Marc Abear: Blanket refusal to assist all refugees limits aid to vulnerable individuals

To The Daily Sun,

The United States granted refugee status to 59 Afrikaners from South Africa citing claims of racial discrimination and violence. The decision is supported by Executive Order 14204, which prioritizes resettlement for a "disfavored ethnic minority" facing alleged persecution.

The State Department (DoS) argues these refugees, many of whom are farmers and former business owners, require safe haven due to racially discriminatory policies and threats in their home country.

The administration points to reported farm attacks, land reform and water allocation policies, educational opportunities, jobs, and loans based on skin color; as evidence of persecution. The DoS frames the move as a humanitarian response to protect a vulnerable group.

The Episcopal Church has terminated its partnership with the federal government for refugee resettlement citing moral opposition to the resettlement of these white Afrikaners. The church’s migration service views the prioritization of this group as crossing a moral line; accepting them reflects selective, racially biased refugee policies.

The church professes to believe accepting these Afrikaners, while overlooking other refugee groups facing severe persecution, contradicts its commitment to equitable and inclusive resettlement practices. Halting the refugee program entirely is morally required.

Whether readers accept the claims of "white genocide" or systemic targeting or not: How is the utter intolerance of the Episcopal Church helping? It is PR for Episcopal concerns about American refugee policy. But blanket refusal to assist all refugees limits aid to vulnerable individuals. Worse their announcement is a Marxist trope.

Bottom line: Governments all administer their own immigration policies. It is their sovereign right. I'm struggling to see how the Episcopal Church is anything but out of line here. They have abandoned the moral high ground in favor of political grandstanding. Are churches institutions of G-d or something else? Should the Episcopal Church lose its tax exempt status?

Marc Abear

Meredith