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Christians Are Fleeing Persecution. Will They Find Open Doors in U.S.?

By Diana Chandler
persecuted persecution taiwan china mayflower church
Pastor Pan Yongguang and members of Shenzhen Holy Reformed Church are pictured in Taiwan. The group later emigrated to the U.S. (Photo: China Aid / Facebook)

The U.S. resettled more Christians fleeing persecution in fiscal year 2024 than it has since 2016, Open Doors and World Relief said in a report unveiled Oct. 14 as insight for policymakers and voters weeks ahead of the U.S. presidential elections.

The nonpartisan groups reported the numbers of refugees and asylum seekers the U.S. has accepted in recent decades, including Christians and others fleeing religious persecution, and explored how U.S. presidential platform policies will impact the ability of those persecuted for their faith to find refuge here after the November elections.

“I think it would be remiss of me not to note that we are aware that President Trump has pledged to suspend the refugee admissions program on day one, but we also hope that this report will be something that raises voices and attention to this issue, and will persuade him to change his mind if he’s elected,” World Relief President and CEO Myal Greene said on a press call releasing the report.

“And similarly we have seen that the Biden-Harris administration has implemented very significant restrictions on the asylum program, and we believe these restrictions inhibit a pathway for individuals fleeing religious persecution. And so, we would like to see and hope that these issues can be addressed.”

Still, both groups were clear in emphasizing that the report remained nonpartisan.

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(Image: World Relief / Open Doors US)

“Nothing in this report should be construed as an endorsement or denunciation of any particular party or candidate,” Greene said, “but we do know that as many evangelicals and Catholics and Christians come to make their voting decisions here, they should be aware of these facts.”

In fiscal year 2024, which ended Sept. 30, the U.S. resettled 100,034 refugees of all backgrounds, the groups reported, including 29,493 Christian refugees from the 2024 World Watch List of the 50 countries where Christians suffer the most persecution. The growth was a result of the Biden administration rebuilding the refugee resettlement program after it reached crippling lows during the Trump administration, even in advance of the COVID-19 pandemic, for which the report offered it commendation.

But the report noted restrictions placed on the asylum program in the final year of the Biden-Harris administration that reinterprets existing law to mean those illegally crossing the U.S. southern border are presumed ineligible for asylum, “with very limited exceptions.” While the rule faces legal challenges, the report notes, it has also “left those with genuine asylum claims – including those persecuted because of their faith in Jesus – at profound risk.” Such individuals often wait for months in shelters on the Mexican side of the border until they can apply through legal means.

While the Refugee Act, passed in 1980 with bipartisan support, allows each president to set a ceiling for refugee admissions, no such ceiling exists for asylum seekers. Refugee ceilings have ranged from 231,700 under President Carter in fiscal year 1980 to 15,000 under President Trump in fiscal year 2021, a limit Biden retained in his first year in office. But the refugee resettlement program has rebounded during the remainder of Biden’s term, reaching its current high.

Greene further lamented Trump’s campaign promise to end the refugee resettlement program, citing a Lifeway Research poll showing 71 percent of evangelical Christians believe the nation has a moral responsibility to accept refugees.

“And so what that tells me is that many evangelical voters who are likely to support President Trump are doing so, not because of his views on immigration, but in spite of those views,” Greene said during a Q&A segment. “For me, I think it would be very prudent for President Trump to reconsider some of his promises that he has made to restrict refugee resettlement,” he said, citing advocacy from the World Relief parent group the National Association of Evangelicals, the Southern Baptist Convention and other evangelical Christian groups for stronger borders accompanied by due process for asylum seekers.

“And that’s a fundamental and essential obligation and it’s ingrained in international law and it’s ethical and represents the best ethics there,” Greene said. “And what we see in this situation is that we will not live up to our moral obligations to people fleeing persecution if there are further restrictions of the asylum process or closing of the refugee program for people who are fleeing religious persecution, whether they’re Christians or others.”

Nadine Maenza, a former U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom chair who joined the press call from Iraq, pointed out the influence U.S policy has on the ability of refugees and asylum seekers to find an open door anywhere.

nadine
Nadine Maenza (Courtesy Photo)

“When the U.S. drops their numbers, countries around the world all drop their numbers, and when the U.S. increases their numbers, it has the effect where all the other countries increase their numbers,” Maenza said she has learned through conversations with the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. “So when we close our doors, guess what happens? Other countries close their doors and it becomes an even larger problem in the world.”

Open Doors U.S. President Ryan Brown pointed out the increasing need for the U.S. to provide a safe haven for Christians fleeing persecution, as the organization’s annual World Watch List has noted a multiyear trend of increasingly violent persecution that forces Christians to flee their homelands.

“The need for refugees and those seeking asylum to have a safe haven and to have a place where they flee and find safety, those needs continue to rise,” Brown said. “We certainly, through this report, hope to illustrate and give visibility to that fact.”

He encouraged voters not to confuse the issue of border security with asylum and refugee access, pointing out the worth and importance of all.

Mark J. Seitz, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Committee on Migration, and Knox Thomas, senior fellow of the Pepperdine University U.S. Institute of Peace, also joined the call moderated by Chelsea Sobolik of World Relief and Kaylee Fischer, global operations director of the International Religious Freedom Roundtable.

The full report, State of the Golden Door is accessible here.

This article was originally published by Baptist Press and has been reprinted with permission. 

Diana Chandler is senior writer for Baptist Press. 

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6 Responses

  1. This is a complex issue and as someone who very diligently prays for the persecuted daily, has supported them financially for over 15 years, and was thrilled when President Trump was the first US president to mention Christian persecution on the floor of the UN assembly, I see how there’s no easy answer here. Here’s something we can all do… Call and email your representative, please!

    https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-resolution/82

    1. I share a link and pray…they try to sleep not knowing if Boko Haram comes tonight. We have it easy it’s the least we can do.

  2. From this report, it looks like the Biden admin should be credited with showing more mercy to persecuted Christian refugees. I did some quick math and came up with a total of around 68,000 Christians who were resettled the States from the 50 worst countries during 2021-2024 (compared with 53,000 during 2017-2020).

    But because I have discovered that wider context can change your view, I tried to find out what percentage these were of the TOTAL refugees resettled under both administrations.

    According to Customs and Border Protection, some 10.3 million people are known to have come into the USA illegally (so-called “migrant encounters”) since Biden took office in Jan. 2021, and these are being resettled in major cities at taxpayer expense. Another 4.4 million legal refugees were allowed in during Biden’s tenure, who received permanent resident status.

    If my math is right, Christians were around 1.5% of Biden’s legal refugees. If you count all migrants, they go down to less than 1/2 of one percent.

    Under Trump (2017-2020), there were around 2 million illegal migrants. He limited legal refugee immigration to a multi-year total of 158,000. So the percentage of Christians he let in was around 3.4%. If you count all possible migrants, they were 2.7%.

    Not living in the USA, I have no political axe to grind. But I do care about Christians fleeing persecution, and I don’t want to see them being used for political points.

    (source for yearly refugee caps: Peterson Institute for International Economics)

  3. Regarding the very real option of using American clout on behalf of persecuted Christians abroad, here is a recent comparison on the two presidential candidates, from an expert on persecuted Christians in Africa:
    —————
    In 2020, President Donald J. Trump placed Nigeria on the State Department’s List of Countries of Particular Concern — meaning nations which engage in, or tolerate violations of, religious freedom. Trump, moreover and with characteristic bluntness, went on to ask the then Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, “Why are you killing Christians?”

    During the term of President Joseph R. Biden, on the other hand, the State Department inexplicably removed Nigeria — where one Christian is butchered every two hours — from the list. Secretary of State Antony Blinken apparently made this concession three days before meeting with Muhammadu Buhari.

    At the time [Nov. 2021], many observers responded by slamming the Biden administration. As Sean Nelson, Legal Counsel for Global Religious Freedom for Alliance Defending Freedom International (ADF), noted:
    “Outcry over the State Department’s removal of Country of Particular Concern status for Nigeria’s religious freedom violations is entirely warranted. No explanations have been given that could justify this decision. If anything, the situation in Nigeria has grown worse over the last year.”
    —————
    (Raymond Ibrahim, “‘Pure Genocide’: Christians Slaughtered in Nigeria and the Great Press Cover-Up”, Gatestone Institute, Oct. 18, 2024)

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