More than 20,000 Christians signed a petition urging Trump to reconsider an executive order signed on his first day in office.
A 90-day deadline for President Donald Trump’s executive order regarding Christian refugee resettlement looms. Numerous faith-based organizations warn that not bringing back the long-running process could «indefinitely» hurt individuals attempting to reunite with loved ones.
Newsweek reached out to the White House for comment.
The executive order «Realigning the United States Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP)» was signed on January 20, just after Trump was inaugurated. It went into effect just after midnight on January 27, suspending the program for 90 days to allow U.S. officials to determine «whether resumption of entry of refugees into the United States under the USRAP would be in the interests of the United States.»
That 90-day deadline is set to expire on Easter Sunday. Trump administration officials are claimed to have not made any contact with Christian groups in favor of rescinding the order.
In 2024, the majority of the 100,034 refugees who resettled to the U.S. were Christians, and 29,493 Christians among them came from 50 countries where Christians face the most severe persecution, according to church watchdog Open Doors US.
The Trump administration tied USRAP to the U.S. being «inundated with record levels of migration» over the past four years, specifically mentioning «significant influxes of migrants» in cities including Charleroi, Pennsylvania, and Springfield, Ohio—the latter of which drew widespread attention during the 2024 presidential race when Trump, during a debate against former Vice President Kamala Harris, falsely claimed that migrants were eating dogs and cats.
In his first week in office during his first term as president, Trump set the maximum number of refugees to be admitted at 50,000.
On Thursday, the Christian organization World Relief rereleased a statement urging the Trump administration to reconsider its motives and restart the resettlement process.
Even with the suspension, they say that churches, individual Christians, and other supporters have contributed more than $10 million to World Relief in the past three months «in response to gaps created by the administration’s abrupt termination of pre-committed funds for already-resettled refugees and vulnerable people elsewhere around the globe.
