Black folks aren’t the only ones offended by President Donald Trump’s move to welcome dozens of white South Africans into the country. The Episcopal Church is now refusing to comply with his orders, and as a consequence, the decades-long relationship between the church and the U.S. government will likely never be the same.
The Episcopal Church’s almost 40-year relationship with the government revolves around Episcopal Migration Ministries, which receives federal funding to help immigrants from around the world. But Trump’s resettlement of 59 white South Africans threw a wrench in the system for a few notable reasons.
In a letter sent to church members on Monday, Rev. Sean W. Rowe, the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, said the church will not be used as a political tool for the administration. “Since January, the previously bipartisan U.S. Refugee Admissions Program in which we participate has essentially shut down,” Rev. Rowe wrote. “Virtually no new refugees have arrived, hundreds of staff in resettlement agencies around the country have been laid off, and funding for resettling refugees who have already arrived has been uncertain.”
Then, the Trump administration contacted them just over two weeks ago. “The federal government informed Episcopal Migration Ministries that under the terms of our federal grant, we are expected to resettle white Afrikaners from South Africa whom the U.S. government has classified as refugees,” Rowe continued. “... It has been painful to watch one group of refugees, selected in a highly unusual manner, receive preferential treatment over many others who have been waiting in refugee camps or dangerous conditions for years.”
Fifty-nine white South Africans — known as Afrikaners — were welcomed with balloons, American flags and practically a red carpet rolled out on Monday (May 12). As The Root previously reported, the move drew backlash from folks who remembered Afrikaners’ brutal rule over native South Africans until 1994. You know who else remembered the violence of apartheid? The Episcopal Church.
The church has now refused to assist in their resettlement citing their “steadfast commitment to racial justice and reconciliation and our historic ties with the Anglican Church of Southern Africa,” the letter said, also referring to the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who was vocal against apartheid in South Africa. Rowe then vowed to end the church’s contract for federal funding by September of this year.
Rowe is clearly standing on business, stating that he won’t compromise the moral integrity of the church. “As Christians, we must be guided not by political vagaries,” he wrote. Instead, the church will invest “our resources in serving migrants in other ways.”
Since the letter’s publishing, MAGA supporters, like conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, have come out demanding the church’s funds be revoked in defiance. Trump has not publicly responded to the Episcopal Church’s letter.