A Call for Compassion for our Refugee Neighbors
Urge President Trump to sustain refugee protections and compassionate policies.
Why a Statement from Christians?
In November, World Relief received news of a new policy to re-interview refugees who were lawfully resettled in the U.S. over the last 5 years. In January, ICE agents began rounding up lawfully present refugees, including children, and placing them in detention.
Approximately 230,000 individuals who have already gone through rigorous vetting overseas — a process involving robust interviews, background checks and medical reviews that can often take a year or longer — are now being threatened with the possibility of deportation. Most of these individuals have only recently found refuge and the opportunity to rebuild their lives here in the United States.
This initiative is inhumane and un-American. It subjects our newest neighbors to unnecessary and retraumatizing scrutiny, leading many to fear that they will be returned to life-threatening situations. While it is reasonable to reexamine an individual case if credible concerns arise, forcing all refugees resettled during this period to undergo new scrutiny is unnecessary and generates profound fear among people who have done everything our government has asked of them. And detaining individuals in this process cruelly separates families, traumatizes children and leads economically self-sustaining families into situations where they cannot work and provide for themselves.
As a leading Christian voice and advocacy organization, World Relief is committed to elevating the voices and concerns of American Christians. Polling shows that most Evangelical Christians support refugee resettlement and secure, compassionate policies that support this vulnerable population. We want the Trump Administration to hear this message loud and clear, and we need your voice.
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Dear President Trump and Members of Congress,
Recently, the federal government announced a new policy to re-interview refugees who were vetted overseas and lawfully resettled between January 20, 2021 and February 20, 2025, affecting approximately 230,000 individuals. The memo also halts all processing of green card applications for these individuals.
As followers of Jesus, our faith compels us to care for our refugee neighbors and to value their safety and flourishing as we value our own. We are deeply concerned that this drastic and unprecedented action will have unnecessary consequences for neighbors we have come to know and love.
Churches across the country have long played a vital role in welcoming and supporting refugees. We know that refugees are among the most thoroughly vetted individuals admitted lawfully to the United States—screened both to confirm the persecution they’ve endured and to ensure they pose no security risk.
Our commitment to this program is rooted in our faith in Jesus, who Himself fled persecution as a child (Matthew 2:13–14) and who taught that nations will be judged by how they welcome the stranger and care for “the least of these” (Matthew 25:31–46), doing “no wrong to a neighbor” (Romans 13:10). We believe our nation has a moral obligation to offer refuge and to ensure those who arrive are embraced and welcomed.
Refugee resettlement should not be a partisan issue. It is grounded in a bipartisan law carefully implemented by administrations of both parties for decades. While it is reasonable to reexamine an individual case if credible concerns arise, forcing all refugees resettled during this period to undergo new scrutiny is unnecessary and cruel.
This dramatic, blunt policy change impacts people whom many of us know as friends and neighbors. We have welcomed them into our communities, helped them to adjust to a new culture and learn a new language, worked alongside them in our jobs and worshiped alongside them in our churches. Many of these refugees have spent years fleeing persecution and violence, and this decision now reignites unnecessary fear that they could once again lose the safety they’ve found in the United States, particularly as many other lawfully-present immigrants have recently had their legal protections in the United States withdrawn.
While our concern is for all those who meet the legal definition of a refugee, it’s also notable that most refugees affected by this decision are fellow Christians. An estimated 70,000 or more Christians resettled during this period faced persecution in the fifty countries that Open Doors categorizes as the most dangerous places in the world to follow Jesus. We appreciate President Trump’s stated commitment to stand with and protect persecuted Christians and others fleeing religious persecution; this policy undermines that commitment.
Beyond our concern for refugees already resettled in our communities, we also urge the U.S. government to reconsider the recently-set, historically-low ceiling for Fiscal Year 2026 refugee admissions of just 7,500, with a narrow focus on just one population group that would exclude those persecuted on account of their faith and fleeing some of the world’s greatest crises.
Our faith compels us to speak up: please do all in your authority to ensure that the U.S. once again stands as a refuge for those who have fled persecution.
BALTIMORE, Md. – Today, reports of an internal memo from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) indicated that the Trump administration would halt the processing of applications for Lawful Permanent Resident status for refugees resettled by the Biden administration between the years of 2021 and 2025, leaving an estimated 200,000 individuals in limbo while their cases are being readjudicated. World Relief is deeply grieved by this decision, which will inevitably generate alarm among many individuals who will fear being returned to the countries where they faced persecution for reasons such as their faith, their association with the U.S. military and their peaceful opposition to authoritarian political movements.
Under U.S. law, refugees are legally defined as people who have fled a well-founded fear of persecution on account of their race, religion, political opinion, national origin and/or membership in a particular social group. Refugees enter the United States lawfully with an indefinite legal status after undergoing a thorough overseas vetting process, then are allowed and required by law to apply for their Lawful Permanent Resident status, also known as a “green card,” one year after arrival. The memo circulated today seeks to halt processing for these individuals’ Lawful Permanent Resident status and subject individuals who were already lawfully admitted to additional interviews.
"Refugees admitted under the U.S. refugee resettlement program have undergone some of the most rigorous vetting of any immigrant lawfully admitted into the United States, yet this sweeping re-interview initiative is nothing less than a calculated effort to strip lawful status from thoroughly-vetted, law-abiding people,” said Myal Greene, president and CEO of World Relief. “It is a moral and ethical betrayal of due process at a time when the Trump administration is attempting to lower the standard for refugee admissions to include Afrikaners and others who do not meet the legal standard of a ‘well-founded fear of persecution’ that past refugees have been required to meet.”
Under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act passed last July, refugees who have not yet been granted Lawful Permanent Resident status are no longer able to qualify for SNAP benefits. This indefinite delay in processing Lawful Permanent Resident applications from refugees will also indefinitely delay their eligibility for this vital nutritional support for which refugees have long qualified under the law. Furthermore, it will prevent refugees from filing petitions for certain family-based visas, deferring family reunification.
“Just in time for Thanksgiving, when many Americans remember Pilgrims who fled religious persecution in England and sought religious freedom in the United States, our government is subjecting more than 100,000 Christian refugees resettled by the prior administration — many of whom fled religious persecution on account of their faith — to needless, retraumatizing additional scrutiny, leading many to fear they could be returned to persecution,” said Matthew Soerens, Vice President of Advocacy and Policy at World Relief.
World Relief will be working through its network of local offices, affiliates and church partners to help provide resettled refugees with support as this new policy is implemented.
“One thing that we’ve seen consistently over the past year is that, despite dramatic rehauls of longstanding immigration policies, American Christians are standing in the gap for their refugee neighbors,” said World Relief’s Senior Vice President of U.S. Programs, Aerlande Wontamo. “We’re very troubled by today’s news, but we also want to assure the brave women, men and children who have been rebuilding their lives in communities across the United States that we will continue to stand with them, as will many American citizens who have enthusiastically welcomed them.”
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