Virginia Postrel, Columnist

Why Evangelicals Want Immigration Reform

A major cultural shift is under way inside Trump's stronghold.

September 11, 2017 at 2:00 PM UTC

Virginia Postrel is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. She is a visiting fellow at the Smith Institute for Political Economy and Philosophy at Chapman University and author, most recently, of “The Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made the World.”

Changing faces.
Photographer: Jensen Walker/Getty Images

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When Donald Trump reversed the Obama-era executive order giving legal status to undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children, he got pushback from religious leaders. Their response illustrates the ways, expected and unexpected, in which immigrants are changing American Christianity.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the go-to religious group for reporters seeking official comment, called the decision “reprehensible.” At least a third of U.S. Catholics are Latino, and one study of Catholic parishes put the number at 40 percent.