On to some good news: Evangelical Christians have become more open to welcoming immigrants and refugees, and to immigration reforms, reports Emily Belz of Christianity Today. That’s according to a new Lifeway Research survey commissioned by World Relief and the Evangelical Immigration Table.  

Relationships with Dreamers at church may be one reason why, Belz reports, and the resettlement in the past 13 months of Afghans and Ukrainians forced to flee their home countries may also play a role.  

Seventy-seven percent of self-identified evangelicals are "strongly" or "somewhat" in favor of a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, compared with 61% in a similar Lifeway survey in 2015. And 80% said they would support bipartisan immigration reform "that strengthens border security, establishes a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children, and provides a reliable number of screened, legal farmworkers," according to the survey. 

Furthermore, the percentage of respondents who cited the Bible as the top influence on their immigration views rose significantly from 2015.  

Unlike the 2015 poll, the 2022 survey also asked about refugees: 70% of evangelicals "agreed that the U.S. has a moral responsibility to accept refugees," a higher number than in other surveys in the past five years. That’s a timely finding, as President Biden announced yesterday that the refugee admissions cap for fiscal year 2023 will again be 125,000, as Julie Watson reports in the Associated Press.  

For the current fiscal year, which ends Friday, we’re on pace to come up more than 100,000 people short of the cap, a clear sign that we need to restore our resettlement infrastructure. It’s a point Evangelical Immigration Table organizations made in a letter they sent Friday to the president and Congress. 

Welcome to Wednesday’s edition of The Forum Daily. I’m Dan Gordon, the Forum’s strategic communications VP. If you have a story to share from your own community, please send it to me at [email protected].  

‘OUR CALL AS BELIEVERS’ — Politicians and pundits who dehumanize immigrants may claim Christianity, "but their fearmongering is in direct opposition to our call as believers to love and welcome strangers," Rev. Dr. Andrew R. Polk, a member of the Southern Christian Coalition, writes in an op-ed for The Tennessean. "To be clear, people of conscience and goodwill can have reasonable debates about immigration policy. In fact, I think it’s imperative for politicians to stop fearmongering in order to have that complicated and necessary discussion," he writes. "However, repeatedly broadcasting obvious disinformation about the reality of immigration on our border and dehumanizing people made in the image of God is not ‘good politics’ and isn’t close to actual policy." 

THE IDEA OF ASYLUM — The current debate around processing and transporting asylum seekers raises a bigger question: "Does America still embrace its obligation under international law to provide sanctuary to at least some unauthorized immigrants? The answer is no longer obvious," writes Dara Lind in The New York Times. "The American people (and refugees around the world) at very least deserve something better than mixed messages about the fundamental commitment of asylum," she writes. Meanwhile, elsewhere in The Times, Michael D. Shear and Miriam Jordan report on the administration’s nascent effort to mitigate growing backlogs by giving asylum officers the authority to decide whether a migrant can stay in the U.S. — within weeks rather than years. 

SEN. CORNYN — The Bipartisan Border Solutions Act would be a step toward better managing the border, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) writes in a Dallas Morning News op-ed. The bill, he writes, would help streamline migrant processing by establishing four regional processing centers in high-traffic areas, reprioritizing the immigration court docket, expanding and reinforcing access to counsel for asylum seekers and more. "It’s in everyone’s best interest to resolve cases fairly and efficiently and deliver migrants the legal certainty they need to move forward with their lives," Cornyn writes. Glad to see the senator talking about bipartisan solutions, as we so clearly need (and Americans want) to address border challenges, as well as Dreamers and the farm workforce. 

TEMPORARY SHELTER — The Migrant Welcome Center in El Paso, Texas, is now helping up to 400 migrants per day as the city works more closely with the Border Patrol, reports Hannah Ray Lambert of Fox News. The main goals are to avoid migrants sleeping in the streets, which occurred earlier this month, and to coordinate their next destination within 24 to 48 hours. Deputy City Manager Mario D’Agostino said that 50% of the migrants have sponsors who can pay for travel to their destination, and the rest may end up on chartered buses that El Paso coordinates with other cities. "We got heart. It’s not our normal. This isn’t. But it’s what’s needed to be done for the community," said D’Agostino.  

UNDOCUMENTED STUDENTS — Alisa Reznick of KJZZ’s Fronteras Desk tells the story of Angel Palazuelos, an undocumented student enrolled at Arizona State University. Palazuelos is not eligible for DACA, as he arrived in the U.S. three days after the entrance date cutoff. With a court ruling on DACA’s future expected any day, undocumented students such as Palazuelos are looking for solutions — for more than just current and would-be DACA recipients. Said Mark Delich, director of federal policy and government relations at FWD.us., "What we really need is Congress to act not only for the 680,000 current DACA recipients, but also for the roughly 2.5 million Dreamers that don’t qualify for DACA, young people that were brought here as children." Hear, hear. 

Thanks for reading, 

Dan