Report Highlights Risk of Proposed Mass Deportations on Christians in America

The Banner has a subscription to republish articles from Religion News Service. This story by Jack Jenkins, was published March 31, 2025 on religionnews.com. It has been edited for length and Banner style. The Banner added the last two paragraphs to provide context for the Christian Reformed Church.

A report published by four prominent Catholic and evangelical organizations claims that about 1 in 12 Christians in the U.S. are vulnerable to deportation or live with a family member who could be deported by President Donald Trump’s administration, one of several data points religious leaders hope will alert Christians to the plight facing their fellow faithful.

“We’re sounding the alarm that all American Christians need to be aware of what’s being proposed,” Matthew Soerens of World Relief, one of the authors of the report, said during a call with reporters March 31. He spoke alongside representatives from other well-known religious organizations listed as co-authors on the report: the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the National Association of Evangelicals and the Center for the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.

“Our prayer with this report is that American Christians will recognize that these proposed deportations, to whatever extent they ultimately become a reality, are not just a policy issue but a dynamic that will impact us, followers of Jesus who were knit together in unity under Christ,” Soerens said.

The report, titled “One Part of the Body: The Potential Impact of Deportations on American Christian Families,” a reference to a passage in 1 Corinthians 12 about the church as the body of Christ, serves as both a theological and data-driven refutation of the president’s campaign pledge to enact “the largest deportation in U.S. history.”

Authors of the study said they pulled data from several sources—such as religious demographic breakdowns from Pew Research and data on immigrant populations from the immigration reform advocacy group FWD.us—to conclude that there were more than 10 million Christian immigrants in the U.S. at the end of 2024 who are now vulnerable to deportation. That number includes undocumented immigrants as well as those with legal status that could be revoked by the government—namely, asylum seekers awaiting a final court proceeding as well as people protected by programs and designations such as Temporary Protected Status, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, Deferred Enforced Departure and humanitarian parole.

Legal permanent residents, or green card holders, are not included in the report’s list of people vulnerable to deportation, but the report notes that “nearly 7 million U.S.-citizen Christians live within the same households of those at risk of deportation.”

“Most of these U.S. citizens are spouses or minor children of the immigrant at risk of deportation,” the report adds.

The report, which also includes the stories of immigrants as well as religious arguments in defense of migrants, claims 18% of U.S. Catholics are vulnerable to deportation or live with someone who could be deported, as well as 6% of evangelicals in the country and 3% of other Christian groups.

The authors hope the data will help fellow Christians recognize the potential impact of President Trump’s proposed deportations on their communities and churches.

“If even a fraction of those vulnerable to deportation are actually deported, the ramifications are profound—for those individuals, of course, but also for their U.S.-citizen family members and, because when one part of the body suffers, every part suffers with it, for all Christians,” the report states.

“This report does not advocate for a specific stance or argue that all deportations are unjust,” the National Association for Evangelicals said in its presentation of the report on its website, “but instead invites American Christians to understand the impact of deportations on individuals, their families, and the Christian community as a whole.”

The Christian Reformed Church in North America is a member of the NAE. In a Feb. 5 prayer and call to action on immigration the CRCNA acknowledged the fears that “some of our brothers and sisters … now have in everyday life” including the impact that “the suspension of humanitarian parole for immigrants from countries like Venezuela” is having on church planters within the denomination.

c. 2025 Religion News Service