Policy Changes and Prayers for Compassion

Dear friends,

It has been a busy week. I began this week along the U.S.-Mexico border, visiting a church-based shelter in Mexico hosting individuals who had been waiting for an appointment to lawfully request asylum at the port of entry of the United States — only to learn those appointments had been canceled by policy changes last week.

During much of my time at the border, though, I also fielded emails and phone calls from reporters from my home in Washington, D.C., where a series of policy changes are affecting other categories of immigrants.

On the first day of the new administration, President Trump announced the suspension of the U.S. Refugee Resettlement program. Flights were canceled for those who had been scheduled to be resettled. Within 90 days, the president will decide, in consultation with the Department of State and Department of Homeland Security, whether or not to resume the refugee program. Many Christians have joined this statement, to which we’d invite you to add your name, highlighting that refugee resettlement is a legal immigration process that has offered refuge and religious freedom to a large number of persecuted Christians.

There are religious liberty concerns here at home, though, as well, as Evangelical Immigration Table leaders noted in a letter to key leaders in the new administration late last week. The Department of Homeland Security announced the revocation of longstanding guidance that limits when they would conduct immigration enforcement activities in or near a church or other “sensitive locations.” Previously — including throughout the first Trump administration — Immigration & Customs Enforcement agents would only enter a church under exceptional circumstances when there was an urgent public safety concern.

The effect of this revocation, intentional or not, has been that many immigrants and their U.S. citizen family members fear that attending church might lead to separation from their loved ones. The effect, as the letter notes, “is to deter people from attending churches, limiting our ability to reach people with the hope of the gospel and the opportunity for ongoing discipleship, which are central to our God-given mission, and contributing to the lamentable decline in church attendance in the United States.”

Then, last Friday afternoon, refugee resettlement ministries like World Relief, where I work, received instructions from the U.S. State Department to “stop all work” to care for refugees who had already been resettled lawfully to the U.S., to whom our government had committed to providing basic support including housing assistance for the first 90 days that they are in the United States. My World Relief colleagues are leaning on local churches more than ever — to ensure refugees have housing and other basic integration support without the governmental help they had been promised.

In all of this, from the border to Washington, D.C., I’ve been praying, and I’d invite you to pray with me:

• For President Trump, his cabinet, and his key advisors, that their administration would focus enforcement on those who are dangerous and should not be here, but would allow America to still steward our important role in being a place that resettles refugees and respects religious liberty
• For Members of Congress that they would pursue compassionate immigration reforms and would use their influence to sustain refugee resettlement — you can both pray for them and use this easy tool to urge them to ask President Trump to reinstate refugee resettlement and allow the already-allocated funding to be used for those already lawfully here
• For immigrant brothers and sisters who are experiencing fear in the midst of rumors of immigration raids, including at churches, schools, or other sensitive locations
• For wisdom for pastors seeking to shepherd congregations during these times of fear, division, and confusion
• That the church would shine the light of Jesus in the midst of these challenging moments, filling gaps to ensure that refugees are supported and that immigrants know they are not alone

In Christ,

Chelsea Sobolik
Director of Government Relations, World Relief