Given President Donald Trump’s push for “mass deportation” of those he calls “illegal immigrants,” questions surrounding the issue have become even more urgent for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which counts hundreds of thousands of immigrant converts.
On Thursday, the Utah-based faith waded delicately into the debate, issuing a news release reiterating long-standing principles that “guide the church’s approach.”
They are:
• Obedience to the law.
• Loving “all God’s children.”
• Providing “basic food and clothing, as our capacity allows, to those in need, regardless of their immigration status.”
• Keeping families together.
In addition to emphasizing principles of love, law and family, the global faith of 17.2 million members encouraged bishops and other local lay leaders to consult with the faith’s attorneys on how to deal with immigrants lacking permanent legal status in their congregations.
“The Office of General Counsel (OGC) has created guidelines to help local leaders comply with federal laws that criminalize harboring, transporting or encouraging undocumented immigrants to remain in the United States,” the release said. Church lawyers continue to “carefully track legal developments to ensure local outreach and area-initiated humanitarian activities are appropriate.”
Mixed reactions
South Jordan Latter-day Saint Karim Jones, a first-generation U.S citizen born to an immigrant mother from El Salvador, said she has “always been grateful to those members of the church who took us in and treated us as their own.”
“I appreciate the church’s statement that reiterates loving our neighbors and keeping families together,” she said, “though I wish a clearer stand had been made on how they plan to keep our places of worship a safe haven for all — including our undocumented brothers and sisters.”
Meanwhile, a Brigham Young University student with undocumented family members said she was especially grateful for the church’s emphasis on family unity.
The student, who asked that her name not be used out of concern for her undocumented loved ones, also appreciated the release’s focus “on how we’re all God’s children, regardless of your documentation and legal status.”
She said she hoped that whatever guidelines the church provides local leadership would help to ensure the meetinghouse remains a place where all can worship in peace.
Victoria Gomez, a Latter-day Saint whose father immigrated from Mexico, was disappointed by the church’s statement, which she called “self-contradictory.”
”If we really do care about” undocumented immigrants, said a women’s Relief Society president in her Monterey, California, congregation, “then we can’t be siding with harmful” laws.
A consistent pattern
The latest set of principles follows a moderate approach the church has taken on the issue with one difference: The release makes no mention of the importance of immigrants to the country.
Since its beginnings in the 19th century, Utah has attracted many immigrants who came to the Beehive State to help build a kind of Zion.
In recent years, the church has made it clear it wants “a humane policy of immigration enforcement that prioritizes keeping families together,” McKay Coppins, an award-winning Latter-day Saint journalist who covers national politics for The Atlantic, said in a “Mormon Land” podcast soon after Trump’s November election victory. “...Mass deportations could sweep away families that are the backbone of various branches and wards throughout the country, and trigger backlash from fellow members.”
In 2010, the faith gave its blessing to the Utah Compact, which spells out a similar set of compassionate principles to guide immigration reform, including respect for law enforcement, opposition to family separations, a recognition of the value of immigrants to the economy, and a humane approach to integrating immigrants into communities.
The church reaffirmed its support of the pact in 2019.
Beloved apostle Dieter Uchtdorf, himself a two-time refugee, has praised the compact as a “pillar” in the immigration debate.
(The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) Apostle Dieter F. Uchtdorf stands in front of his birth home in Ostrava in the Czech Republic.
Support for ‘Dreamers’
In January 2018, soon after Russell Nelson was installed as church president, the church called on Congress to act quickly to protect from deportation hundreds of thousands “Dreamers,” whose undocumented parents brought them to the United States as children.
It called on federal lawmakers to “provide hope and opportunities” for the estimated 1.8 million Dreamers living in the nation at the time.
Latter-day Saint leaders noted that while “immigration is a complex and sometimes divisive issue . . . we believe that our first priority is to love and care for one another as Jesus Christ taught.”
While falling short of endorsing any “specific legislative or executive solution,” the church said then that it hoped there would be a “provision for strengthening families and keeping them together.”
In 2021, more than a dozen Latter-day Saint meetinghouses in seven states opened their doors to the country’s newcomers, proclaiming “immigrants welcome.”
Welcome centers in places like Las Vegas and Mesa, Arizona, helped immigrants to the U.S. access free legal services, improve their English, and progress on the path to citizenship so that they could land better jobs and live better lives.
“It doesn’t matter how they got here,” area Seventy Broc Hiatt said then in a news release. “Our concern is that they are children of Heavenly Father, and they need help. We can provide it, and we’ve covenanted to provide it. We are simply here to love Heavenly Father’s children and provide the help to them that he would provide if he was here.”
(The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) Volunteers check in dozens and dozens of immigrants at a Las Vegas Welcome Center in Las Vegas in 2021.
Handbook guidance
The church’s General Handbook, which spells out policies for leaders and members, says that members “who remain in their native lands often have opportunities to build up and strengthen the church there. However, immigration to another country is a personal choice.”
Missionaries for the faith “should not sponsor other’s immigration... or offer to ask their parents, relatives or others to do so,” the guidelines say. Plus, the church does not “sponsor immigration through church employment.”
Those who do immigrate, the handbook adds, should “obey all applicable laws of the new country.”
