Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Geneva, Switzerland, hosted some 18 attendees at the Sept. 19-20 conference, which included presentations, discussions and fellowship. Its Refugee Welcome Center began in 2022 in response to an influx of mostly women and children fleeing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Photo: Lynette Wilson/Episcopal News Service

[Episcopal News Service – Geneva, Switzerland] As Western governments continue cuts to foreign aid and humanitarian assistance, and as the United States dismantles its federal refugee resettlement program and eliminates the U.S. Agency for International Development, nongovernmental organizations and religious institutions, including The Episcopal Church, may need to step up their efforts to address the global refugee crisis.

With this in mind, the Convocation of Episcopal Churches in Europe focused its annual leadership training over the weekend on the theme, “The Refugee Crisis: What we can do as parishes, missions and individuals.”

Worldwide, there are an estimated 42.7 million refugees, 73.5 million people internally displaced within their own countries, and 8.4 million asylum-seekers, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ 2024 figures.

Across the convocation, which in Western Europe includes parishes and missions in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Switzerland, congregations are already serving refugees through its refugee grant program. The conference aimed to share existing work and establish a framework, including practical guidelines, to identify existing needs and strategize and collaborate on providing services to meet those needs.

“One of our goals is to raise awareness, not only of the refugee situation, but what we are doing within the convocation, what tools we have to help congregations discern what it is that they can or want to do and what the needs of their city are,” Janet Day-Strehlow, who chairs the convocation’s European Institute for Christian Studies, which organized the conference, told Episcopal News Service.

Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Geneva hosted approximately 18 attendees at the Sept. 19-20 conference, which included presentations, discussions, and a sharing of stories by refugees, as well as fellowship. Its parish-based Refugee Welcome Center began in 2022 in response to an influx of mostly women and children fleeing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine; in 2024, it assisted 1,000 refugees, the majority Ukrainian.

The center’s budget increased from $15,000 to $150,000 in three years; it receives support through the convocation’s grant program, which Episcopal Relief & Development, Capital Group and private donations support.

Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Geneva, Switzerland, operates a parish-based Refugee Welcome Center catering to the wants and needs expressed by refugees. Photo: Lynette Wilson/Episcopal News Service

The welcome center offers French language classes that complement those offered by local social service providers. It also sponsors cultural events, hosts yoga and other movement classes, music lessons, English classes and English-immersion camps for children, the Rev. Michael Rusk, rector of Emmanuel Episcopal Church, told attendees during his presentation.

The center sought to partner with others so as not to duplicate but rather fill the gaps in needs and services. It is intended to respond to the Baptismal Covenant’s call to respect the dignity of every human being.

“That’s what we’re called to live out, not just on a Sunday, but throughout the week,” Rusk told ENS. Through expressing that covenant, the church has created “a community which has many people of different nationalities, and which includes refugees and migrants who received a warm welcome.”

As of 2024, the convocation, in partnership with Episcopal Relief & Development, has supported over 40,000 refugees in 11 countries with essentials, health care, legal aid, language classes and employment assistance, said Giulia Bonoldi, managing director of the Rome, Italy-based Joel Nafuma Refugee Center and the convocation’s chief welcoming officer for refugees and migrants.

Modeling Emmanuel’s approach, she said during her presentation, churches interested in assisting refugees and migrants first need to understand what social and cultural services are already available. There is no need to replicate or re-invent services, she said. Churches need to work alongside community partners and add value.

“This is a time in which the church has an important opportunity to change the way it perceives itself, to do good work and encourage more awareness [of the crisis],” Bonoldi said during a discussion following Rusk’s presentation.

Kim Powell, senior warden at the American Cathedral in Paris, and Sierra McCullough, co-chair for mission, attended the conference because even though they’re already providing sneakers and socks to young refugees, they’ve not yet applied for a grant from the convocation and they’re interested in expanding their partnerships in Paris to create arts programs for refugees, they said.

In her presentation, the Rev. Sarah Shipman, director of the church’s Episcopal Migration Ministries, spoke about EMM and how, over its 40-year history, it helped welcome and resettle over 110,000 people from some 87 countries. Along with its partners, EMM worked to find housing for refugees, provide legal and employment assistance, language and cultural orientation classes, assistance enrolling children in school, and other services.

EMM had been one of 10 nongovernmental agencies, many of them associated with religious denominations, that facilitated refugee resettlement through the federal program created in 1980. Refugees traditionally have been among the most thoroughly vetted of all immigrants and often waited for years overseas for their opportunity to start new lives in the United States. After the Trump administration issued an executive order in January suspending the program, EMM announced plans to wind down its core resettlement operations. The federal contract officially ends on Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year.

Through its newly created public witness division, EMM is now part of a broader effort, including the church’s Washington, D.C.-based Office of Government Relations and others, to find ways to continue to assist refugees, asylum-seekers and migrants. And EMM continues to serve migrants through diocesan partnerships, collaboration with other Anglican provinces worldwide and local outreach to refugees who continue to build lives in U.S. communities.

“Whether you’re a Christian or Jewish or Muslim or you have no faith at all, we all feel and experience empathy, and we all have a responsibility in our community to look out for and protect one another,” Shipman told ENS.

Shipman first stopped in Rome to learn about the work of the JNRC; as EMM shifts its focus from resettling refugees in the United States to supporting ministries serving refugees and migrants more broadly, the center based at St. Paul’s Within the Walls serves as a potential model.

Whereas historically, refugees arriving in the United States arrived with a well-established legal process, those arriving in Italy must apply for asylum upon arrival.

“People risk their lives because they have no path to come legally,” Bonoldi said.

The center operates a day shelter and provides food, clothing, Italian- and English-language classes, legal and job assistance, and other services to an average of 150 refugees on weekdays. It does so with a small staff, interns and volunteers, and an annual budget under $400,000.

Max Niedzwiecki, an anthropologist who serves on The Episcopal Church’s Standing Commission on World Mission and who has worked closely with EMM on developing its Rainbow Initiative Program, serving LGBTQ+ refugees and asylum-seekers, talked about refugee rights and the European context.

Following the formation in 1945 of the United Nations and the end of World War II, the 1951 Refugee Convention and the 1967 Protocol defined the term “refugee,” outlined their rights and provided a framework for their treatment and protection.

Niedzwiecki also emphasized that the way people talk about refugees, particularly in an increasingly polarized world, can influence their rights. And he reminded those present that refugees are more than their legal status.

“Sometimes when we talk about migrants, there is an implication that the people who are doing the talking are separate from them, while we know that our communities include migrants,” he later told ENS.

“In addition, we might focus only on migrants’ struggles, while we know that they are full human beings with energy, skills and love to share. Their presence is a blessing, and they deserve gratitude, as well as empathy. When we neglect to voice our gratitude, admiration and solidarity with migrants in our words and in our prayers, we run the risk of reinforcing harmful stereotypes in our own hearts, and in the minds of people who are listening.”

On Sept. 22, Bonoldi, Day-Strehlow and Shipman joined the Rt. Rev. Mark Edington, bishop of the Convocation of Episcopal Churches in Europe, for a meeting with a UNHCR official at its Geneva headquarters.

-Lynette Wilson is a reporter and managing editor of Episcopal News Service. She can be reached at lwilson@episcopalchurch.org.

[Episcopal News Service] Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe defended The Episcopal Church’s decision to end its federal contract rather than help the Trump administration resettle white South Africans in the United States, saying in a webinar that churches must reject the “moral compromise” that the administration has expected of other American institutions.

“I think the institutional resistance is now more important than ever,” Rowe said in the May 20 webinar hosted by Religion News Service. “The church may be one of the few institutions that will be able to stand up and to tell the truth along the way, not to fold to demands to continue to be asked to make compromises on our moral decision-making.”

The Episcopal Church and its Episcopal Migration Ministries had helped to resettle nearly 110,000 refugees since the 1980s though a bipartisan federal program. The church, however, has faced criticism this month from the Trump administration and President Donald Trump’s supporters for refusing to participate in the president’s expedited resettlement of Afrikaners from South Africa. Trump previously halted the resettlement of all other refugees, many of them fleeing war, persecution and natural disasters.

Religion News Service initially invited Rowe as a panelist to talk about the church’s participation in an interfaith lawsuit seeking to block the Trump administration from conducting immigration enforcement actions at houses of worship. After Rowe’s May 12 announcement that EMM would end its federal contract rather than resettle the small group of Afrikaners, the presiding bishop spent much of the RNS webinar responding to questions about that decision.

“What we’re talking about here is a real distortion of the facts and the truth,” Rowe said, referring to claims that the church is turning its back on white South Africans who feel persecuted by their country’s Black majority.

“In this case, it was fairly straightforward,” Rowe said. “We have a group of people [the Afrikaners] who are essentially the architects of apartheid. They are by no means persecuted. Certainly, times are difficult in South Africa, that’s for sure. But they don’t meet any definition of a refugee. And more importantly, they jumped the line.”

Trump, after suspending the United States’ 45-year-old refugee resettlement program, later reversed himself to make a narrow exception for these white South Africans, whom he said were “escaping government-sponsored race-based discrimination, including racially discriminatory property confiscation.”

Afrikaners, who number about 3 million people in a country of 63 million, formerly were part of the governing white minority under South Africa’s extreme racial segregation of apartheid, until its end in 1994 allowed newfound enfranchisement of the country’s Black majority. Afrikaner activists are now promoting a “completely false narrative,” South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has said, by claiming that the government’s efforts to address lingering racial disparities amount to persecution of the country’s white minority.

Ramaphosa also pushed back against such claims in a meeting with Trump on May 21 at the White House, but Trump insisted on his version of Ramaphosa’s country, describing a South Africa that he said was plagued by widespread anti-white violence and stolen property.

Rowe also has lamented the harms that Trump’s executive order restricting all other refugee resettlement have caused for many of the millions of other people living in limbo and desperate for new homes in the United States after fleeing danger and hardships in their home countries, from Sudan to Vietnam. Rowe amplified those points in the webinar.

“We have people who helped our United States military, who are real patriots, Afghans,” he said, “others who are waiting to be resettled, people who are facing violence in Congo and all over, waiting in camps and dying every day.”

Instead, the Trump administration last week welcomed into the United States about 50 Afrikaners – “rather privileged people by the world’s standards,” Rowe said. After consulting with Anglican Archbishop Thabo Makgoba of Southern Africa, Rowe and Episcopal leaders decided it was not worth participating now in the resettlement of the Afrikaners in the hopes of a future restoration of the broader refugee program.

“The problem with any kind of Faustian bargain like that is that the devil always wins,” Rowe said. “We knew that if we did this, we were going to be asked to do something else we couldn’t do. This was the line that we had to draw. And we’ll continue to do that. We’ll continue to tell the truth and be on the side of moral decision-making, and that’s what this is about. Just because the Trump administration and others have lost their way doesn’t mean the church has.”

Other webinar panelists included the Rev. Carlos Malavé, president of the Latino Christian National Network, and Liz Reiner Platt, director of the Law, Rights and Religion Project at Columbia Law School in New York. They joined Rowe to discuss some of the lawsuits that religious organizations have filed this year to contest other Trump administration policies, particularly those related to immigration.

Malavé’s organization is a plaintiff with The Episcopal Church and 25 other groups seeking to restore “sensitive locations” protections that the Department of Homeland Security previously had granted to houses of worship, before Trump took office in January 2025. The plaintiffs have argued that ending those protections from enforcement actions have hindered congregations’ efforts to welcome and minister to immigrant communities.

“We must, as followers of Jesus, be faithful to our call,” Malavé said. Christianity offers “a world view in which every human being is loved, accepted and cared for.”

Rowe agreed, adding that The Episcopal Church and other plaintiffs are “making pretty conservative arguments” based in constitutional principles of religious freedom, freedom of speech and the rule of law.

At the same time, The Episcopal Church has not joined a separate lawsuit contesting the Trump administration’s suspension of the refugee resettlement program. Rowe explained that the church needs to be strategic and “can’t be part of every lawsuit” but will continue to take faith-based stands as a “bulwark against injustice.”

“This is not about party politics. This is about moral decision-making,” Rowe said. “This is not about being a Republican or Democrat. This is not anti-Trump. … This is about our baptismal covenant and respecting the dignity of every human being.”

– David Paulsen is a senior reporter and editor for Episcopal News Service based in Wisconsin. He can be reached at dpaulsen@episcopalchurch.org.

St. Michael’s Interfaith Refugee Resettlement Ministry at St. Michael’s, Brattleboro, Vermont, is seen assisting Afghans arriving in the United States in 2022. Photo: Lisa Sparrow

[Episcopal News Service] The Episcopal Church’s long-standing history of helping refugees resettle in the United States will begin to wind down next month, an early casualty of the new Trump administration’s anti-immigration policies.

Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe, in a Jan. 31 letter to church leaders and staff, announced that Episcopal Migration Ministries will begin winding down its core operations by Feb. 14, and 22 EMM employees will be laid off. EMM was one of 10 agencies with federal contracts to resettle refugees on behalf of the State Department, but that work ground to a halt last week when President Donald Trump suspended the refugee program as one of his first acts after taking office Jan. 20.

Planning for the end of EMM’s federally funded work, one of the church’s most prominent and respected ministries, was a “painful decision,” Rowe said, but not unexpected, given the change in presidential administrations.

By the end of Trump’s first term in January 2021, resettlement agencies said the president had decimated their capacity to welcome individuals and families fleeing persecution and violence in their home countries. The executive order that Trump signed at the start of his second term went even further, all but ending the 45-year-old federal program, and his administration also has ordered a halt in funding to assist refugees who already have resettled in the country.

“EMM will retain a small team to manage the wind down of EMM’s federal grant-sponsored programs. They have been selected based on program responsibilities and knowledge, performance, ability to communicate with affiliate and federal partners, and some consideration for seniority,” Rowe said.

Departing employees will be offered severance packages. Rowe added that he hopes church-provided outplacement services “will help them find a new way to use the gifts, skills and passion that they have shared with EMM.”

“These departing employees have every reason to be angry, frustrated and frightened at this end of the work to which they have devoted their energy in recent years,” Rowe said. “I am also grieving the loss of this refugee resettlement ministry and the end of this season of our ministry.

“Please know, however, that an end of federal funding for Episcopal Migration Ministries does not mean an end to The Episcopal Church’s commitment to stand with migrants and with our congregations who serve vulnerable immigrants and refugees. As Christians, our faith is shaped by the biblical story of people whom God led into foreign countries to escape oppression, and no change in political fortunes can dissuade us from answering God’s call to welcome the stranger.”

The Rev. Sarah Shipman, EMM’s director, issued a statement thanking the agency’s staff “for their commitment to our mission and their dedicated professionalism – both in serving vulnerable refugee communities directly and in mobilizing churches to welcome new neighbors among us.”

“While we do not know exactly how this ministry will evolve in our church’s future, we remain steadfast in our commitment to stand with migrants and with our congregations who serve them,” Shipman said.

People protest against Trump administration cuts to the U.S. refugee resettlement program, in front of the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington in October 2019. Photo: Reuters

Trump’s executive order was one of a series of first-day measures by the Trump administration targeting both legal and illegal immigration. The order did not go as far as ending the refugee resettlement program outright, though it suspended those operations indefinitely, “until such time as the further entry into the United States of refugees aligns with the interests of the United States.”

Several of the 10 agencies that have been responsible for resettling refugees are affiliated with religious denominations, and like EMM, some have been forced to reconsider their own operations while lamenting the Trump administration’s abrupt policy shift.

“Some provisions contained in the executive orders, such as those focused on the treatment of immigrants and refugees, foreign aid, expansion of the death penalty, and the environment, are deeply troubling and will have negative consequences, many of which will harm the most vulnerable among us,” Archbishop Timothy Broglio, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said in a Jan. 22 statement.

Then on Jan. 24, the resettlement agencies reported receiving letters from the Trump administration ordering a halt in federal funding intended to help refugees for their first three months, covering costs such as food and rent, as they begin to establish new lives and contribute to their adopted communities.

“It is particularly shameful to leave newly arrived Afghan allies to fend for themselves after the tremendous sacrifices they’ve made in support of American interests,” Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, president and CEO of Global Refuge, said in a written statement. “This is the antithesis of what it means for the United States to keep its promise of protection to the allies of America’s longest war.”

During the 1930s in southern Ohio the Episcopal Church began formally welcoming refugees fleeing Nazi Germany. In 1938, the Church created a poster depicting a well-known scene from the Gospel of St. Matthew. In it, Jesus is cradled in his mother Mary’s arms, as they along with Mary’s husband Joseph, flee their country after its government instituted an infanticide campaign.

EMM’s work was historically rooted in the Presiding Bishop’s Fund for World Relief, which began assisting people from Europe fleeing the Nazis in the 1930s and 1940s. After World War II, The Episcopal Church partnered with 16 other Protestant denominations to create Church World Service to provide overseas aid and resettlement assistance for displaced people. After the Vietnam War ended in 1975, thousands of Southeast Asian refugees were resettled in U.S. communities with The Episcopal Church’s help.

The current federal refugee resettlement program was enacted by Congress in 1980, and The Episcopal Church participated from the start, through the Presiding Bishop’s Fund. EMM was established in 1988 as a separate agency to coordinate The Episcopal Church’s resettlement work.

The federal program has long had bipartisan support. EMM and the other contracted agencies have provided a range of federally funded services for the first months after the refugees’ arrivals, including English language and cultural orientation classes, employment services, school enrollment, and initial assistance with housing and transportation.

Refugees were thoroughly screened and vetted by the federal government in cooperation with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, or UNHCR, and they often waited years for their opportunity to start new lives in the United States. Because of Trump’s order, more than 10,000 refugees reportedly were stranded in locations around the world awaiting final clearance to travel to their new homes.

Bethany Christian Services, one of the 10 resettlement agencies, released a statement Jan. 28 saying it hoped to work with the Trump administration on policy changes that would enable refugee resettlement to resume as soon as possible.

“Providing protection to those seeking safety is one of our nation’s proudest and longest standing traditions,” Bethany Christian Services said. “The temporary suspension of refugee resettlement efforts will cause significant impact to vulnerable men, women, and children legally seeking safety and hope in our nation.”

Each year, the U.S. president is required by law to set a ceiling, or maximum number of refugees to be admitted. During Trump’s first term, his administration reduced the ceiling to a record low of 15,000 refugees a year. President Joe Biden reversed that policy when he took office in 2021, raising the ceiling to 125,000 refugees, though it took several years for EMM and the other resettlement agencies to rebuild their networks and capacity.

In December 2021, EMM celebrated welcoming its 100,000th refugee. By the end of Biden’s term, EMM had 15 affiliates around the country, up from 11 in 2020. They helped welcome more than 6,500 refugees in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, 2024.

Children from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, who have received refugee status, stand outside a temporary hotel residence in Boise, Idaho, in October 2021. Photo: Reuters

Global resettlement needs have only increased in recent years. The refugees who are resettled in the United States typically are fleeing war, persecution and other hardships in their home countries. The UNHCR estimates there are more than 32 million such refugees worldwide, and tens of millions more have been displaced within their home countries.

During the presidential race, Trump’s campaign leaned heavily on anti-immigrant sentiment, raising new concerns about the future of the resettlement program. In the months leading up to the November election, EMM pushed to further expand resettlement capacity by encouraging Episcopal congregations to become remote placement community partners, which allowed them to assist one newly arriving individual or family at a time.

Now, that capacity has dropped to zero.

Although Trump’s order does not say when refugee resettlement might resume, it instructs the secretaries of Homeland Security and State to report back to the president every 90 days. It does not elaborate on what criteria must be met to end the suspension.

– David Paulsen is a senior reporter and editor for Episcopal News Service based in Wisconsin. He can be reached at dpaulsen@episcopalchurch.org.

On Jan. 20, hours after President Donald Trump took office for a second term, he signed an executive order that suspended all refugee resettlement in the United States and gave no clear indication when, if ever, it might resume.

Afghan refugee girls watch a soccer match near where they are staying at the Fort McCoy U.S. Army base in Fort McCoy, Wisconsin, in September 2021. Photo: Reuters

“The historic and ongoing work of Episcopal Migration Ministries is a living expression of Christ’s command to care for those in need and offer hope to the weary,” the Rev. Sarah Shipman, Episcopal Migration Ministries’ director, said in a Jan. 23 statement to Episcopal News Service. “The executive order halting refugee resettlement is devastating for many vulnerable people who were close to starting new lives in the United States. Our hearts hurt for them, and our prayers go out for them.”

The order was one of a series of first-day measures by the Trump administration targeting both legal and illegal immigration. The suspension of refugee resettlement was scheduled to take effect Jan. 27, but already some refugees and refugee families who had been scheduled to arrive in the United States this week have had their travel plans canceled, according to news reports.

Episcopal Migration Ministries, EMM, is one of 10 agencies with federal contracts to facilitate refugee resettlement on behalf of the State Department. The agencies had spent the past four years rebuilding their capacity, after Trump slashed refugee resettlement in his first term. His new order again casts doubt on the viability of a federal program that has long had bipartisan support.

Refugee resettlement has been central to EMM’s work, which also includes support for asylum-seekers and other migrants through local affiliates and congregations. Since the inauguration, it has been tracking Trump’s immigration-related executive orders on its website. Despite the renewed uncertainty under Trump, Shipman said the agency remains focused on its mission.

“We are confident we will continue our vital ministry to address the needs of immigrants already in our communities–now and in the years to come,” she said.

Refugee resettlement agencies often praise the refugees they assist for quickly establishing themselves in their new communities and contributing to those communities both economically and culturally. Many of the newest refugees to arrive in the United States are fleeing Afghanistan, often because of their support for the United States’ former war effort in their home country.

Because of Trump’s order, more than 10,000 refugees are now stranded in locations around the world awaiting final clearance to resettle in the United States, and more than 1,600 Afghans already had been cleared for travel, only to learn this week that those plans had been canceled by the Trump administration, according to the Associated Press.

“This abrupt halt to refugee admissions is devastating for families who have already endured unimaginable persecution and waited years for the chance to rebuild their lives in safety,” Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, the head of the resettlement agency Global Refuge, told The New York Times.

“Refugees go through one of the most rigorous vetting processes in the world,” she said. “It’s heartbreaking to see their dreams of safety derailed just days before, or in some cases, just hours before they were set to begin their new lives here.”

Some refugees have waited years or even decades for the opportunity to resettle in the United States, Eskinder Negash, president of the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, told the Times.

“Even if the refugee program is reopened in the future, the indefinite suspension of refugee travel and processing will have lasting trauma and impact on refugees and families,” he said.

The U.S. Refugee Admissions Program, established by Congress in 1980, created a lengthy and rigorous process for screening, vetting, welcoming and supporting the resettlement of refugees unable to return to their home countries. The law also requires the U.S. president each year to set a ceiling, or maximum number of refugees to be admitted.

During Trump’s first term, his administration reduced the ceiling to a record low of 15,000 refugees a year. President Joe Biden reversed that policy when he took office in 2021, raising the ceiling to 125,000 refugees, though it took several years for EMM and the other resettlement agencies to rebuild their networks and capacity.

EMM now has 15 affiliates around the country, up from 11 in 2020, and they helped welcome more than 6,500 refugees in the past fiscal year. In all last year, EMM and the other contracted agencies resettled about 100,000 refugees, a significant turnaround, though still short of the maximum allowed entry under Biden.

The Episcopal Church’s presiding officers also pledged the church’s continuing support for “Christ’s call to welcome the stranger” in a joint letter issued Jan. 21, the day after Trump’s inauguration.

“Because our true citizenship is not here on earth but in heaven, we are called to transcend the earthly distinctions made among us by the leaders of this world,” Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe and House of Deputies President Julia Ayala Harris said. “This sacred call shapes both our churchwide commitment to stand with migrants and the ministries of congregations across our church who serve vulnerable immigrants and refugees in their communities.”

Trump’s new executive order suspends the refugee resettlement program entirely, “until such time as the further entry into the United States of refugees aligns with the interests of the United States.”

The order is titled “Realigning the United States Refugee Admissions Program.” It begins by citing a surge of migrants into and across the United States under President Joe Biden that was unrelated to refugee admissions. It mentions, for example, Springfield, Ohio, which courted a growing population of Haitian migrants, many of whom are in the United States legally under a different federal program known as Temporary Protected Status.

“The United States lacks the ability to absorb large numbers of migrants, and in particular, refugees, into its communities in a manner that does not compromise the availability of resources for Americans, that protects their safety and security, and that ensures the appropriate assimilation of refugees,” Trump’s executive order says. It then determines that continued refugee resettlement “would be detrimental to the interests of the United States.”

By prioritizing U.S. interests and framing the program as one that “preserves taxpayer resources for its citizens,” Trump’s executive order “could redefine the entire U.S. refugee program,” the National Immigration Forum, an immigrant advocacy group, said in its summary of the changes.

“The current refugee program was based on priority going to refugees at the most significant risk, often meaning those with threatening health conditions or persecution risks,” the National Immigration Forum said.

Although Trump’s order does not say when refugee resettlement might resume, it instructs the secretaries of Homeland Security and State to report back to the president every 90 days on “whether resumption of entry of refugees into the United States under the USRAP would be in the interests of the United States.” It does not elaborate on what criteria must be met to end the suspension.

“The practical implication,” National Immigration Forum said, “is that refugee arrivals will be indefinitely suspended.”

The order says the administration also will consider ways to give state and local authorities a greater say in any future refugee placements, if they resume. Trump’s attempt during his first term to allow local jurisdictions to refuse refugees was blocked by a federal judge.

Global resettlement needs have only increased in recent years. The refugees who are resettled in the United States typically are fleeing war, persecution and other hardships in their home countries. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, or UNHCR, estimates there are more than 32 million such refugees worldwide, and tens of millions more have been displaced within their home countries.

The Episcopal Church’s Office of Governmental Relations issued an action alert Jan. 23 through its Episcopal Public Policy Network urging Episcopalians to advocate for the resumption of refugee resettlement.

“Many coming to the U.S. are fleeing religious persecution and offering safe haven demonstrates America’s commitment to protecting freedom of belief for people of all faiths facing oppression in their home countries,” the EPPN alert said. “The Episcopal Church has long advocated for the protection and resettlement of refugees. We believe that our government’s actions should reflect our values, including caring for those in need.”

– David Paulsen is a senior reporter and editor for Episcopal News Service based in Wisconsin. He can be reached at dpaulsen@episcopalchurch.org.

“All of us who live along the [U.S.-Mexico] border are deeply concerned and passionate about how to care for our neighbors … and we’re deeply concerned about anything that might not recognize that every person is created in God’s image and deserves to have their human dignity respected,” San Diego Bishop Susan Brown Snook told Episcopal News Service in a phone interview. Her Southern California diocese is one of four Episcopal dioceses touching the border, along with Arizona, Rio Grande and West Texas.

Supporters of immigrants from the Episcopal Diocese of the Rio Grande gather for the March and Vigil for Human Dignity in El Paso, Texas, March 21, 2024. Photo: Lee Curtis

In December, Snook signed a joint statement with Arizona Bishop Jennifer Reddall, Navajoland Bishop Barry Beisner and other Christian leaders with jurisdiction in Arizona to call for dignified immigration reform while also expressing concern for the mistreatment of undocumented people and the raiding of places of worship to arrest and deport migrants.

“As immigration and migration are driven by complex factors, oftentimes resulting in life-or-death situations, the rights of those fleeing disaster, hunger, conflict, violence or war are urgent and compelling,” the Dec. 23 letter said. “Therefore, grounded by the demands of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and love of our neighbors — our deeply held religious beliefs — we urge our elected officials and community leaders to stand with us to protect family unity and human dignity by refusing to participate in any deportation efforts which violate these most basic human rights.”

Beisner, whose missionary diocese includes a portion of northern Arizona, said Christian leaders are “bearing public witness to core Gospel values” in the region.

“God bless, protect and sustain them in their work to help us all to live the promises of our Baptismal Covenant,” Beisner told ENS in an email.

Earlier this month, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill seeking to detain and deport undocumented migrants charged with minor crimes and to empower state authorities to compel federal enforcement. The bill is named after Laken Riley, a 22-year-old nursing student at the University of Georgia, who was killed in 2024 by an undocumented migrant from Venezuela. Some immigration advocates say the bill exploits personal tragedy to escalate anti-immigrant rhetoric while doing nothing productive to improve public safety. 

In the months leading up to the presidential election last November, migrant families and cities with significant migrant populations had expressed growing alarm at anti-immigrant sentiments that were resulting in threats of violence.

After the election, officials in Los Angeles, California, responded by voting to adopt a “Sanctuary City” ordinance, which would prevent city resources and personnel from being used to help federal immigration enforcement. Los Angeles Bishop John Harvey Taylor and other faith leaders have expressed their support for the ordinance. Other existing sanctuary cities include Chicago, New York, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C.

Some Episcopal dioceses, including Chicago and New York, have designated themselves sanctuary dioceses.

“By declaring ourselves a sanctuary diocese, we are affirming what we already know — that we are committed to supporting our local communities. We provide care for everyone,” New York Bishop Matthew C. Heyd said in a Jan. 10 letter to the diocese. “This support does not depend on any person’s immigration status, but on the inherent dignity of every human being — everyone is made in the image of God.”

These latest developments come as global resettlement needs have increased in recent years. The refugees who are resettled in the United States typically are fleeing war, persecution and other hardships in their home countries. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, or UNHCR, estimates there are more than 47.3 million such refugees worldwide, and tens of millions more have been displaced within their home countries.

Episcopal Migration Ministries, or EMM, is one of 10 agencies with contracts to facilitate refugee resettlement on behalf of the U.S. State Department, and each year it welcomes thousands of refugees through its 15 affiliates nationwide. For the past two years, it also has been authorized to assist arriving individuals and families through congregations and other groups that volunteer to serve as remote placement community partners.

EMM has also expanded its outreach to asylum-seekers in recent years through its Neighbor to Neighbor program, because the federal government doesn’t offer them the same financial assistance it does for refugees. Although the terms “migrants” and “asylum-seekers” often are used interchangeably, not all migrants are asylum-seekers. The latter are people seeking protection from persecution or violence but who haven’t yet been legally recognized as refugees.

Washington National Cathedral’s sanctuary ministry has been a Neighbor to Neighbor partner since 2021. During a Jan. 8 webinar, members of the cathedral’s ministry and EMM leaders shared how Episcopalians can support immigrants in their congregations and in their communities by helping them develop a family preparedness plan.

For example, Diane Paulsell, a National Cathedral parishioner who volunteers with the sanctuary ministry and Neighbor to Neighbor program, said during the webinar that collecting contact information and emergency phone numbers – schools, doctors, child care programs, attorneys, consulate, etc. – is especially important for migrant families with children who are enrolled in school.

“It’s important that children know who they should call if their parent doesn’t come to pick them up for school,” Paulsell said. “If the parents don’t come home from work or they’re otherwise detained, that’s something that everybody in the family should know as part of their emergency plan.”

Presenters also shared links to additional resources. A recording of the webinar is available to watch here.

EMM will continue to regularly host educational webinars with up-to-date information on immigration news and policy. The next webinar, titled “Walking With: Migrant Accompaniment for Ministry Leaders in 2025 and Beyond,” will take place Jan. 17 from noon to 1 p.m. Eastern.

Coinciding with Inauguration Day and Trump’s first week in office, the Episcopal Migration Caucus is calling on Episcopalians to partake in the caucus’ Migration with Dignity Action Week, Jan. 20-26. During the week, Episcopalians, congregations and Episcopal-affiliated organizations are encouraged to participate in prayer vigils, protests at federal detention facilities and in donation drives, educational events and fundraisers. Further action is also strongly encouraged beyond Jan. 26.

“We implore all Episcopalians to take action now to prepare and protect immigrant families and communities,” the Episcopal Migration Caucus said in a Dec. 16 press release. “We are concerned for all those who will be more vulnerable to harm, especially children in constant fear of separation from loved ones, deportation, or imprisonment.”

The Episcopal Church has a long history of advocating for comprehensive immigration reform. Episcopalians interested in learning more about the church’s advocacy efforts can visit the Episcopal Public Policy Network’s website.

–Shireen Korkzan is a reporter and assistant editor for Episcopal News Service. She can be reached at skorkzan@episcopalchurch.org.

LGBTQ+ supporters – particularly transgender people – representing a migrants’ association gathered in London, England, in 2022 to participate in the annual Trans Pride event in response to the injustice that trans+ people worldwide face daily. Photo: Hesther Ng/Via AP

[Episcopal News Service] Episcopal Migration Ministries, the church’s refugee resettlement agency, awarded $3,000 Rainbow Asylum Ministry grants to four Rainbow Initiative participant congregations and communities. Through the initiative, Episcopal churches and international partners bring awareness and aid to LGBTQ+ forced migrants and asylum-seekers.

“We are thrilled to enhance our support and training for these essential ministries within our church, which are dedicated to serving the most vulnerable among us,” Episcopal Migration Ministries director Sarah Shipman said in an Aug. 26 press release.

Episcopal Migration Ministries, commonly known as EMM, is one of 10 resettlement agencies in the United States, along with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and others. EMM created the Rainbow Initiative in response to a 2022 General Convention resolution in support of LGBTQ+ forced migrants and asylum-seekers. In 2024, EMM has signed covenant agreements with 29 “Rainbow Initiative Congregations/Communities” including churches, ministries and organizations of various denominations in the United States and Europe.

The Rainbow Asylum Ministry grants, which are funded with support from the United Thank Offering, have been awarded to the following Rainbow Initiative partners:

• Joel Nafuma Refugee Center, St. Paul’s Within the Walls Episcopal Church, Rome, Italy;
• RISA NOLA (Rainbow Initiative at St. Anna’s), St. Anna’s Episcopal Church, New Orleans, Louisiana;
• St. Michael & All Angels Episcopal Church, Portland, Oregon;
• Rio Grande Borderland Ministries, El Paso, Texas.

The recipients will also receive personalized training, technical assistance and participation in an EMM-led learning community.

In June, St. Paul’s Within the Walls made history as the first church to march in the Roma Pride parade, where congregation members held banners and distributed pamphlets promoting the Joel Nafuma Refugee Center and the Rainbow Initiative. St. Anna’s launched RISA NOLA in January to promote its new ministry at Pride parades in New Orleans and Mandeville in June. St. Michael’s, an Immigrant Welcoming Congregation since 2013, became a sanctuary church for migrants in 2015. The Diocese of the Rio Grande’s Borderland Ministries supports migrant shelters along the U.S.-Mexico Border and operates a migrant shelter at St. Christopher’s Episcopal Church in El Paso.

LGBTQ+ forced migrants face persecution, discrimination and violence not only in their home countries, but also often in the countries where they seek asylum and resettlement. They’re sometimes placed in hostile housing arrangements with straight and cisgender migrants. Same-sex parents risk family separation in the resettlement process when home countries don’t recognize the parents’ relationship.

Sixty-three countries criminalize private, consensual, same-sex relations, and almost half of these countries are in Africa; homosexuality is punishable by death in 12 countries, according to data collected by the Human Dignity Trust, a United Kingdom-based charity organization focused on using strategic litigation to defend LGBTQ+ rights globally.

No official data on how many migrants seek asylum under LGBTQ+ related groups exist. However, a 2021 study from the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law found that 1.3 million adult immigrants in the United States identify as LGBTQ+.

EMM’s website includes resources on how individuals and congregations can support LGBTQ+ migrants. Episcopalians interested in engaging in advocacy work for LGBTQ+ migrants also can learn more by visiting the Episcopal Public Policy Network’s website.

-Shireen Korkzan is a reporter and assistant editor for Episcopal News Service based in northern Indiana. She can be reached at skorkzan@episcopalchurch.org.

Episcopal Migration Ministries supported the resettlement of a family of five from Colombia in May 2023 through the agency’s first remote placement community partner, Murray Ecumenical Partners, in far western Kentucky. Photo: Episcopal Migration Ministries

[Episcopal News Service] Episcopalians across the United States can now serve The Episcopal Church’s biblical mission of welcoming the stranger by forming teams to help resettle refugees in their communities – a call that has grown increasingly urgent, given the uncertain outcome of the Nov. 5 presidential election.

Episcopal Migration Ministries, or EMM, is one of 10 agencies with contracts to facilitate refugee resettlement on behalf of the U.S. State Department, and each year, it welcomes thousands of refugees through its 13 affiliates nationwide. For the past two years, it also has been authorized to assist arriving individuals and families through congregations and other groups that volunteer to serve as remote placement community partners.

Several Episcopal congregations already are serving as community partners. St. John’s Episcopal Church in Ocean Springs, Mississippi, welcomed a family from Nicaragua on July 22 after assisting a family from Venezuela last fall. St. Alban’s Episcopal Church in Waco, Texas, welcomed a Nicaraguan individual in May and is scheduled to receive an Afghan on July 31. Four more congregations across the country either have begun helping refugees get settled in their new homes or are preparing to receive some of the newest arrivals.

More community partners are greatly needed this year, EMM leaders say.

“It is hard work, but it is good work, and it is the work that we’re called to,” Allison Duvall, EMM’s senior manager for church relations and engagement, told Episcopal News Service. She said it also is work that could be upended if former President Donald Trump is reelected and begins a second term on Jan. 20.

The Trump administration’s anti-immigration policies had decimated resettlement agencies’ previous capacity to welcome new arrivals by the end of his term in January 2021. Each president sets the maximum number of refugees allowed into the United States for the year, and under Trump, that ceiling was reduced to 15,000, the lowest level in the four-decade history of the resettlement program.

When President Joe Biden took office, he raised the annual maximum to 125,000 refugees, but EMM and the other resettlement agencies, while eager to ramp up their operations again, have not yet been able to restore their capacity to much more than half the new ceiling.

That is where Episcopal congregations can help now, by serving as remote placement community partners.

“We believe in the mission of this work. We want to welcome as many [refugees] as are approved to come,” Duvall said. “And we have the experience of living through the previous administration, so we know the [refugee resettlement] cliff we could fall off and the refugees whose lives would be in danger,” if Trump is reelected and slashes refugee resettlement again.

Global resettlement needs have only increased in recent years. The refugees who are resettled in the United States typically are fleeing war, persecution and other hardships in their home countries. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, or UNHCR, estimates there are more than 31 million such refugees worldwide, and tens of millions more have been displaced within their home countries.

The Episcopal Church first began assisting refugees in the 1930s and 1940s through the Presiding Bishop’s Fund for World Relief, supporting people from Europe fleeing the Nazis. Since the Unites States created the current refugee resettlement program in 1980, EMM has resettled more than 100,000 refugees, providing a range of services for these families upon their arrival in the United States, including English language and cultural orientation classes, employment services, school enrollment and initial assistance with housing and transportation.

EMM has resettled more than 5,100 refugees so far in the current federal fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30. Most of its support for refugees during their first 90 days in the United States is facilitated by the 13 social service agencies that serve as EMM’s affiliates.

One difference for EMM’s remote placement community partners is volume: Congregations that apply and are accepted by the State Department can help one individual or family at a time during those crucial first three months. More and more partners eventually could add up to many more refugees resettled.

“By becoming an EMM community partner and assuming the responsibility of resettling refugee families and offering initial support upon their arrival, you can make an immediate and tangible impact,” the Rev. Charles Robertson, the presiding bishop’s canon for ministry beyond The Episcopal Church, said this month in an EMM action alert. “Your assistance will not only provide crucial aid to those in need but also pave the way for ongoing support and integration within our communities.”

Those interested in assisting are expected to form a local team of at least five adults – preferably seven to 12 core members – with a range of skills. Teams must commit to following EMM’s and the State Department’s resettlement guidelines and will receive training from EMM staff before the refugees’ arrival.

The community partners receive federal funding of $1,100 per refugee to cover administrative costs and an additional $1,325 in direct assistance for each refugee, to help cover some of the cost of food, rent, utilities, furniture, transportation and other basic needs for those first 90 days.

Each team is notified in advance when a refugee or family has been cleared to travel to the United States, and team members are expected to welcome the new arrivals at the airport, then take them to their new home, orient them to the space and serve them a culturally appropriate first meal.

Team members, arranging for interpretation services if needed, also help the refugees with a range of initial tasks, such as scheduling a health screening, applying for short-term government assistance, seeking employment and registering children for school. The initial support ends after three months, but community partners are encouraged to continue extending a spirit of welcome as their new neighbors adjust to the community.

Last week, about two dozen people signed up for a series of online webinars that EMM organized to share information about the community partner program and to recruit more dioceses and congregations to participate. Additional information is available on EMM’s website and by emailing emm@episcopalchurch.org.

Duvall said during one of the webinars that EMM is ready to expand its reach this fall by signing up new community partners. “We’re hopeful,” she said, “that through these recruitment calls that we’re hosting this week, we might build a critical mass of new community partners who can form their own network and kind of learn from and give support for one another.”

– David Paulsen is a senior reporter and editor for Episcopal News Service based in Wisconsin. He can be reached at dpaulsen@episcopalchurch.org.

Congolese refugees Jeanine Balezi, an intensive-case manager for Refugee Focus, left, and Namughisha Nashimwe, pose for a photo in Nashimwe’s apartment in Tucson, Arizona. Photo: Lynette Wilson/ENS

[Episcopal News Service] June 20 marks World Refugee Day, and Episcopal congregations worldwide are observing with various events, including educational presentations and interfaith gatherings.

World Refugee Day was established in 2001 in recognition of the 50th anniversary of the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, a United Nations multilateral treaty that designated who is a refugee. It also established the rights of asylum-seekers and set out the responsibilities of countries that grant asylum. Asylum-seekers are people seeking protection from persecution or violence but haven’t yet been legally recognized as refugees.

Asylum-seekers and refugees leave their homes for a variety of reasons, including but not limited to war, violence and persecution over race, ethnicity, religion or sexual orientation. As of Oct. 31, 2023, the most recent figures available, nearly 1.06 million people have open asylum claims in the United States, and the federal government’s backlog exceeded 10 million applications in 2023.

The Episcopal Church’s Episcopal Migration Ministries is one of 10 refugee resettlement agencies in the United States. In 2023, EMM launched the Rainbow Initiative to help bring attention to the special needs of LGBTIQ+ migrants who not only face persecution, discrimination and violence in their home countries, but also often in the countries where they seek asylum and resettlement. Many Episcopal parishes work closely with EMM to help support migrants locally.

Episcopalians can learn more about The Episcopal Church’s long history of advocating for comprehensive immigration reform here. Episcopalians interested in learning more about the church’s advocacy efforts can visit the Episcopal Public Policy Network’s website.

The following is a list of some Episcopal ministries, affiliates, dioceses and parishes hosting World Refugee Day events. Check online for additional events in your area. All events listed are free and open to the public unless otherwise specified. All times are local.

Nationwide — Religions for Peace, an international coalition of representatives from different religions, including The Episcopal Church, will host a webinar, “Welcoming the Other: Strengthening Advocacy and Action for Refugees and Other Forcibly Displaced Communities,” on June 20 from 9-10:30 a.m. Eastern. Various faith leaders will discuss refugee advocacy and peacebuilding efforts, as well as the empowerment of women and youth refugees.

Auburn, Washington — Between noon and 3 p.m. Pacific at the William C. Warren Building in Auburn, Washington, the Diocese of Olympia’s Refugee Resettlement Office and the Lutheran Community Services will host an educational presentation addressing how refugees come to the United States. The presentation will also provide information about refugees who have settled in Washington and about local refugee businesses. Cultural arts and crafts will be available for purchase.

Lancaster, Pennsylvania — St. James Episcopal Church in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, is teaming up with partner organizations, including Church World Service Lancaster, to host a Dinner for a Difference interfaith gathering on June 20 at 5 p.m. Eastern. During the dinner at St. James, refugees will share their migration stories and reflect on the forced migration crisis. The event requires a $35 registration fee. Participants will have an opportunity to connect with others and listen to more migration stories after dinner.

Manitowoc, Wisconsin — On June 23, St. James Episcopal Church in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, will include special prayers and songs for refugees, as well as a litany on welcoming the stranger, during its 10 a.m. Central worship service. The Rev. Brian Straude, the church’s rector, told ENS that St. James’ goal with the refugee-oriented service is to help raise awareness of the ongoing worldwide refugee crisis.

Jamestown, New York — The New Neighbors Coalition, a network of volunteers dedicated to welcoming new migrants to Jamestown, New York, will host a World Refugee Day celebration on June 22 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Eastern. The celebration “will serve as a platform for dialogue, cultural celebration and artistic expressions from around the world.” It will include tables with information about local community organization, as well as handmade items from India for purchase. St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Jamestown houses the New Neighbors Coalition.

-Shireen Korkzan is a reporter and assistant editor for Episcopal News Service based in northern Indiana. She can be reached at skorkzan@episcopalchurch.org.

Zinat Zadran, 12, a migrant from Afghanistan, works on her homework on Nov. 27, 2021, at home in Bowling Green, Kentucky. Episcopal Migration Ministries’ Neighbor to Neighbor program helps ministries support families of asylum-seekers in a variety of ways, including helping parents enroll children in school. Photo: Amira Karaoud/REUTERS

[Episcopal News Service] Episcopal Migration Ministries and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America’s migrant ministry have partnered to train and support faith communities that sponsor asylum-seeker through EMM’s Neighbor to Neighbor program.

“This is another way for The Episcopal Church and the ELCA to live into [full communion], by engaging in ministry together and sharing this wealth of resources,” Allison Duvall, EMM’s senior manager for church relations and engagement, told Episcopal News Service. “It’s going to allow many more congregations to participate in sponsorship than The Episcopal Church could do alone.”

Established in 2020, Neighbor to Neighbor grew out of an upstart ministry launched by the Rev. Christina Rathbone, an Episcopal priest who at the time was serving at The Cathedral Church of St. Paul, in Boston, Massachusetts. Seeing a need to help asylum-seekers navigate their new communities, she began connecting them with Episcopalians who were willing to provide an initial support system. Rathbone soon partnered with EMM to give the growing network a wider, national scope. EMM is one of 10 resettlement agencies in the United States along with the ELCA-affiliated Global Refuge, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and others.

Under the new partnership, EMM and the ELCA’s migrant ministry, Accompanying Migrants with Protection, Advocacy, Representation, and Opportunities – more commonly known as AMMPARO – will work collaboratively to help sponsors serve asylum-seekers by offering housing support, and service accessibility and community navigation assistance. Neighbor to Neighbor partners are also capable of helping parents enroll children in school, teaching English to adults and helping asylum-seekers find employment.

Mary Campbell, AMMPARO’s program director, told ENS that Neighbor to Neighbor’s “outstanding” training and resource materials will “bring the congregations’ capacity to do accompaniment of asylum-seekers to an even higher level”

“Migration issues are much bigger than any one church, and the only way we can have the greatest impact is if we work together,” she said. “I’m impressed by the care that was taken in preparing the materials so that they cover so many aspects and go into depth to teach what you need to learn in order to be most effective.”

Neighbor to Neighbor is organized into five phases: Discernment, training, readiness assessment, matching and sponsorship, and conclusion.

Neighbor to Neighbor: Welcoming Newcomers from Episcopal Migration Ministries on Vimeo.

Prospective Neighbor to Neighbor partners must complete an initial interest form to receive information about the program. After planning and meeting with an EMM staff member, the prospective partners are granted access to nine on-demand training videos, resources and other materials to learn and prepare to welcome asylum-seekers. EMM will train AMMPARO staff, who will in turn provide orientation to ELCA congregations.

“One of the things we at AMMPARO were very excited about being able to share is the material about the agreements between the congregation and the asylum-seekers themselves,” Campbell said. “I think it really covers all of the bases that will be important and will help congregations to really not be surprised when issues come up because they’re covered in that agreement.”

During the readiness assessment phase, the Neighbor to Neighbor partners give EMM detailed descriptions of their plans to assist asylum-seekers for staff review. Once the plans are approved, EMM works with other partner organizations to match the program partners with families.

During the matching and sponsorship phase, the Neighbor to Neighbor partners welcome their families of asylum-seekers they’ve matched with, or “new neighbors.” The partners then help the families settle into their new community by providing anything they need. The partners can also connect the asylum-seekers they’re sponsoring with immigration lawyers so that they can have representation as they go through the asylum process. EMM staff regularly check in on the Neighbor to Neighbor partners and families during this time through one-on-one interviews, monthly calls and submitting activity reports. EMM also provides support as needed.

When the families are settled, partners make sure they’re independent and self-sufficient before ending their sponsorship. EMM also provides partners with resources and coaching on how to conclude their sponsorship relationships with families.

“It’s a very incredible training program,” Martin Dickinson, a leader of Washington National Cathedral’s sanctuary ministry, told ENS. “We learned about cultural sensitivities and one of the most important things we learned about was sensitizing ourselves to trauma. We should assume that any asylum-seeker, migrant, finding their way as far as Washington, D.C., had to endure trauma somewhere along the way. We need to be sensitive to that and watch for signs of it.”

Washington National Cathedral’s sanctuary ministry has been a Neighbor to Neighbor partner since 2021. Dickinson said the ministry has so far sponsored two Latin American families for six-month periods and it recently began sponsoring a third family from Venezuela.

(Read the latest on immigration from The Episcopal Church’s Office of Government Relations here.)

Asylum-seekers and refugees leave their homes for a variety of reasons, including but not limited to war, violence and persecution over race, ethnicity, religion or sexual orientation. As of Oct. 31, 2023, the most recent figures available, nearly 1.06 million people have open asylum claims in the United States, and the federal government’s backlog exceeded 10 million applications in 2023.

Although the terms migrants and asylum-seekers are often used interchangeably, not all migrants are asylum-seekers. The latter are people seeking protection from persecution or violence but who haven’t yet been legally recognized as refugees.

Duvall said it’s a “really important” time for churches of all denominations to support asylum-seekers because their needs are “staggering” and “far outweigh the available resources to respond.”

“The Neighbor to Neighbor program really is a wraparound kind of support that we are equipping local churches to engage in,” Duvall said. “Even if your church isn’t ready to say yes and welcome someone today, joining the Neighbor to Neighbor program will allow them to do the discernment, the training and the preparation so that they might be ready to do it in the future.”

The Episcopal Church has a long history of advocating for comprehensive immigration reform. Episcopalians interested in learning more about the church’s advocacy efforts can visit the Episcopal Public Policy Network’s website.

-Shireen Korkzan is a reporter and assistant editor for Episcopal News Service based in northern Indiana. She can be reached at skorkzan@episcopalchurch.org.

During The Episcopal Church’s May 10, 2024 webinar, “A Closer Look: U.S. Immigration Policy and Temporary Protected Status,” participants learned about Temporary Protected Status, various visa categories, pathways to legal status and the role of federal agencies in administering the immigration system. Photo: Screenshot

[Episcopal News Service] Under the federal Temporary Protected Status, a humanitarian program, migrants fleeing countries designated unsafe to live in may be granted temporary residence and work privileges in the United States.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security determines which countries are considered unsafe for reasons related to ongoing armed conflict, a natural disaster or “extraordinary and temporary” conditions that prevent their citizens from returning safely.

To help Episcopalians understand how the TPS program operates, The Episcopal Church’s Washington, D.C.-based Office of Government Relations hosted the third in a virtual three-part series on immigration on May 10. Eighty-three people attended the hourlong “A Closer Look: U.S. Immigration Policy and Temporary Protected Status.”

Watch the entire webinar here.

Theresa Cardinal Brown, director of immigration policy for the nonprofit Bipartisan Policy Center, provided a broad overview of U.S. immigration laws and regulations, including various visa categories, pathways to legal status and the role of federal agencies. The U.S. immigration system is “complicated,” she said, because the overseeing government agencies “don’t always work well together.”

“One of the major challenges we’re facing on the legislative, executive and on the immigration policy landscape, is how we manage the arrivals of asylum-seekers and others at the U.S.-Mexico border,” Brown said.

Asylum-seekers and refugees leave their homes for a variety of reasons, including but not limited to war, violence and persecution over race, ethnicity, religion or sexual orientation. As of Oct. 31, 2023, the most recent figures available, nearly 1.06 million people have open asylum claims in the United States, and the federal government’s backlog exceeded 10 million applications in 2023.

Although the terms migrants and asylum-seekers are often used interchangeably, not all migrants are asylum-seekers. The latter are people seeking protection from persecution or violence but who haven’t yet been legally recognized as refugees.

Brown highlighted the five separate government agencies involved with overseeing U.S. immigration policy: the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Labor, the Department of State, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Justice.

The Department of Homeland Security oversees Customs and Border Protection, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. The Department of Labor issues green cards or temporary work visas to select foreign nationals applying to work in the United States. The Department of State oversees all U.S. embassies and consulates worldwide, which are responsible for issuing U.S. visas to people wishing to enter the United States. Health and Human Services is responsible not only for resettling refugees entering the United States, but also for managing arrivals of unaccompanied children after they are released from Border Patrol. The Department of Justice manages immigration courts in the United States.

“A system requires handoffs between one agency and another, and between one government department and another, and they don’t always coordinate well, which results in inefficiencies and problems with the system as a whole,” Brown said.

Brown also explained the four major ways people can obtain a green card: being sponsored by a family member who’s a U.S. citizen or green card holder; being hired by an employer willing to sponsor foreign nationals; entering through the humanitarian system that can convert a refugee or asylum status into a green card after some time; or through the Diversity Visa Program, which is a lottery system.

“The complexity is so little understood by not just migrants, but also people trying to navigate the system,” Brown said. “We have a challenge in helping people understand these complexities when we’re trying to advocate for change.”

Some programs, like TPS, don’t provide a path to U.S. citizenship and are only granted to people who are already in the United States when their home country’s designation is made. Additionally, not everyone from a designated country is guaranteed temporary protected status.

People with TPS can renew during their country’s designated re-registration period.

As of this month, the TPS program is open to migrants from Afghanistan, Burma (Myanmar), Cameroon, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Haiti, Honduras, Nepal, Nicaragua, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Ukraine, Venezuela and Yemen.

Under the Biden administration, some citizens of the countries listed under the TPS program, such as Afghanistan and Ukraine, qualify to enter the United States through special humanitarian parole program, including Operation Allies, Uniting for Ukraine and others. Although Cuba isn’t on the updated TPS countries, Cuban nationals may still apply to enter the United States through the Cuban Family Reunification Parole Program or the Processes for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans program.

“You can’t go directly from parole to a green card, but [these programs] allow somebody who otherwise would not have been able to get a visa or is inadmissible under one of the grounds of inadmissibility in our law … to be admitted,” Brown said.

Webinar participants were able to ask questions using Zoom’s chat function. One person asked what happens to people whose employment authorization expires while waiting to renew their TPS. 

“Employers that are abiding by the law … have to recheck that document before the expiration date to continue employing somebody,” Brown said. “We’ve had situations where people have had to leave employment because their employment authorization documents weren’t renewed in time, and when they get them and go back to the employer and say they’re not work authorized, [the employers] are like, ‘Sorry, we filled the job with someone else. You must go elsewhere.’”

Another person asked Brown if she thinks immigration advocates spending time working with TPS is worthwhile.

“A change of administration can mean a change in designations. A new administration can decide to end TPS for any country at any time. As a matter of fact, President Trump tried to end TPS for all countries that were designated,” Brown said. “To advocate on behalf of people, certainly you should look at available options. …In the long run, in terms of focusing energy … focusing too much on administrative action lets Congress off the hook.”

Rebecca Linder Blachly, director of the Office of Government Relations, mentioned during the webinar that Episcopal Migration Ministries extensively works with refugee resettlement. It’s one of 10 resettlement agencies in the United States along with Global Refuge, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and others.

In 2023, Episcopal Migration Ministries launched the Rainbow Initiative to help bring attention to the special needs of LGBTIQ+ migrants who not only face persecution, discrimination and violence in their home countries, but also often in the countries where they seek asylum and resettlement. On May 13, Episcopal Migration Ministries hosted a Rainbow Initiative Learning Community webinar to highlight upcoming events observing Pride Month and World Refugee Day in June.

The Episcopal Church has a long history of advocating for comprehensive immigration reform. Episcopalians interested in learning more about the church’s advocacy efforts can visit the Episcopal Public Policy Network’s website.

-Shireen Korkzan is a reporter and assistant editor for Episcopal News Service based in northern Indiana. She can be reached at skorkzan@episcopalchurch.org.