Evangelicals are the real aliens among us.

Why Rank-And-File Evangelicals Aren’t Likely To Turn On Trump Over Family Separation

Oh, lots of reasons.

Read it.

These folks will be fine with internment and with mass deportation, when it comes to that.

These are folks whose ancestors hated immigration of "the wrong sorts", too.

First, polling on white evangelical Protestants has shown that they’re more likely than any other religious group to support hardline immigration policies and to have negative views of immigrants overall.

A recent survey by the Pew Research Center found that 70 percent of white evangelical Protestants are in favor of expanding the border wall between the U.S. and Mexico, compared with only around half of white mainline Protestants and white Catholics and much lower shares of other religious groups.

Another Pew survey, conducted last year, found that while majorities of nearly every religious group agree that immigrants strengthen our country, white evangelical Protestants are more divided, with a plurality (44 percent) saying that immigrants are a burden.

These findings line up with results from other surveys too, like a 2017 poll from the Public Religion Research Institute that found that white evangelical Protestants were the only religious group in which a majority (57 percent) said they’re bothered when they encounter immigrants who don’t speak English.

They were also the likeliest to say that they have little or nothing in common with immigrants.

Daniel Cox, the research director at PRRI,2 said these findings help explain why evangelicals aren’t likely to abandon Trump over the child separation crisis, even if they’re troubled by it.

“More than other groups, white evangelical Protestants seem to perceive immigrants as a threat to American society,” he said.

“So even if they don’t like this particular policy, they’re on board with Trump’s approach to immigration in general, and that makes it likelier that they’ll see this as a tactical misstep rather than a breaking point.”

. . . .

Robert Jeffress, the pastor of Dallas’s First Baptist Church and a strong Trump supporter, told FiveThirtyEight that the separation of children from their parents was “disturbing” but quickly added that Trump has the “God-given responsibility” to secure the border in the way he deems appropriate and punish people breaking the law, even if it appears harsh.

. . . .

A 2015 poll by LifeWay Research, a Baptist-affiliated research organization, found that although a strong majority (72 percent) of evangelicals agreed that “immigration reform should protect the unity of the immediate family,” even more believed that “immigration reform should respect the rule of law” (88 percent) and “guarantee secure national borders” (86 percent).

Partisanship and racial anxieties are also likely playing a role, said Janelle Wong, a political scientist at the University of Maryland and the author of a new book on evangelicals and immigration.

“Evangelicals are in a difficult position because of their emphasis on supporting the traditional family,” she said.

“But here, if you strongly support the president’s overall strategy on immigration and see immigrants as dangerous lawbreakers — some even blame the parents for putting their children in this position — it’s easier to justify.”