Often, stories about people of faith and refugees end up casting the former in a negative light for refusing to be of help to the poor and tired, huddled masses.
But a roving reporter for the Washington Post got wind of something unusual; how a deep red state was refusing to go along with President Donald Trump’s anti-refugee policy. This happened to be Utah.
The ensuing piece makes for a very good read. My one caveat is that a major factor in refugee welcomes doesn’t get mentioned until the 30th paragraph.
Other media, such as this Vox video, got the point right away that Mormons have everything to do with Utah’s unusual refugee policy. This Wall Street Journal story made the Mormon connection in the fourth paragraph.
This fall, President Trump signed an executive order that, for the first time, gives states and cities the authority to veto refugee resettlements. The move alarms refugee advocates, who fear a wave of xenophobic demagoguery as governors and mayors seek to prove their anti-immigrant credentials by banning new arrivals.
That still may happen, adding to the strain on a once world-class resettlement program that has been crippled by cuts since Trump took office.
But in Utah — deeply conservative, deeply devout, predominantly white Utah — the response has been altogether different. The governor, a Republican who aligns with Trump on most issues, wrote the president a letter in late October.
He didn’t want to keep refugees out. He didn’t want to reduce their numbers. He wanted Trump to send more…
One of those refugees is a 28-year-old Kenyan woman and her children who is quoted throughout the piece as ecstatic over the good life in Utah.
This story isn’t original with the Post, by the way. Religion & Ethics Newsweekly did an 8-minute broadcast on the same topic in 2016.
Republicans in the state legislature quickly backed up their governor, daring to defy a president who has repeatedly shown an unwillingness to tolerate intraparty dissent. So did Republican members of the state’s congressional delegation. So did Republicans in city halls. Democrats across Utah added their support…
Utah’s population includes about 60,000 refugees, hailing from places such as Somalia, Congo, Syria, Iraq and Vietnam. Under Trump, the number of new arrivals has dropped precipitously, from 1,245 in 2016 to 421 last year. Still, Utah punches well above its weight, taking in more people per capita than large states such as California, Texas and New York.
Long after many people may have stopped reading, the influence of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is mentioned in paragraph 30 as a major factor in welcoming refugees. When the Salt Lake Tribune did a similar story on Nov. 1, the LDS church’s attitude toward refugees was mentioned in the eighth paragraph.
“It’s in the DNA of a lot of the residents of Utah, having pioneer forefathers who were driven from their homes because of their religious beliefs,” said Rick Foster, who manages the church’s global network of welfare operations, including support for refugees. “There’s an acute sensitivity to individuals who are suffering a similar plight.”
Of course, escapes from persecution are a common thread in the ancestry of many Americans, from the Mayflower on down. But the Mormons make that narrative central to their teachings and connect it directly to the struggles of those seeking protection today.
I’m curious why the Post writer didn’t put a teaser closer to the top of the story, saying that religious faith is a major factor in Utah’s openness to refugees. The reporter could have developed this thought further down, but at least a mention would have been nice higher up.
The high percentage of young Mormons who perform missionary work abroad plays a role, as well. Utah may be landlocked, far from any international border. But its population has a comfort and familiarity with foreign cultures.
“You walk down the street in Provo and you can ask people whether they speak a second language,” said Rep. John Curtis (R-Utah), a member of the Mormon church. “Ninety percent of them will say yes.”
More faith angle material is even further down, such as an interview with the Muslim director of the refugee program at Catholic Community Services of Utah.
I wish the reporter had concentrated less on the political angle — all 29 paragraphs of it — than the religion angle because in Utah, the latter is never far from the surface. Also, churches are unfairly berated these days for just about everything, so it would have been nice to have highlighted an instant when they’re doing something right.
The article’s readers sure got the point about Mormons, as nearly every comment online is about Mormon hospitality.
Are some of these refugees becoming Mormons? The Post doesn’t tackle that question, but this 2017 Deseret News investigation says they very much are, chiefly because they’re terribly poor and the LDS church is the only agency out there helping them.
If I could have added to the story, it would have been a quote from some Latter-day Saint official as to their policy on refugees. That would have been icing on the cake.
As it was, just noticing how Utah plays to a different drummer and doesn’t go along with the narrative of the uncompassionate conservative led to a good story. And that’s what good stories are; the taking of a oft-repeated saying, ie that conservatives hate immigrants, finding the exception to that rule and writing about it.