- President Trump signed eight executive orders reshaping U.S. immigration policy Monday.
- His refugee order sparked concern among immigrant advocates and faith leaders who argue it harms persecuted individuals and the U.S. economy.
- Some policies, like challenging birthright citizenship and enforcing mass deportations, face legal and practical hurdles, further fueling anxiety among immigrant communities.
President Donald Trump wasted little time in reshaping U.S. immigration policy. Within moments of his return to the White House Monday, he signed eight immigration-related executive orders. He declared a national emergency at the southern border. He already faces lawsuits for challenging birthright citizenship and effectively closing paths to asylum.
But one of his actions is causing worry among immigrant activists and religious groups alike: his suspension of all refugee resettlement within the U.S. for at least 90 days.
The U.S. president has unilateral authority to determine the ceiling for annual refugee admissions. Trump had long promised to set the cap at zero, so his executive action Monday came as no surprise. “But that didn’t make it any less devastating,” said Matthew Soerens, vice president of advocacy and policy at World Relief, a Christian humanitarian organization.
Trump’s executive order, titled “Realigning the United States Refugee Admissions Program,” pauses all refugee entrances into the country effective Jan. 27.
The executive order says that the Secretary of Homeland Security will send a report to the president “within 90 days” determining whether allowing refugees “would be in the interest of the U.S.,” and will continue to do so on 90-day cycles until Trump determines to restart admissions.
But the executive order is full of contradictions, Soerens said. As justification for the ban, the order cites “record levels of migration” within the U.S. that are currently jeopardizing “resources for Americans” and compromising public safety.
But refugees admitted to the U.S. are “the most thoroughly vetted category of immigrants who come to the United States,” Soerens said, pointing to a 2017 report from the Heritage Foundation that confirms as much. Only a fraction of those designated as refugees overseas make it to the U.S., and they undergo a vigorous, often yearslong vetting process before entering. “These natural barriers make the resettlement program an unattractive option for terrorists trying to infiltrate the U.S.,” the Heritage report said.
Once refugees reach the U.S., they work to pay back their travel costs and are carefully resettled within communities that have room for them. They are aided each step of the way by U.S. nonprofit organizations, many of which are churches or religious organizations.
Utah has a history of being welcoming to refugees. In 2019, then-Utah Gov. Gary Herbert sent a letter to President Donald Trump asking him to send more refugees to the state, following a decision by the president to cut the number of refugees admitted into the country.
In recent years, as the number of migrants crossing the border reached record levels, public opinion on immigration shifted, with more Americans favoring a reduced number of migrants. But Americans’ feelings about refugees are more complicated.
Religious refugees affected by Trump’s executive order
The small towns mentioned in Trump’s recent executive order that struggled with “significant influxes of migrants” — including Whitewater, Wisconsin, and Springfield, Ohio — are instances of “migrants who did not come as refugees, and that’s actually the point,” Soerens said. “They didn’t have the support of the long-standing, very orderly refugee resettlement system to help them to integrate.”
The Rev. Dr. Gabriel Salguero, president of the National Latino Evangelical Coalition, said he supports “commonsense, bipartisan immigration reform” that “secures the border without demonizing the majority of immigrants.” But shutting down refugee resettlement, Salguero said, does little to strengthen national security. Instead, it shuts the door on “people who are fleeing religious political persecution and seeking religious freedom.”
“These executive orders are going to send a chill up the spine of the Latino evangelical church,” Salguero said.
Most evangelical Christians seem to agree. According to a January 2024 poll conducted by Lifeway Research, 71% of U.S. evangelical Christians believe the U.S. “has a moral responsibility to accept refugees.” Some of that resolve seems to be informed by proximity: one-third (34%) of respondents said they have been “involved in a ministry that served refugees or other immigrants.”
Eight in 10 white evangelical Christians supported Trump in the 2024 presidential election.
Trump’s decision to stop refugee resettlement seems to contradict his campaign promise to protect Christians. One in seven Christians worldwide face high levels of religious-based persecution, according to a report by World Relief and Open Doors. Pausing refugee admissions effectively closes the door to thousands of Christians who could otherwise find respite in the U.S.
The decision to shut off refugee admittances could also have economic effects. Jennie Murray, president and CEO of the National Immigration Forum, noted that refugees are “an incredible boost to our economy.”
Refugees are “immediately work-authorized,” Murray said. “They’re immediately able to connect to a career and to fill a key opening that American businesses are desperate for, as we have such a tight labor market right now.”
Over the 15 years between 2005 and 2019, refugees contributed an estimated $581 billion to state and federal governments in taxes, according to an HUD report published last year.
Even after Trump decides to begin readmitting refugees, it could take some time for the complex network of government agencies and nonprofits that works to resettle them to catch up to speed. “In some ways, refugee resettlement is a switch you can turn off very easily,” Soerens said. “But it’s not a switch you turn back on easily, because once the infrastructure for resettlement has been decimated, it takes a long time to build that back up.”

What to know about the immigration executive orders
On Monday, Trump signed eight immigration-related executive orders:
- Realigning the United States Refugee Admissions Program, which immediately pauses all refugee admissions.
- Declaring A National Emergency At The Southern Border Of The United States, which permits additional federal resources and personnel to be deployed to the U.S.-Mexico border.
- Designating Cartels And Other Organizations As Foreign Terrorist Organizations And Specially Designated Global Terrorists, which directs federal agencies to classify Trén de Agua and other transnational cartels as terrorist organizations, and could allow U.S. special forces to confront cartels outside of U.S. territory.
- Protecting The United States From Foreign Terrorists And Other National Security And Public Safety Threats, which directs federal agencies to identify countries that do not sufficiently vet their nationals and to install travel bans for nationals from those countries.
- Protecting the United States Against Invasion, which directs DHS on how to undergo mass deportations, including by eliminating “sanctuary cities” and expanding detention facilities.
- Securing Our Borders, which ends the “CBP One” program, effectively closing paths to asylum for individuals at the U.S.-Mexico border; and terminating the parole program for individuals from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela.
- Protecting The Meaning And Value Of American Citizenship, which attempts to end birthright citizenship for the children of unauthorized immigrants or legal immigrants on temporary visas.
- Clarifying The Military’s Role In Protecting The Territorial Integrity Of The United States, which encouraged U.S. armed forces to be deployed to the southern border.
Trump’s executive orders on immigration face legal challenges
Charles Kuck, the former president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, noted that some of Trump’s directives will likely never come to fruition. Trump’s efforts to reinterpret “birthright citizenship,” for example, would overrule the Supreme Court’s past ruling on the 14th Amendment — something the president does not have the power to do. Trump’s executive order already sparked a lawsuit, and it would be difficult for Trump to prevail in court, Kuck predicted.
“There’s no district court judge in the country who will overturn Supreme Court precedent, which exists on this issue,” Kuck said. “Actually, I don’t think there are four Supreme Court justices who will agree to hear this case.”
On mass deportations, Trump is ordering the Department of Homeland Security to carry out a workload much larger than its capacity. “You can’t take the current workforce of ICE, which is as big as it’s ever been, and then say, ‘I want you to deport four times the number of people you did (last year),’” Kuck said. “It’s not physically possible.”
That is not stopping immigrant advocates, including faith leaders, from worrying. Salguero, pastor of The Gathering Place Church in Orlando, said he has received “hundreds of calls and texts and messages” from his congregants worried about the incoming administration’s immigration policy. “Does that mean young adults from my church are they going to be racially profiled?” Salguero asked. “Does that mean they’re going to do a raid during worship service? How are they going to distinguish between a citizen and a non citizen?”
Some of those fears may not be unfounded: On Monday, the acting Homeland Security secretary issued a memo that rolled back a longtime policy prohibiting ICE arrests in “sensitive locations” like churches, schools or hospitals.
The memo explained that CBP and ICE officers would be empowered to “catch criminal aliens” in those locations. “Criminals will no longer be able to hide in America’s schools and churches to avoid arrest,” the memo read. “The Trump Administration will not tie the hands of our brave law enforcement, and instead trusts them to use common sense.”
The possibility of immigration raids at places of worship “is a top concern for our faith communities,” said Murray, who leads the National Immigration Forum. “Will folks show up in our church parking lots after worship and collect our members? Will they separate families right on the premises?”
Salguero noted he didn’t have an answer. “We are not policy wonks. We’re pastors,” he said. “We’re called to love people.”