White people are less likely to say that the United States has a responsibility to accept refugees when compared to black and Hispanic populations, according to the results of a Pew Research Center survey. The survey was conducted in April and May.
Notably, an incredible 68% of white evangelical Protestants say the U.S. does not have a responsibility to accept refugees. Only about one-quarter of Republicans (and Republican-leaning independents) agree that we need to accept refugees. This number has dropped from 35%, compared to the February after Donald Trump took office.
This is not good. Instead of taking a swing away from Trump’s inhumane policy moves, conservatives are leaning in on them.
Thankfully, 51% of Americans do agree that the U.S. has a responsibility to accept refugees. Some 74% of Democrats agree with this sentiment, too; 65% of adults with no religious affiliation say we have a responsibility to accept refugees, which is them practicing what others preach.
Women, those with higher levels of education, and younger adults are also more likely to agree on the duty to accept refugees.
Not all religious groups line up with the horrifying statistics on evangelicals, though only black Protestants feel strongly in favor of our country’s need to accept refugees. For example, white mainline Protestants are at 50% disagreement, while 63% of black Protestants believe we have a responsibility to accept those seeking refuge. Only 45% of Catholics agree we have an obligation to accept refugees. The responses from Catholics aren’t broken down by race.
And for Pew’s purposes, “white” and “black” are designated as “not Hispanic.” Hispanics, for this survey, may be of any race.
As we all know, Trump is making sure that it’s harder and harder to be accepted as a refugee in the U.S. Only 45,000 refugees were admitted into the U.S. in 2018, which is an astoundingly small number compared to past years. For 2019, the number will be a despicable 30,000. And many religious people—especially white religious people—apparently aren’t too torn up about that. Terrible.
*story by Daily KOS