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Fort Wayne Pastors Discuss Immigration

“People [immigrants] come with an expectation: the dream. Then they come here, and they see division. As a Christian, we’re supposed to take care of the ones from afar.”

One of our goals in these Listening Tour sessions is to hear from groups of pastors who are already networked with one another. Sometimes geography is the thing they have in common, but other times they share theological or demographic characteristics. They tend to know each other relatively well and share concerns.

When we went to Fort Wayne in October 2024, we met with a group of eight pastors, two of whom were Black, six of whom were Hispanic, and all of whom were from Protestant denominations. They shared concerns about economic instability, people’s ability to develop job skills and find good jobs, violence in the city, drug addiction, mental health, and the well-being of children in their communities.

These topics wove in and out of our conversation for the 90 minutes we spent together, but, unsurprisingly, the topic that dominated most of the discussion was immigration. Five of the six Hispanic pastors in the group served Spanish-speaking congregations or congregations with Spanish-speaking services. One pastor shared many insights he had gained through his experiences in his church’s immigration assistance programs.

The presidential election, which was still 12 days away when this conversation took place, seemed to be constantly in the background. Pastors knew people were anxious about the election’s outcome. They said documented and undocumented people alike were experiencing anxiety because of Trump’s rhetoric about immigrants. One pastor said that Trump was “villainizing an entire population,” which she said, “makes it feel like anyone is at risk,” regardless of their documentation status.

This pastor said that the threat and reality of deportation causes deep fear and stress not only for an undocumented person but also their documented family members. She said, “that fear runs through the entire family about what will happen to this [undocumented] person.”

The conversation about immigration was rich and nuanced. The pastors noted situations where Spanishspeaking workers were denied employment or fired because they did not speak English well enough, as well as situations when people were treated poorly in the workplace because they were Spanish-speaking immigrants.

It seemed like the pastors all agreed with one another and had roughly similar experiences until about halfway through our conversation, when a pastor who had been quiet up to this point introduced a new perspective. He said there are undocumented individuals and families who have been in the United States for many years, and they have no path to legal status. He said, “Our families have been working hard here their whole lives, paying taxes, [and] it’s been difficult for them to see how broken our system is, and then another family can come and just be legal.”

The legal status he mentioned was in reference to individuals coming to the United States with refugee or asylum status. He said it was unjust that people can be in the country for many years, contributing to their communities and the economy, without having a means of becoming legal. Another pastor acknowledged that “it’s creating tension between the ones who have arrived and the ones who have been here for years and have worked their whole lives and don’t qualify for anything.”

Further complicating matters, the pastors explained that many people who came to the United States brought very little with them and sold whatever they could not bring to pay for their journey. If those individuals go back to their origin countries to try to enter the United States legally, they would genuinely have nothing, and their applications could easily be denied.

Pastors also spoke of their own experiences of direct discrimination. One of the Black pastors said to her Hispanic peers, “African Americans have the same journey, same story, just a different shade.” She said this not only in reference to workplace discrimination but also in reference to the idea that Black and Hispanic populations face systemic injustices intended to hold them back. One pastor said, “I don’t believe the immigration system is broken. I believe it’s engineered.” Another pastor said he saw this happen not only at the national government level but also within his denomination. He felt he had been overlooked for opportunities because he is Hispanic.

The pastor who said the system is “engineered” explained her view that some people, in an attempt to bypass the systemic issues, sought to assimilate with the dominant culture as they experienced it. She thought this explained why some Hispanics supported Christian Nationalism. She said, “I think it’s about proving your Americanness. If the dominant culture seems like they value these things, like Christian Nationalism, then in order to prove my worthiness in this identity, I have to conform to the values of this dominant group.”

Toward the end of the conversation, one of the pastors mused, “I wonder what the future of the Church is going to look like when younger generations don’t see the Church as an answer.” The pastors seemed to agree that the Church should be more involved in communities so they can guide children and their families. They wanted to see the Church being a more active—versus reactive—institution that seeks to connect with all people regardless of gender, age, sexual orientation, or political persuasion.

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