Evangelicals driving GOP embrace of ‘DREAMers’
Biblical teachings shape viewpoint for Christian conservatives
WASHINGTON – As the debate over immigration rages in Congress without an agreement in sight, there is growing consensus over one piece of the equation: The need to protect undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children from deportation.
Republicans have come to embrace these “DREAMers” in part because many evangelical Christians — who make up a quarter of Americans and are an influential conservative bloc within the GOP — have become more vocal about the topic over the last half decade.
The idea stems from the Bible: “Individuals are created within the image of God and have value and worth. So each person — regardless of their location and their birth and skin color, it doesn’t matter. That individual has value and worth in the eyes of God and they should be valued by other individuals as well,” Oklahoma Sen. James Lankford, an evangelical Christian and former youth camp director, told USA TODAY.
Former president Barack Obama issued an executive order that gave protections to nearly 800,000 undocu- mented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children. Republicans said the program, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), was unconstitutional because Congress is supposed to handle immigration — not the president.
In September, President Trump ended the program, but gave Congress six months to find a solution to protect DREAMers from deportation. Congress now is grappling with how to come to an agreement before the March 5 deadline that the president can support.
“I think that as immigration has become more and more essential conversation in our political life, that evangelicals have been forced to sit down and think about it and reflect on it and do some research and figure out exactly how the biblical worldview informs our understanding of these questions,” said Eric Teetsel, president of the Family Policy Alliance of Kansas, a religious advo- cacy organization. “That’s probably where you’re seeing it and you didn’t used to.”
“Evangelicals are very concerned about this especially because so many evangelical congregations have DREAMers as part of our churches,” said Russell Moore, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, which is the Southern Baptist Convention’s policy arm.
While Christian conservatives appear to be embracing the DACA population, that does not mean they will be welcoming a broader transformation of immigration law. The DREAMers are a specific population that they can advocate for, but that doesn’t necessarily extend to other immigrants who came to the U.S. knowingly breaking the law.
While scripture calls for “compassion and kindness to the alien and the immigrant” it also calls for “rule of law — that there should be one set of laws and they should apply equally to those who are native born and those who are entering the country,” said Ralph Reed, the head of the conservative religious advocacy organization, Faith & Freedom Coalition. Reed serves on the president’s faith advisory council and says he is close to Trump.
Many conservative Christians have called for bolstering immigration enforcement and changes to familybased or chain migration.
“Evangelicals are very concerned about this especially because so many evangelical congregations have DREAMers as part of our churches.” Russell Moore President of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission