Immigration should be an issue around which Christians overwhelmingly rally since there is a fair amount of agreement among Christian leaders, both conservative and liberal, that biblical teaching demands the welcoming of refugees from foreign nations.  That is why Cardinal Dolan, the archbishop of New Yok and a conservative Catholic, was recently pushing back against politicians who are hampering the efforts of his denomination to help immigrants.  However, Christians’ views on immigration policy are very much influenced by their political affiliations.  In this article, I will discuss an opinion published by Cardinal Dolan on this matter.  I will then review surveys that provide insights on views currently held by evangelicals on immigration, and differences from other denominations, such as Catholics and other Protestants.  I will also review some explanations that have been proposed for the apparent hostility white evangelicals tend to display against immigrants.

In an opinion published on June 28, 2023, in America, Cardinal Dolan explains why his fight for religious freedom should not be understood as an alignment with the Republican party on all matters, including immigration:

“A sad consequence of polarization over issues like abortion, same-sex marriage and transgenderism is that religious freedom—our first and most cherished liberty—has wrongly come to be seen by many in the United States as a partisan cause. To be sure, threats from the left to people who hold traditional beliefs on those issues are many, real and severe. But the Catholic Church is not a faction of the Republican Party, and Democrats are not the only ones who sometimes view the defense of religious freedom as a pothole instead of a stop sign.”

In this statement, the cardinal identifies himself as one who holds “traditional beliefs” on abortion, same-sex marriage and transgenderism and has therefore sided with the Republican party on those issues to fight against “threats from the left” that are “real and severe.”  In particular, he has sided with conservative Protestants, such as evangelicals, who have often invoked religious freedom to defend their positions on those issues.  However, he wants to separate himself from those in the Republican party who would falsely use religious freedom as justification for their hostility toward immigrants.  Indeed, “service to immigrants” is too important an aspect of the work of his diocese:

“Here in the Archdiocese of New York, the church can claim a special history of service to immigrants. It was here at the turn of the 20th century that St. Frances Cabrini, the patron saint of immigrants, helped our city’s rapidly growing Italian community navigate their new lives. Carrying on her legacy, our Catholic Charities ministries today still care for unaccompanied children and other newcomers who have come here, many fleeing violence, persecution and abject poverty.”

He then explains why this service to immigrants is grounded on biblical teaching and based on the same principles that support his position on abortion:

“The Catholic belief that immigrants must be met with compassion and care has deep roots in the Bible. It is part of the same life ethic that requires us to protect unborn children. We cannot offer a full witness to the sanctity of life if we fail to respect life in the womb, and the same is true of the human dignity of immigrants and other people in need. These commitments are inseparable.”

In February, Cardinal Dolan criticized the Biden administration for demanding that employers provide insurance coverage for contraception needs of female employees even if they have a moral objection to it.  On the matter of immigration under consideration here, his criticism was clearly directed at Republicans lawmakers, even though he did not specifically identify them:

“And yet, now a few elected officials on Capitol Hill and in state legislatures are pushing legislation to stop any aid to, or government partnership with, churches and agencies like our own Catholic Charities, and are waging slanderous attacks against us for assisting newcomers, including refugees and asylum seekers.

Take the Secure the Border Act, which the U.S. House of Representatives recently passed. It would cut off funds that charities use to shelter immigrants and help them through our legal system. This may seem merely cruel rather than a religious freedom issue, until you see the special vitriol that some of the bill’s backers have directed at Catholic agencies engaged in this work.”

The cardinal was particularly offended by the efforts of Representative Lance Gooden from Texas:

“At least one member of the House seems to think the law already makes it a crime to give an undocumented immigrant a hot meal or a place to sleep, and he wrote a bill to deny all federal funds to any charity that does not comply. Criminalizing the exercise of religion, or denying public resources to someone because they exercised their faith—now that would be a square violation of religious freedom.”

The language of religious freedom is often used by Christian nationalists whose goal is not to promote the free exercise of all religions, but to impose their religion on everybody.  Here, the cardinal is pointing out how they may be infringing on the freedom of Catholics as they are trying to impose their anti-immigration objectives.  He appropriately concludes by saying:

“So when we say that the government must respect religious freedom, both parties need to listen. It is not a right to be observed only when it is convenient and to be run over when it gets in the way. It is foundational and indispensable to our society.”

I may not agree with Cardinal Dolan on many issues, but I think his argument on immigration and religious freedom is a valid one.

On September 27, 2022, the results of a survey conducted by Lifeway Research were discussed by Emily Belz in Christianity Today.  The results showed a substantial shift in attitudes among evangelicals about refugees and immigration reform between 2015 and 2022.  According to Belz,

“Evangelicals are more open to welcoming refugees and offering paths to citizenship for undocumented immigrants than they were in 2015, the last time Lifeway polled on the issue. Now 77 percent of self-identified evangelicals are ‘strongly’ or ‘somewhat’ in favor of a path to citizenship, up from 61 percent who said “yes” seven years before. Among those who attend worship at least weekly, 82 percent were in favor.”

These results are shown graphically in the figure below, which also provides data explained by Belz as follows:

“Evangelicals by a wide majority and across all ethnicities said they would support bipartisan immigration reform, defined as increasing border security and establishing a process for undocumented immigrants to apply for citizenship if they paid a fine, passed a criminal background check, and completed other requirements (a path to citizenship similar to the one supported by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops).”

It should be noted that, in the above chart, the responses to a question related to general morality, such as family unity, were overwhelmingly positive in 2022 (92%, from 72% in 2015).  There was a decrease in favorable responses on the two questions related to policy (77% and 78%), but the increase between 2015 and 2022 was still significant (61% and 68%, respectively, in 2015).

Belz mentions other data that appear to support the shift in attitudes among evangelicals:

“Other data would support a shift in evangelical attitudes. World Relief, the humanitarian arm of the National Association of Evangelicals, is one of the approved refugee resettlement agencies for the US government. During the chaotic August evacuation from Afghanistan last year, the organization gained 3,000 new donors, a 1,500 percent increase over the same period the previous year.

That outpouring from individuals and churches for domestic refugee and immigration ministry continued after the Afghan evacuation. Giving for the fiscal year which ended September 30, 2021, was double that of 2020. So far this fiscal year, its giving for domestic ministries has surpassed that 2021 number.”

This statement gives an indication that evangelical attitudes may have been influenced to some extent by experience with Afghan refugees.  In an attempt to explain the shift, Belz quotes Matthew Soerens, the US director of church mobilization and advocacy for World Relief:

“Soerens thinks that the welcome of Afghan and Ukrainian refugees to the US this past year had a lot to do with more welcoming views on refugees. He noted that there is currently not negative news coverage on refugees like there was with Syrian refugees.

‘I think the Afghanistan crisis helped a number of conservative people understand how difficult our immigration system is,’ said Soerens.

Christians trying to help desperate Afghans escape often found no solution, even if they knew Afghans met strict qualifications for visas. Now Soerens said more people might understand that the trouble for Afghans is ‘true for other nationalities as well.’”

Soerens also points to an increased awareness by evangelicals, given the current economic conditions, that “We can’t find enough people to do all the jobs in this country.”  Fewer evangelicals, therefore, saw immigrants as a drain on economic resources in 2022 in comparison to the situation in 2015.

The article also mentions the work of Dreamers as a factor influencing attitudes on immigration.  Dreamers are immigrants who came to the United States at a young age and do not have a path to a legal status.  The Obama administration had enacted, for their benefit, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program which allowed them to receive work permits and protection from deportation. It allowed them to go to college and to work.  But every two years they must file fingerprints, paperwork, and do background checks to renew their DACA status.  DACA was rescinded by the Trump administration but reinstated by the courts.

Dreamers have been actively engaging with many churches to increase awareness of their situation, and a 2020 survey from Politico/Morning Consult showed that 72 percent of evangelicals said Dreamers should be allowed to stay in the country either as citizens or as legal residents.  Measures to resolve their status have unfortunately stalled in Congress.

However, evangelical attitudes on immigration should be shaped, to a great extent, by biblical teaching.  That is why the Lifeway Research survey produced data that give insights on the impact of “biblical engagement” as seen in the chart below.

Here again, there is a very high percentage of positive responses (90%, up from 82% In 2015) to a basic morality question such as respect for “the God-given dignity of every person.”  But the percentage of evangelicals who are “familiar with the Bible’s teaching on immigrants” drops to 64% (up from 53% in 2015) and the percentage of evangelicals who “have heard their church encourage outreach to immigrants” is even lower (31%, up from 21% in 2015).

Most of the discussion in the previous section was about evangelicals in general.  However, Belz mentioned some apparent discrepancies in the results regarding white evangelicals:

“In the 2022 survey, 70 percent of evangelicals overall, and 68 percent of white evangelicals, agreed that the US has a moral responsibility to accept refugees. That contrasts sharply with a widely cited statistic from 2018, when Pew Research Center data showed only 25 percent of white evangelicals said the US had a responsibility to accept refugees, the lowest of any demographic in the US. In 2017, white evangelicals by a large majority supported President Donald Trump’s ban on Syrian refugees entering the country.”

This statement suggests that while evangelicals, who were widely hostile to immigrants in the early years of the Trump administration, were much more willing to welcome immigrants in 2022.  Belz attempted to explain the increase by pointing to a change in the definition of the word “refugee” in the 2022 survey:

“In the question this year, the Lifeway researchers decided to include a definition of a refugee under US law: ‘someone fleeing persecution due to specific factors such as their race, religion, or political opinion.’”

However, the results of a survey published in February 2022 by Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) provide some additional insights on the attitudes of white evangelicals.  The results are discussed by Jack Jenkins, from Religion News Service, who lamented that conservative evangelicals were no longer, in 2022, as unified with liberal leaders from other faiths as they had been back in 2013 on immigration matters.

The chart below shows the responses from various religious groups on a question about their support for a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.  An increase in support between 2013 and 2022 is only seen for Black Protestants (70% to 75%).  Hispanic Catholics have high support levels, but see a decrease from 74% to 70%.

White groups (Evangelicals, Catholics and mainline Protestants) have the lowest levels of support and see decreases between 2013 and 2022.  White evangelicals, in particular, show a decrease from 56% to 47% in their favorable responses, which are the lowest of all groups.  In the next section, I will review some explanations that have been proposed for current while evangelical lack of hospitality toward immigrants.

It is no secret that an overwhelming majority of white evangelicals strongly supported the Trump administration and its crackdown on undocumented immigrants, a fact I have discussed elsewhere.  It is also no secret that white evangelicals overwhelmingly identify as Republicans.  This political identification has, in recent years, been much more important than Scripture in determining their positions on the immigration issue.

An article published on October 30, 2018, by Tara Isabella Burton in Vox refers to polls such as the Pew Research Center poll mentioned in the previous section and states the following:

“In January, a Washington Post/ABC poll found that a staggering 75 percent of white evangelicals in the US described “the federal crackdown on undocumented immigrants” as a positive thing, compared to just 46 percent of Americans overall. And according to a Pew Research Center poll in May, 68 percent of white evangelicals say that America has no responsibility to house refugees, a full 25 points over the national average.

White evangelicals are the only Christian group to express this level of hostility toward refugees. While just 25 percent of them say they think Americans should house refugees, white mainline Protestants, black Protestants, and Catholics all express support for refugees by between 43 and 65 points. Meanwhile, according to another July poll by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI), more than half of white evangelicals report feeling concerned about America’s declining white population.”

This concern about “America’s declining white population” is an important driving element.  Burton mentions an observation by historian Randall Balmer, saying:

“As historian Randall Balmer has frequently argued, the rise of the Moral Majority and the Reagan-era political evangelical religious right in America was due as much to objections to desegregation as to more obvious contentious issues like LGBTQ rights and abortion. For as long as white evangelicals have been a politically robust force, white American identity, GOP party politics, and evangelical theology have been all but inextricable.”

Since these observations are not consistent with biblical teaching, Burton gives a brief summary of what the Bible says about treatment of refugees:

“The Bible contains numerous passages that seem to straightforwardly exhort care for the poor, immigrants, and refugees. Isaiah 10, for example, sees God excoriating those who “turn aside the needy from justice and to rob the poor of my people of their right.” In Matthew 25 (which a Methodist pastor quoted to Jeff Sessions Monday while protesting his speech), Jesus warns his followers that those who withhold care from the poor or the refugee — “the least of these” — are seen as having done it to Jesus himself. Plenty of other verses — Leviticus 19:33–34, Jeremiah 7:5–7, Ezekiel 47:22, Zechariah 7:9–10 — express similar sentiments.”

Jeff Sessions was Trump’s first attorney general who initiated the administration’s anti-immigrant policies.  His quoting of Romans 13 to justify his policies was a good example of misuse of Scripture for political purposes.  In Romans 13:1-7, Paul urges Christians to respect authorities that govern the nation and resist any urge to rebel or refuse to pay taxes.  This is in keeping with the Christian emphasis on peacemaking and the goal of transforming the world through Christ-like behavior rather than violent rebellion.  Conservative Christians have chosen to interpret Paul’s words as divine validation of any actions taken by government authorities, though they fail to give similar validation to governments they do not support.  It is along the same line that Paula White, a Trump spiritual advisor, responded to critics who pointed out that Jesus was once a refugee in Egypt.  As reported by Burton,

“She told CBN that those Christians who argued that Jesus was a ‘refugee’ were wrong. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘[Jesus] did live in Egypt for three and a half years. But it was not illegal. If He had broken the law, then He would have been sinful and He would not have been our Messiah.’”

Obviously, it does not occur to White that if God wants humans to treat refugees with kindness, as clearly emphasized by the Bible, then it is unlikely that God wants humans to set up national barriers that prevent them from being hospitable to refugees.  Indeed, the Law of Moses mandated good treatment of refugees in Israel because God did not want the Israelites to be like the Egyptians who mistreated them when they were in bondage in Egypt.  White does not realize that she has put human rules above God’s will.

Another example provided by Burton is Pastor Jeffress, another evangelical leader and Trump adviser:

“Another prominent evangelical adviser for Trump, Pastor Robert Jeffress of First Baptist Dallas, also defended Trump’s migrant family separation policy this summer, telling the Dallas Observer, ‘Any American who commits a crime is going to be separated from his or her child. You don’t send children to jail with their parents in America, so I’m not sure why the only criminals who would get a pass on that policy would be illegal immigrants.’”

The logic of this statement is quite simplistic: Parents who commit crimes are sent to prison, leaving their children behind.  Undocumented immigrants are criminals and must also go to prison, leaving their children behind like anybody else.  However, are such people criminals in God’s eyes or in human eyes?  Would Jesus put a person in prison for crossing a border to seek a better life?  Did God, in the Old Testament, ever tell the Israelites to close their borders to foreigners?  Isn’t the New Testament even more inclusive than the Old Testament?

Ironically Christians, and Protestants in particular, following the apostle Paul, emphasize that we are under grace and no longer under the law.  But conservative Christians refuse to accept the fact that this implies a new way of life that is led by the Spirit, not by human laws.  As Paul puts it, “But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law” (Galatians 5:18). In their reading of the Bible, they choose to cling to the Law of Moses even though there is overwhelming New Testament evidence that the Gospel of Christ supersedes it.  And today, Christian nationalists strive to manipulate human laws in order to advance their own agenda.  That has nothing to do with the Gospel of Christ.

This is, in fact, surprising since evangelicals have often claimed to adhere to a literal interpretation of the Bible.  But it is becoming increasingly obvious that those white evangelicals whose attitudes put them in the category of Christian nationalists tend to interpret the Bible in ways that benefit them politically.  On this matter Burton relates, in her article, thoughts expressed by church historian Diana Butler Bass about such white evangelicals:

“Increasingly, she said, white evangelicals are motivated by a willingness to read the Bible non-literally when it comes to passages about, say, caring for the poor.

Over the past few years, she’s noticed what she called ‘a very slow theological turn within the evangelical community to redefine what seemed like very basic … verses about the care of the poor and caring for the outcast. On one hand, they might say, “Oh, you know, Jesus was born of a literal virgin” … but when it comes to these verses about the poor and about refugees, in particular, all of a sudden, literalism disappears.’

Suddenly, she said, she noticed a ‘new sort of interpretation that’s floating around in evangelical circles about [verses in the Bible where Jesus exhorts care for the poor]. And the interpretation is Jesus does not mean everybody. That Jesus only means that you’re supposed to take care of the “least of these” who are in the Christian community.’”

And of course, the “Christian community” is, to them, made up of people like themselves.  But New Testament Christianity is meant to be inclusive, a point made clear by Burton with the following statement:

“One of the most famous verses in the Bible is Galatians 3:28, which highlights how Christianity is supposed to transcend barriers of race, class, wealth, and nationality. ‘There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.’

It’s unclear how white evangelicals will reinterpret that verse now.”

The issue of white evangelical attitude toward immigration and refugees was also examined in 2018 by Kristin Kobes Du Mez who wrote an article in Harvard Divinity Bulletin.  Du Mez, like Burton, points out the Christian call to inclusiveness and hospitality:

“WHAT FACTORS SHAPE HOW white evangelicals approach the question of immigration? On the one hand, the Bible, and Christian tradition, have a lot to say about loving the stranger and caring for the foreigner. There is a universality within the Christian faith that ostensibly cuts across tribe and nation. Indeed, a strong Christian case can be made for extending a ‘radical hospitality,’ for permeable borders, and for a compassionate approach to immigration.”

She then wonders why “white evangelicals—those who claim to hold the Bible in highest regard—are more opposed to immigration reform, and have more negative views about immigrants, than any other religious demographic. This, despite the advocacy efforts of many evangelical organizations and prominent leaders.”

Du Mez proposes an answer that is based on the idea of masculinity as understood by white evangelicals:

“My own research on masculinity focuses on just one facet of the evangelical worldview—but a foundational one. In many ways, gender provides the glue that holds together their larger ideological framework. For years I’ve been tracing evangelicals’ embrace of increasingly militaristic constructions of masculinity, which go hand in hand with visions of the nation as vulnerable and in need of defense.”

She traces back the rise of this emphasis on masculinity to the 1950’s during the Cold War, when communists were seen as an evil, anti-God, anti-American and antifamily threat to national security by both conservatives and liberals in the United States.  Evangelicals, in particular, responded by “Reinforcing proper gender roles—that of male breadwinner/protector and female homemaker/protected.”

The 1960’s brought the civil rights movement, the rise of feminism and the Vietnam War.  While others began to question militarism and “traditional” gender roles, evangelicals continued to promote those values and Christian nationalism.  In the 1970s, evangelical leaders were complaining about a crisis of masculinity and accusing feminists of denigrating masculine leaders, a situation that, according to them, endangered the nation.  In the 1980’s, this “evangelical masculinity” was, more and more, expressed in militaristic terms.

In the 1990’s, the Cold War ended and the Promise Keepers movement arose, which led to a softening of the “militant masculinity” into a “Tender Warrior” motif.  However, “by the end of the decade, a renewed ‘crisis of masculinity was identified,’ and the time had come to drop the tender and embrace the warrior.”

It is worth mentioning here that this male warrior image is linked to the Warrior God described by Moses in Exodus 15.  But later in the biblical narrative, King David is told that God does not want him to build a temple for him because he is a warrior who has shed much blood.  We therefore see a progression in Israel’s understanding of God’s nature, but those who, like most white evangelicals, believe that the Bible is God’s inerrant word, will be oblivious to such a changing perception of the divine.

Du Mez provides examples of literature that promoted, at the beginning of the new millenium, the image of the male warrior.  One of them seems particularly interesting:

“Most significantly, John Eldredge’s wildly popular Wild at Heart: Discovering the Secret of a Man’s Soul insisted that masculinity was thoroughly militaristic. A ‘crisis in masculinity’ pervaded both church and society because a ‘warrior culture’ no longer existed. Man was made to image God, a warrior God; aggression was ‘part of the masculine design.’”

Given this state of mind, it is easy to see how the call to militaristic masculinity was switched by white evangelicals, after September 11, from response to a communist threat to response to an Islamic threat.  Du Mez explains how this perception of a threat from Islamic fundamentalism applies to evangelical views about the border and immigration:

“From the Cold War to the present, evangelicals have perceived the American nation as vulnerable. Strong, aggressive, militant men must defend ‘her.’ The border is this line of defense. Many evangelicals see the border as a site of danger rather than as a place of exchange or a site of hospitality.”

Du Mez also notes that the call to militant masculinity is only for white Americans.  Blacks, Middle Eastern men and Hispanic men acting in that manner would be seen as “a threat to the stability of home and nation.”

Du Mez provides additional information that will not be covered here.  I will simply close my summary of her article by mentioning that today’s GOP presidential candidates are calling for military action in Mexico to address the border issue and stop the drug trade.  In so doing, they nicely corroborate her insight.