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By
Sarah Pulliam Bailey, June 18, 2017
Prominent
evangelist Franklin Graham says he finds it “very disturbing” that immigration
authorities have arrested many Iraqi Christians for possible deportation.
President Donald Trump promised earlier this year he would prioritize
persecuted Christians, but many international religious freedom advocates say deporting
these Christians back to Iraq could put them in serious danger.
Graham,
who has been supportive of Trump and his travel ban, urged the president to
have someone investigate the cases where dozens of Iraqi nationals were swept
up in immigration raids in Michigan and Tennessee.
The
arrests came after a deal the United States made with Iraq, which sought to be
removed from Trump’s proposed travel ban on seven Muslim-majority countries and
agreed to accept deported Iraqis. Immigration authorities said all of the Iraqi
nationals who were arrested had criminal convictions.
“I
understand a policy of deporting people who are here illegally and have broken
the law,” Graham wrote on Facebook on Friday. “I don’t know all of the details,
but I would encourage our president to give great consideration to the threat
to lives of Christians in countries like Iraq.”
A
spokesman for Graham said he is traveling and unable to comment further.
Graham,
son of famed evangelist Billy Graham, is president of the Billy Graham
Evangelistic Association and Samaritan’s Purse. Though he didn’t formally
endorse Trump during the campaign, he read from Scripture at the inauguration
and said after the Trump’s win that “God’s hand intervened” in the election.
Last
month, Graham joined several other religious leaders to watch Trump announce an
executive order on religious freedom, saying the president gave him and other
evangelical leaders a tour of his private quarters in the White House. Vice
President Mike Pence headlined Graham’s recent World Summit in Defense of
Persecuted Christians to highlight the plight of Christians around the world.
With
5.7 million fans on Facebook, Graham has regularly praised the president and
his policies, including the proposed travel ban.
“Taking
action to secure our borders had to start somewhere,” Graham wrote. “Is it
perfect? Maybe not, but it is a first step. … I believe the best way to help is
to reach out and help these people in their own countries.”
Graham
is also known for making other controversial remarks about Islam, LGBT issues
and climate change. After men reportedly shouted “this is for Allah,” during
recent attacks in London, Graham wrote, “The threat of Islam is dangerous.”
After
Trump pulled out of the Paris climate agreement, Graham wrote, “God gave us the
earth to use, and we are called to be good stewards of it and use it wisely.”
Other
evangelical leaders have spoken out, including the president of the Southern
Baptist Convention’s policy arm Russell Moore and Lynne Hybels, co-founder of
Chicago-area megachurch Willow Creek.
“Let’s
also make sure we don’t deport Iraqi Christians, to be slaughtered back in the
Middle East,” Moore said on Twitter.
“I
just signed this petition to stop deportation of Iraqi Christians. Please add
your voice!” Hybels said in a tweet.
Many
immigrants fear for their safety if they are sent back to Iraq, Jeremy
Courtney, an American Christian who is living in Iraq, wrote for The Washington
Post. Many Christians were killed under Saddam Hussein’s regime and continued
to be targeted after the U.S. invasion in 2003, as well as in the years since
the Islamic State has come onto the scene.
Last
year, Congress voted unanimously to recognize the killings of Christians in the
Middle East as a genocide.
“On
a practical level, this is mind-boggling,” Nina Shea, an international
human-rights lawyer who runs the Center for Religious Freedom at the
Washington-based Hudson Institute, told Religion News Service. “In a situation
of genocide you don’t deport anybody. We didn’t even deport Gitmo detainees to
places where they would be killed.”
The
ACLU on Thursday filed a lawsuit in an attempt to halt possible deportations.
“We
are hoping that the courts will recognize the extreme danger that deportation
to Iraq would pose for these individuals,” Kary Moss, executive director for
the ACLU of Michigan, wrote in a statement. “Our immigration policy shouldn’t
amount to a death sentence for anyone.”
The
issue reflects how evangelicals, many of whom voted for Trump and still support
him, are getting some of the things they want but are frustrated by the
administration’s direction in other areas. The biggest win, many of them say,
is his successful Supreme Court nomination of Neil M. Gorsuch, seen as key to
upholding the conservative end of the bench. He has largely met their
expectations on abortion policies so far.
But
evangelicals have felt let down in other areas. They wanted Trump to issue an
executive order on religious freedom that would include allowing people to decline
to provide services if it goes against their religious beliefs. Instead, he
signed an executive order many observers saw as disappointing. Evangelicals
also urged the president to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem,
which he has decided against for now.
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