(RNS) — The Southern Baptist Convention will go its own way on immigration policy, the denomination’s top public policy official said Wednesday (Sept. 17), breaking ties with a coalition of other evangelical Christian bodies focused on the issue.
“We feel we need to take a more independent posture on our immigration-related work,” Miles Mullin, acting president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, the SBC’s policy arm, told the agency’s trustees in announcing it had severed ties with the Evangelical Immigration Table, according to Baptist Press.
Southern Baptists have long advocated for immigration reform that includes secure borders and a path to citizenship for people in the country illegally. That led former ERLC President Richard Land to join other prominent evangelical leaders to found the Evangelical Immigration Table in 2012 to advocate for immigration reform based on biblical principles.
“The immigration crisis facing the nation touches every level of society,” Land said at the time. “If we as a nation are going to resolve this crisis in fair and equitable ways, we must engage all levels of civic society, perhaps most importantly, people of faith.”
The Evangelical Immigration Table, however, has come under increasing criticism during the Trump era, with critics claiming that liberal groups are using it to infiltrate churches. At the SBC’s annual meeting earlier this year, supporters of President Donald Trump called for the ERLC to be shut down, in part because of its ties to the Evangelical Immigration Table.
The agency survived but the ERLC’s most recent president, Brent Leatherwood, resigned this fall, after more than a year of controversy.
Mullin, who was not available for comment, told the ERLC’s trustees that the agency has been involved in immigration reform because the issue matters to Southern Baptists, according to Baptist Press.
Matt Soerens, a vice president at the humanitarian aid group World Relief and national coordinator for the Evangelical Immigration Table, said in an email that the EIT will continue its advocacy and thanked the ERLC for its past help.
Immigration remains a complicated issue for evangelical leaders, especially with the Trump administration’s focus on mass deportations. While white evangelicals are among the most loyal supporters of Trump and his MAGA movement, rank-and-file evangelicals also want humane immigration policies.
Earlier this year, a study from Lifeway Research, which has ties to the SBC, found that most evangelicals want immigration reform that secures the border, but also want to keep families together, respect the dignity of every person and provide a pathway to citizenship for those in the country illegally.
The study, sponsored by the Evangelical Immigration Table, also found that Southern Baptists support deporting people who are in the country illegally if they have a history of violent crime or pose a threat to national security. There was little support, however, for deporting undocumented immigrants who are married to a U.S. citizen, have children who are citizens or are willing to pay a fine for violating immigration law.
“A large majority of evangelicals do not want immigrants unlawfully in the country to be prioritized for deportation except if they have been convicted of violent crimes or pose a threat to national security,” Scott McConnell, executive director of Lifeway Research, said in a statement earlier this year.
Other members of the Evangelical Immigration Table include World Relief and World Vision, along with the National Latino Evangelical Coalition and the National Association of Evangelicals.
Along with advocating for reform, the group has created Bible studies about immigration, run ad campaigns, produced a documentary and sponsored research about evangelical views on immigration.