Persecuted Christians seeking asylum in the United States will be given priority when they apply for refugee status, President Trump said Thursday.
“We are going to help them. They’ve been horribly treated,” Trump told the Christian Broadcasting Network in an interview set to air Sunday.
“Do you know if you were a Christian in Syria it was impossible, and the reason that was so unfair — everybody was persecuted in all fairness — but they were chopping off the heads of everybody, but more so the Christians,” he told CBN’s David Brody.
Upon being asked if he sees persecuted Christians “as kind of a priority” when it comes to granting non-citizens refugee status, Trump told Brady: “Yes.”
Trump was expected to sign an executive order Friday afternoon that would temporarily shut the door to most U.S.-bound immigrants from Muslim countries and suspend the Syrian refugee program.
“The secretaries of state and homeland security, as appropriate, shall cease refugee processing of and the admittance of nationals of Syria as refugees until such time as I have determined that sufficient changes have been made to the [U.S. Refugee Admittance Program] to ensure its alignment with the national interest,” read a draft of the order obtained by the Washington Examiner earlier this week.
Read more at Trump plans to give persecuted Christians priority refugee status.
