Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant crackdown is causing consternation among some members of the conservative Southern Baptist Convention, as diverse faith leaders are pleading with his administration for mercy.
Baptist Press reported last week that leaders of multiple “diverse ethnic SBC fellowships” issued a public statement “seeking religious liberty protections, compassion without demonization and enforcement options including fines or other penalties in lieu of deportation.” The letter was signed by Haitian, Hispanic, African American, Chinese, Filipino, Nigerian, Liberian, Ghanaian, Korean, Burmese, Thai and Vietnamese leaders who oversee SBC fellowships for those ethnicities and nationalities.
In the letter, the leaders said they “share the federal government’s desire to protect citizens, promote legal immigration and refugee policies, and robustly safeguard the country’s borders,” but that “enforcement must be accompanied with compassion that doesn’t demonize those fleeing oppression, violence, and persecution.”
The leaders warn that the Trump administration’s immigration policies are infringing on freedom of religion, as the administration’s refusal to exclude houses of worship as targets for immigration raids has resulted in a culture of fear that undermines people’s rights.
They write:
Threats of mass deportation by the Trump administration and its lack of assurance to churches that ICE agents will not enter churches to carry out immigration enforcement duties has caused fear to rise among both the guilty and the innocent. As evidenced by the significant drop in attendance, many legal law-abiding immigrants and refugees across the United States are also confused and afraid to gather to worship God and receive spiritual care in their local church. We are concerned about the current impact on religious freedom as worshippers decide not to attend worship services out of fear that federal agents will carry out law enforcement duties in non-exigent circumstances inside a church building.
The faith leaders are calling on Southern Baptists to pray that the Trump administration finds the wisdom to empathize with immigrants “who have already experienced great atrocities in their native country and whose deportations will cause their American-born family members who reunite with them in a foreign country to experience the same dire conditions.”
They also propose fines or other penalties in lieu of deportation.
The statement from diverse Southern Baptist faith leaders speaks to long-simmering divisions in the convention between nonwhite members and the church’s white leadership, which at times has resisted policies that benefit the former. The statement also speaks to a broader conversation underway in U.S. Christian communities, even among conservatives, about the conflicts between politics and a compassionate religious practice.
In contrast to those like Vice President JD Vance and Elon Musk, who have sought to shame faith leaders who urge compassion for immigrants, the SBC letter offers encouraging evidence that there are still conservative Christians who feel compelled to care about others.
