It has been said that Chinese international students who came to know Christ in the United States and returned to China are like a burning branch which set the Gospel ablaze in China, leading the house church movement to multiply into the tens of millions. This was my “Gung Gung” (Calvin Chao) and “Po Po’s” (Faith Chao) vision decades ago for their ministry Chinese for Christ. If they were still alive, I wonder what they would say about Trump’s cruel new policy targeting international students for deportation?
Trump’s inhumane policy weaponizes Covid-19 as an excuse to deport one million international students—including seminary students and students at CCCU’s—who are completely “legal” and who contribute billions of dollars per year to the U.S. economy. In fact, because they pay exhorbitant tuition rates, these international students play a vital role in keeping campuses like UCLA economically solvent.
The racist Trump policy requires international students to enroll in in-person classes this fall or face deportation. It is cruel. To illustrate the massive harm this policy engenders, take for example the University of California system of which I’m a part and which is the largest in the world. There are 40,000 international students (undergraduate and graduate) of the University of California from Asia, Africa, Latin America, Europe, and the Middle East, who can’t take in person classes in the fall because almost all of our classes will be offered online to prevent spread of a Covid and death. Another case in point—the large numbers of international seminary students at places like Fuller who are training to become pastors throughout the Global South where the Christian faith is most thriving and the Spirit of God is most at work. Also, what about the hardworking students who live in the borderlands of the U.S. and for whom international student status is their last line of protection from being deported and separated from their family members and loved ones? I could go on and on. Literally, what the hell is going on?
Will Jesus-followers stand up en masse to this naked racist aggression of the Trump administration? What about the international student ministries of large organizations like InterVarsity, Cru, Navigators? What about our local churches and million member denominations? Tens of thousands are suffering and living in deep fear and dread right now because the laws of Caesar are colliding with God’s moral law of hospitality towards the visitors of our land. Our neighbors are suffering. Our testimony is on the line. Jesus appears to us in their faces of suffering. What will we do?
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Post-script: I'm glad that IV, Cru, and the SBC have pushed back against this policy: https://intervarsity.org/news/intervarsity-leads-christian-ministry-letter-opposition-international-student-visa-policy?fbclid=IwAR27-jJlhzkuFsAp7SvLnxACvO7doSnHsDOJmRHqUZts2C1fRvcQCMJiha0