How this headline may connect to industries in Idaho. Technical scores are below — click any ? for what a metric means.
Meet the pastors who support the ICE raids.Meet the pastors who support the ICE raids (RNS) — Pastors and other clergy have made headlines over the past year for their roles in protesting U.S.Immigration and Customs Enforcement crackdowns in places such as Chicago and Minneapolis.They’ve been hit by pepper balls and tear gas during protests; sued to gain access to ICE facilities and to block ICE raids on houses of worship; and called on their flocks to welcome immigrants, not fear them.Earlier this year, hundreds of clergy flocked to Minneapolis for a two-day training on how to resist ICE.Jim Garlow is not one of them.“It’s not wrong for a government to have borders and to enforce its borders,” said Garlow, the former longtime pastor of Skyline Church near San Diego and founder of Well Versed, a ministry to conservative politicians such as U.S.House Speaker Mike Johnson.Garlow is part of a group of evangelical clergy who, invoking Scripture and morality, support the Trump administration’s immigration policies.Some say they back deportation only for those with criminal records.Others say they want anyone in the country without permanent legal status removed and want churches and pastors to encourage immigrants to self-deport.What unites them is the belief that immigration enforcement and Christian compassion are not in conflict and that the progressive protesters citing the Bible are doing so selectively.That view will likely be debated during the upcoming Southern Baptist Convention meeting, set for Tuesday and Wednesday (June 9 and 10) in Orlando, Florida.A proposed resolution for the meeting approves of “lawful immigration enforcement” and affirms that “Christian compassion and hospitality do not negate lawful order or excuse indifference to public justice and social peace.” Unlike previous statements on immigration from the nation’s largest Protestant denomination, the new resolution makes no mention of a path to legal status for those in the country without it.Last year, the SBC’s public policy entity withdrew from the Evangelical Immigration Table, which supports immigration reform, in part because the issue had become too divisive.(That SBC entity, known as the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, had helped found the EIT back in 2013.) Dean Inserra, pastor of the Tallahassee-based City Church, a Southern Baptist congregation, told RNS in an interview that while the Bible commands Christians to treat everyone with respect, there are still limits.“Christians get in trouble when they say all people are made in the image of God, so that means that there’s a free-for-all and we should have open borders,” Inserra said.“Well, the same Bible where you claim that we should care for the immigrant, which the Bible does say, is the same Bible that has borders and nations and walls.” Christians get in trouble when they say all people are made in the image of God, so that means that there's a free-for-all and we should have open borders.Pastor Dean Inserra He sees no contradiction between saying all people are made in God’s image and deserve respect and care and saying that laws should be enforced.He also believes that the Trump administration should focus primarily on deporting those with criminal convictions.“I mean, it’s a no-brainer to me,” he said.Willy Rice, one of two pastors vying for the office of SBC president this year, also supports the Trump administration’s policies.Rice said he respects immigrants, especially their perseverance, and appreciates the struggles that they overcome in relocating from their home countries to the United States.But he also said that he believes in the rule of law and that countries need to have secure borders and an orderly immigration process.The hard part, he said, is figuring out what to do with folks living in the country without legal status.Removing them is going to be painful and complicated.“Everybody knows that when you engage in deportation, there are going to be difficult, heart-wrenching, gut-wrenching cases,” he said.“I know that the laws should be enforced.I hope they’re applied justly and fairly.” Like other pastors interviewed by RNS, Rice said much of the blame for the current tensions over immigration should fall on past administrations for failing to secure the border.That’s allowed the number of people in the country without full legal status to grow.A Pew Research report from last year found that the number of “unauthorized immigrants” — including those whose status is impermanent or precarious — grew from 10.2 million in 2019 to 14 million in 2023.For progressive pastors, ICE’s crackdown in Minneapolis earlier this year, which resulted in the killing of two Americans, galvanized opposition to ICE and the Trump agenda.Evangelical pastors like Rice say the situation in Minneapolis was chaotic, but they place more blame on protesters than on ICE.“What they don’t show you are the people stalking ICE, mocking them, getting in the way, trying to interfere with the just enforcement of law,” he said.What they don't show you are the people stalking ICE, mocking them, getting in the way, trying to interfere with the just enforcement of law.Willy Rice, a pastor vying for office of SBC president He was particularly concerned about an anti-ICE protest at Cities Church in St.Paul, Minnesota, that disrupted a worship service.That church is part of the SBC, and one of its lay leaders works for ICE.The protesters and two journalists covering the protest have been charged with violating federal law.“You can have debates, you can have a difference of opinion, but you don’t get to burst into a public worship service,” Rice told RNS in an interview.It’s not clear how many or how deeply pastors support the Trump immigration crackdown.A recent survey from Lifeway Research, an evangelical research firm, found that nearly 1 in 5 Protestant pastors (18%) believes the number of deportations in the U.S.should be increased, while 1 in 4 (24%) believes the government is deporting the right number of people.A March report from Public Religion Research Institute found that while the Trump administration’s approach to immigration is unpopular with most faith groups, evangelicals remain strong supporters.RELATED: His arrest went viral.Michael Woolf is preaching what he calls ‘Sanctuary values.’ As the threat of deportation increases for all immigrants, Catholic bishops as well as immigrant advocates have pushed back and said deportations should be reserved for convicted criminals.But some of the evangelical pastors who are staunch supporters of the Trump immigration agenda go much further, seeing large-scale immigration as an existential threat to U.S.culture and calling for the mass deportation of anyone in the country without legal status.“I think all of them need to go,” said Joe Rigney, an associate pastor at Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho, and author of “The Sin of Empathy.” Rather than joining protest lines, pastors should be encouraging those in the country without legal status to self-deport, Rigney said.That’s better than waiting for ICE to come and arrest them.He points to what he calls a “very generous” offer made by the Trump administration to immigrants who will self-deport — a free flight and a cash bonus of $1,000.In late May, the Department of Homeland Security upped the ante— and began advertising what it called a “historic and generous CBP Home Deal” of a flight and a $2,600 cash bonus.“That’s a very generous, compassionate way of attempting to deal with this problem,” Rigney said.Rigney wants to see a 30-year moratorium on all immigration.He argues that the changes to immigration law in 1965, after what’s known as the Hart-Celler Act passed, were a mistake.That law opened up immigration from Asia and Africa — before then, the law favored immigrants from Europe.This past week, Republican Congressman Andy Ogles of Tennessee, a fierce opponent of immigration, introduced a bill to repeal m