Yesterday we published a piece on refugees in hiding who are facing threat of detention.
Last night DHS issued a new memo outlining its plans to expand refugee detention. Not only justifying their arrests but saying they could be detained indefinitely
www.christianitytoday.com/2026/02/minn...
Absent from protests, some Twin Cities churches are nonetheless mobilizing quietly to help foreign-born neighbors—delivering food, driving kids to and from school, committing to assume parental rights if the worst happens. Great dispatch from my colleague @emilybelz.bsky.social
DHS's own employees increasingly struggle to take the administration at its word. From the NYT:
One current DHS agent said that he had “always given the benefit of the doubt to the government in these situations” but he now no longer believed “any of the statements they put out anymore.” ...
www.christianitytoday.com/2026/01/raid... As we enter America's 250th year, the Minnesota shooting and competing responses to it on social media feel like evidence for this thesis. New from me:
Excellent reporting from the AP about how DOJ's upending of immigration courts to secure deportations "by default" has decimated morale among government lawyers. "I can't do this," one texted. "This is a new emotional load." apnews.com/article/immi...
My story in the Nov @christianitytoday.com asks, What did we gain by deporting two leaders at @Saddleback Church? And what is a couple to do when ICE assures them "they're never going to kick you out?" Thanks for reading! 🙂 www.christianitytoday.com/2025/11/ice-...
What I found: If you support a Christian charity or church working abroad, chances are that group was also supported by USAID. It has underwritten not only household-name Christian groups, but also countless small ministries and churches. It also helped repair church buildings around the world.
Earlier this year, when the administration cut most foreign aid because of alleged fraud and support of progressive agendas, I combed through the government's (very large) dataset of overseas grants. I wanted to know how foreign aid funds (USAID) have helped evangelical groups working abroad.
My latest for your weekend read. Whatever happened to all the bused migrants who inundated Chicago? Some of them set out on foot to find a church. www.christianitytoday.com/2025/06/chic...
Sometimes for sad stories, the obvious choice is to go with the photo of a large fuzzy tiger. www.christianitytoday.com/2025/05/ice-...
In February, when the administration first announced its agreement to deport migrants to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador, a couple of colleagues asked me if the US was about to engage in state-sponsored trafficking. I had no idea. So I asked around. My report for CT: tinyurl.com/mr3emb73
“Kudzu is a favorite sermon illustration for sin. And in many ways, it’s apt: Sin is only countered with vigilance,” writes @andyrolsen.bsky.social.
“But the image has limits. Sin, like most invasives, is tracked in on the boots of churchgoers.”
Trump's deportation plans could force 10 million Christians from the US, amounting to what the president of the National Association of Evangelicals called "a church decline strategy"
www.christianitytoday.com/2025/03/amer...
Two-thirds of Hispanic Protestants voted for Donald Trump. But church leaders in Florida told me some pastors privately confess they're disillusioned by the president's immigration actions—and by a new Florida law mandating the death sentence for undocumented immigrants who commit certain crimes.
In cases where the undocumented do have legitimate claims to stay, what determines whether they get papers is largely whether they find legal representation.
Churches are trying to play a role in helping migrants through a process that feels impossible:
www.christianitytoday.com/2025/03/how-...
It's a serious cerebral workout to keep your wits in the maze of US immigration law. I gave it my best here: www.christianitytoday.com/2025/03/how-...
Kevin Burns is on a list of people the State of Tennessee plans to kill. He got together with some other people on that list and started a church.
Great story by my colleague @emilybelz.bsky.social
www.christianitytoday.com/2025/02/deat...
To put things in perspective -
NYC spent more just on police overtime pay last year ($1b) than the US government spent on the entire global malaria fight in 30 countries ($795m)
www.nytimes.com/2025/02/04/n...
We're still early, but another reminder that ICE arrest numbers are not as high as the administration would like everyone to believe.
My latest piece on what appears to be the new administration's first ICE arrest at a church. www.christianitytoday.com/2025/01/shou...
For the Trump administration, releasing the data is now a key component of the publicity machine.
Some days during the Obama administration, for instance, arrests totaled well over 1,500—a higher number than we've seen yet this year. But for Democrats at that time and for president Bush before him, the alarming numbers were a liability.
It's an overlooked but significant change that ICE now publishes its daily arrest figures on social media. Since the agency's founding, that data was closely guarded.
Oh, hello Bluesky. Let's see if the air is nice up here.
