereas Trevor believes Christians have an ethical accountability to welcome immigrants, he’s cautious of coverage adjustments that will search to considerably improve the variety of immigrants and refugees within the nation. Like many different evangelicals, he helps the concept of compassionate immigration coverage. “I’m my brother’s keeper,” he quotes, echoing comparable sentiments from dozens of others who spoke with me. However, as with many different evangelicals I met, Trevor stays undecided as to what this compassion ought to seem like in follow. “You’ve obtained to embrace your limits. You possibly can’t assist everyone on a regular basis,” he stated, referring to the resettlement program.
Different evangelicals oppose insurance policies that convey immigrants to the US however select to point out hospitality to newcomers to their native communities however, welcoming refugees regardless of, moderately than due to, their private politics. Rachel, a volunteer with an evangelical resettlement group in Illinois, was motivated to hitch resettlement efforts in her space following new waves of displaced folks from Ukraine and Afghanistan because of escalating conflicts in these nations between 2021 and 2022.
Regardless of her need to assist refugees displaced by these violent conflicts, Rachel instructed me that she has critical issues about safety within the immigrant admissions course of and needs to see “some form of, throttle—to regulate, [not] letting [just] anybody in, due to the implications to America, if only a billion folks determine they wish to reside right here.” She remained involved that the resettlement course of, particularly for Afghans arriving on humanitarian visas, doesn’t sufficiently vet the backgrounds and motivations of potential newcomers. “Simply because they [Afghan refugees] helped America, they should be an excellent individual […] that’s an inaccurate assumption,” she stated.
Regardless of reservations about resettlement coverage and issues about safety, she doesn’t consider her political beliefs ought to affect her interactions with immigrants, nor do they forestall her from working to welcome not too long ago arrived refugees as a volunteer. “I consider that no matter how [refugees] obtained right here, they’re right here. And they don’t seem to be simply in America. They’re in my city,” she defined (emphasis unique). She insisted that her politics don’t govern the crucial to point out hospitality to newcomers in Jesus’ title.
Rachel’s resolution to volunteer with refugees has garnered blended responses from her evangelical household and mates. “I haven’t had many individuals come out and say disparaging issues,” she says, however, “political feedback are made.” Her response? “I all the time return to the truth that these are human beings which are right here, no matter how they obtained right here.” Though emphasizing the humanity of resettled refugees, Rachel’s place sidesteps bigger political implications by specializing in individualized, native wants moderately than broader systemic causes or insurance policies.
Like Rachel, some evangelicals ignore the political implications of their work, as a substitute specializing in the bodily and “non secular” wants of refugees. Kate, an evangelical worker of a faith-based non-profit, instructed me that she was initially drawn to resettlement work as a result of she imagined that she would have the chance to “unfold the title of Jesus” amongst refugees who’re arriving in the US. Nonetheless, after studying extra in regards to the resettlement course of, she was fast to make clear that volunteers are usually not allowed to proselytize, which she outlined as “[saying] ‘for those who don’t consider what I consider, then I’m not going that can assist you,” As a substitute, Kate seeks to share her religion by “displaying love,” however eschews any type of overt evangelism or coercion in her work, saying that such an method wouldn’t be “Biblical” in any respect.
No matter how evangelicals make sense of their resettlement experiences, I discovered that few carry their convictions about immigration by means of to significant political motion or advocacy, as a substitute containing their experiences on the stage of private transformation moderately than political engagement. These evangelicals argue that it’s not the federal government however “the Church” (and “believers,” or evangelical Christians), who’re finest suited to welcome the stranger within the U.S. right this moment, no matter who wins an election.
Reuben, an evangelical pastor-turned-resettlement-entrepreneur, helps to run a post-resettlement assist group within the southeast United States. Reuben’s group works to “fill the gaps” within the federal resettlement program by offering long-term assist resembling vocational coaching, language and citizenship courses, and persevering with schooling to refugees. Throughout Trump’s first administration, his group grew considerably, working to welcome refugees into their native space regardless of important cuts to the resettlement system and restrictive federal immigration insurance policies.
Whereas Reuben and his volunteers are nicely conscious of the restrictions of the federal resettlement program and the Trump administration’s disruptive govt actions, the group’s ethos embodies a distinct response. Quite than advocate for higher or extra inclusive immigration and resettlement coverage, Reuben doesn’t consider the options lie in political motion—as a substitute, “the Church” ought to fill the hole. “There is no such thing as a one who’s higher geared up to point out hospitality and welcome than a [Christian] believer,” he argues. Echoing a standard chorus in evangelical theology, God has forgiven and “welcomed” folks into his family by means of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
On this view, resettlement companies, authorities packages, and immigration insurance policies shouldn’t in the end be answerable for welcoming immigrants and assembly the wants of resettled refugees—as a substitute, as a result of Christian believers have “themselves been welcomed by God,” Reuben and different evangelicals I talked to argue that it’s not primarily the accountability of the federal government or of federal packages to welcome the stranger; moderately, they interpret the Biblical directive to welcome the stranger as a command that has been given on to Christians. “We simply assume that they [government programs] don’t have the capability […] like a believer does,” Reuben explains.
***
In 2020, exit polls indicated sweeping assist for then-candidate Trump amongst white evangelicals, with someplace between 76 and 81 p.c casting their vote for the previous president. And in 2024, these ranges of electoral assist remained unchanged—almost 81 p.c of white evangelicals voted once more for President Trump, preliminary polls present. Regardless of pushback from some evangelical leaders and establishments, and a surge of white evangelicals curious about welcoming immigrants in the course of the first Trump administration, total white evangelical assist for Trump, and his exclusionary immigration insurance policies, stays excessive.
Quite than voting for politicians and insurance policies that will serve to raised “welcome the stranger,” evangelicals concerned in resettlement primarily select to translate their convictions, issues, and compassion about immigration points into particular person motion that takes the type of localized volunteer efforts.
This kind of resettlement work sometimes requires effort, a sacrifice of money and time, and a willingness to come across and empathize with people from totally different backgrounds. And evangelicals who work carefully with immigrants and refugees in these roles are fast to expound on how these encounters have modified their very own lives and views.
But even believers united by a shared religion and moved to take widespread motion within the type of native resettlement work arrive at conflicting conclusions about what the Biblical command to “welcome the stranger” ought to imply personally and politically. For a lot of white evangelicals, even profound private experiences with immigrants and refugees don’t seem like sufficient to sever their ties with anti-immigrant Republican Social gathering politics.
These variations level to the truth that appeals to widespread beliefs and even “Biblical directives” are usually not assured to mobilize evangelicals to behave on pro-immigrant politics or type a cohesive welcoming motion.
Emily Frazier is an assistant professor of human geography at Missouri State College. She researches and writes about refugee resettlement and faith-based humanitarianism in the US, and her work has been printed in a number of tutorial and public-facing retailers.
