President Donald Trump is shutting down legal ways for persecuted people to come to the U.S. and deporting people from vulnerable populations, including Iranian Christians and Afghan women, to an uncertain future. It’s forcing Republicans to consider what America’s role should be in taking in persecuted Christians and religious minorities — or whether the country should have one at all.
“Persecuted Christians need to understand that the rule of law is pretty important,” Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina told NOTUS last week when asked about a group of Iranian Christians who were deported to a jungle camp in Panama. “I kind of cast a skeptical eye towards someone who says they passed through two or three jurisdictions where they’ve been safely removed from Iran, and that somehow we owe them asylum in the U.S.”
“Look, Iran’s a horrible place,” Tillis continued. “But there are a lot of places a lot nearer than the United States that they could get out of harm’s way.”
Since Trump took office, he has launched a mass deportation program, shut down new asylum claims, and rolled back protections for at-risk groups who are already in the United States, like Venezuelans. He’s also dismantling a key legal pathway for people facing persecution to come to the U.S.: Earlier this week, nonprofits who work to settle refugees through the Refugee Admissions Program were notified that the federal government was canceling their grants. Trump has indefinitely halted most new arrivals (although he offered priority status for Afrikaners, a white South African ethnic group).
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Some Republicans said Trump’s actions are necessary, even if they could lead to people with valid asylum claims being shut out.
“Any time you have persecution of Christians anywhere, that should be something as fellow believers that we all have concerns about,” Rep. Michael Guest of Mississippi said in an interview. But “until we undo all the damage that was done under the prior administration, it is going to be very difficult for those individuals. And while my heart goes out to them, I also agree with the actions of the Trump administration.”
Other Republicans are growing concerned with the president’s moves. Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, a Florida Republican, told NOTUS he hopes to meet with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem soon to discuss how to protect asylum seekers who are at risk of persecution.
“There are potentially people in that process that may have legitimate claims,” he said.
Diaz-Balart and two other Republican lawmakers have also raised concerns about potential deportations to Venezuela. They wrote a letter in January urging the administration to continue temporary protected status, or TPS, for Venezuelans already in the country.
“The Venezuelan people have endured repression, corruption, and human rights abuses for far too long in Venezuela, and it is still not safe for many to return,” the group wrote. “We will continue to do everything possible to ensure that those seeking freedom from persecution and oppression are protected.”
Instead, the administration moved to end TPS for Venezuelans early. Rep. Carlos Gimenez, a Florida Republican who urged protections for Venezuelans alongside Diaz-Balart, has criticized that decision.
He also said he was concerned about how the government handles asylum. He told NOTUS he believes asylum seekers “deserve a day in court” rather than being expelled without having a chance to make their case.
“I believe in due process,” he said.
“We have asylum claims because we’re a country that’s open to those that are being persecuted around the world, either for religious reasons or for political reasons,” he added. “I would always hope that America is the land where persecuted people can find — I mean, how can I not say that? My parents did that.”
Gimenez said he hopes to get more details from officials about removals “in the very near future.”
Neither the White House nor the Department of Homeland Security responded to requests for comment.
Both refugee resettlement and asylum were once widely accepted by both parties. The refugee admissions program was created during Ronald Reagan’s presidency to allow at-risk people to apply for screening and entry from abroad.
Some Republican lawmakers downplayed the severity of the restrictions.
“It’s just a temporary pause on that,” Sen. John Cornyn said of the refugee program. “Obviously asylees and refugees are still going to be part of our world. I think we’re just at a point where there’s a pause to do an audit, an accounting of how far we’ve gotten afield from where the law actually applies.”
Groups that work with refugees said they were disappointed with how little lawmakers were pushing back on the efforts to end resettlement.
“The silence is a little bit deafening at this point,” Danilo Zak, director of policy at Church World Service, told NOTUS.
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Casey Murray is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow. Haley Byrd Wilt is a reporter at NOTUS.
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