Christianity today The Trump administration reports that it is targeting Iranian Christian immigrants for deportation.
On June 19, Pastor Ala Torosian published a letter to his church as Iran and Israel secretly completed plans to exchange missiles and authorities’ volleys and send American bombers to attack Iran’s nuclear sites.
Torosian, an Iranian pastor in Cornerstone West Los Angeles, leads the church’s Persian-speaking congregations. He came to the United States 15 years ago as a refugee after being imprisoned for his faith 15 years ago. He has always brought prayers in his heart, the Tosian writes: “Iran is free…”
However, five days later, the suffering of his loved one suddenly became very close.
Pastor on Tuesday recording On his phone as Masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the agent arrested two of his church members on the Los Angeles sidewalk. The Iranian couple had put on hold on asylum cases, according to Torosian. They fled Iran for fear of persecution for being Christians and were part of his congregation for about a year.
The detention adds to the growing number of church members and Christians seeking religious protections picked up by the ice. In many cases, they do not have an obvious criminal history. In many cases, they were legally in the United States and complied with orders from the immigration court. ICE traditionally did not deport individuals with pending asylum petitions.
When returning to their country of origin, Iranian Christians face serious persecution in the hands of radical Islamic teachers in Iran. That persecution actually has Enhancement in recent yearsand the criminalization of promotional Christianity, and severe punishment for Christians considered Islam’s “apostates.” This persecution makes Iranian Christians an obvious candidate for asylum or refugee status (applicants are eligible on the basis of religion and persecution; at least those who submit such applications must not be deported until those applications have been properly considered.
I’m old enough to remember a time when conservative Republicans saw Christians defending radical Islamism. Today, the GOP regime wants to deport Christians to be persecuted by radical Islamic regimes. The only people who think Trump deserves refugee status Like a white African South African. They may have a plausible case (and I am not against acknowledging them), but that of Iranian Christians, and many other harshly oppressed groups – are much stronger
Sadly, this is far from the only situation the Trump administration is trying to banish immigrants who have fled from oppression, particularly by the kind of conservative claim they oppose. The same story unfolds in an effort to strip the legal status of Afghans who fled the Taliban (including many who supported the United States during the war), Cubans, Venezuelans, and Nicaragians who fled socialist dictatorship.
Those who are genuinely opposed to socialism and radical Islamism will not close the door to the victims of those regimes. Doing so is unfair and harmful to the US economy (these immigrants contribute) and the US struggle in the international view of these administrations. When we force them to expel the victims to sin, thereby promoting the very oppression that we assert we are against, it is difficult to tell people so much that we can trust that we are superior to these brutal tyrannical lords.
