Evangelicals Blast Trump Administration for Admitting to U.S. Only 21 Christian Refugees from Middle East in 2018
By Julio Severo
“After pledging that it would help
Christians facing genocide by the Islamic State and other Muslim groups in the
Middle East, figures show the Trump administration has resettled only 21
Christian refugees from Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Syria and Saudi Arabia so far
this year,” said CBN News in a recent report.
CBN said that “The Christian
population in the Middle East region is believed to have fallen by two-thirds
since 2011 because of Muslim persecution and genocide” — largely
fueled by direct and indirect military interventions from the U.S. government
under Barack Hussein Obama and Hillary Clinton.
“Despite claims that the Obama White
House was shutting out Christian refugees, the Refugee Processing Center
database shows that the Obama administration resettled a total of 1,315
Christians from the Middle East from Jan. 1, 2016 until June 19, 2016,” said
CBN.
Even though 1,315 Christian refugees
are a small number if compared to the 38,901 Islamic “refugees” that the Obama
administration admitted to the U.S. in 2016, the number of Christian refugees
admitted under Obama is vastly bigger than the insignificant number of 21
Christian refugees admitted by the Trump administration.
Apparently, such unofficial harsh ban
on Christian refugees was not President Donald Trump’s original plan.
CBN host David Brody asked Trump
during the interview: “As it relates to persecuted Christians, do you see them
as kind of a priority here?”
Trump replied: “Yes.”
When Brody asked again, “You do?” the
president continued: “They’ve been horribly treated. Do you know if you were a
Christian in Syria it was impossible, at least very tough to get into the
United States? If you were a Muslim you could come in, but if you were a
Christian, it was almost impossible and the reason that was so unfair,
everybody was persecuted in all fairness, but they were chopping off the heads
of everybody but more so the Christians. And I thought it was very, very
unfair. So we are going to help them.”
It was pretty clear: It was very
tough for persecuted Christians to get into the United States and Trump was
going to help. This help is especially necessary and even compulsory because the
Islamic genocide of Christians has come on the trail of the disastrous U.S.
foreign policy.
In his report in the New American
titled “Christian
Massacres: A Result of U.S. Foreign Policy,”
Alex Newman said, “It has been claimed that U.S. foreign policy in the Middle
East could not be intentionally designed to do a better job of liquidating
Christians than is happening nowadays.”
Newman also said,
After
trillions of dollars and thousands of American lives were sacrificed by the
U.S. government over the last decade intervening in the Middle East — the
birthplace of Jesus Christ and Christianity — Christian communities are facing
unprecedented struggles across most of the region. More than a few analysts
have even called the systematic and growing persecution of Christians
throughout much of the Muslim world an ongoing example of genocide.
One
of the most frequent excuses offered to justify the persecution of Christians
by murderous regimes and the anti-Christian fanatics they enable is that
believers in Christ are somehow acting as surrogates or proxies for Western
interests — especially the U.S. government. After decades of meddling in the
internal affairs of nations around the world — backing dictators, sparking
revolutions, imposing sanctions, and more — America is widely perceived as
hostile and dangerous. Plus, as tyrants throughout history have learned,
minorities make good scapegoats.
U.S.
government intervention in the region has been justified using a broad array of
issues: supposed “Weapons of Mass Destruction” (WMDs), the terror war, regional
security, trade, and vaguely defined “national interests.” But increasingly,
American policymakers have been meddling in the Middle East under the guise of
“spreading democracy.” And as analysts have noted, when the overwhelming
majority of the population is Muslim, so-called “democracy” — or majority rule
— does not generally bode well for Christians and other minorities.
As
predicted by innumerable experts, imposing “democracy” in Muslim-majority
countries has been a disaster for Christians. Asked for an example of U.S.
foreign policy benefiting Christians, a senior official with the USCIRF could
not name one. Christianity has managed to survive in the Middle East for 2,000
years without U.S. government intervention. But if current trends continue, the
religion of Christ could very well be eradicated in the region of its birth
within the next few decades. And unfortunately, America will bear at least part
of the responsibility.
The Trump administration is not
helping persecuted Christians, according to the latest CBN report. In fact,
Christians fleeing the Islamic oppression in the Middle East have not been
given top priority for entrance into the U.S. Instead, the Trump administration
is admitting to the U.S. many fewer persecuted Christians than the Obama
administration did.
According to CBN, when Trump signed
an immigration ban last year (which hit largely Islamic nations not aligned
with Saudi Arabia), Christian leaders voiced their concerns about Christians
being unfairly affected by his ban.
Nina Shea, director of the Hudson Institute’s
Center for Religious Freedom, was not pleased with Trump’s immigration ban.
“There’s a dire need for President
Trump to issue a separate executive order — one specifically aimed to help ISIS
genocide survivors in Iraq and Syria,” she said in a statement.
“For three years, the Christians,
Yazidis and others of the smallest religious minorities have been targeted by
ISIS with beheadings, crucifixions, rape, torture and sexual enslavement,” she
continued. “One year ago, on March 17, 2016, ISIS was officially designated as
responsible for this ‘genocide’ by the State Department.”
As far as persecuted Christians are
concerned, the Trump administration has failed Christians fleeing Islamic
persecution and genocide in the Middle East and, incredibly, it has been much
less open to them than the left-wing Obama administration was.
The only openness of the Trump
administration to persecuted Christians has been “to help” Iraqi Christians
through USAID, which is
the U.S. population control agency.
This is, during
decades U.S. left-wing and right-wing administrations opened wide the
immigration doors to Muslims.
Now Trump, who had personally voiced concern for suffering Christians, seems to
be closing the door on them.
Trump has perpetuated the same
blunders of Obama and other administrations by privileging Saudi Arabia and
exempting it from his ban. Saudi Arabia is the leader of the global Sunni
Islam, which is the main responsible for Islamic terror, including ISIS, and
the genocide of Christians around the world. So Trump’s ban — Saudis in, and
persecuted Christians out — is a contradiction of his promises in 2016. His
current policy is making Saudi Arabia great and making persecuted Christians virtually
ineligible to enter the U.S.
Saudis have oil and no innocence.
Persecuted Christians have innocence, but no oil.
Some conservatives could think that
Trump’s unofficial ban on persecuted Christians is “fake news.”
There was a cursed vice among
left-wingers that all negative news — especially when coming from the conservative
media — about Obama was fake news. Now the cursed vice can be seen among
right-wingers, who treat all negative news about Trump as fake news. This may
be true when the negative news comes from the left-wing media. But CBN is
conservative and evangelical Christian — the same profile responsible for
Trump’s election.
There is a conflict between fake news
from the left-wing media and exaggerated news from the right-wing media.
Fake news is the effort of the
massive left-wing to portray consistently Trump in a negative way. Exaggerated
news is the effort of the right-wing media to portray consistently Trump in a
positive way through an exaggerated defense of him, even when he is clearly wrong.
The same extremism happened in the Bush era: There was the massive fake news
from the left-wing media attacking Bush, and exaggerated news from the
right-wing media defending him in everything, including the Iraq War. But guess
what? Since 2016 Trump has attacked Bush for the Iraq War, including by using
the same accusation the left-wing media used against him: Bush lied.
Certainly, some future conservative
president will criticize today’s blunders of Trump, in the same way Trump did
to Bush. I am just dealing with it in advance.
A conservative movement can develop
and grow in a healthy way only though responsible criticism of external threats
(Islam, feminism, homosexualism, witchcraft and Marxism) and self-criticism.
Because Evangelicals
were fundamental for Trump’s election,
they have a duty to hold him accountable for his stated commitment to help
persecuted Christians, by fighting for their immigration to the U.S. If hordes of Muslims were granted
entry to the U.S. for decades,
why not give Christians a bigger chance? Yet, Trump has drastically reduced
even the small number of Christian immigrants allowed under Obama.
As an Evangelical Christian, I am
compelled to defend the defenseless, and urge Trump to keep his promise to
persecuted Christians.
U.S. evangelicals can and should
voice their concerns directly to Trump. If Obama could admit to the U.S. 1,315
Christian refugees in 2016, Trump can and should do much more than admitting
just 21.
It is pretty clear: It was very tough
for persecuted Christians to get into the United States under Obama. Now, under
Trump is virtually impossible.
Portuguese version of this article: Evangélicos
americanos criticam fortemente governo Trump por permitir a entrada nos EUA de
apenas 21 refugiados cristãos do Oriente Médio em 2018
Spanish version of this article: Evangélicos
estadounidenses critican fuertemente gobierno Trump por permitir la entrada en
EEUU de sólo 21 refugiados cristianos de Oriente Medio en 2018
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