President Donald Trump’s announced travel ban will harm members of The United Methodist Church and its far-flung ministries significantly if allowed to stand.
According to the newsletter 1440: “Countries whose foreign nationals will be banned are Afghanistan, Myanmar (Burma), Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen. Countries with partial restrictions include Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan, and Venezuela.” (Note: The travel ban does not refer to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a larger nation of similar name where the UMC is prominent).
Cynthia Astle
The United Methodist Church has annual conferences and local churches in Burundi and Sierra Leone and mission projects in nearly all the banned countries. For example, the Florida Annual Conference has a longstanding mission partnership and local-church ties with the Methodist Church in Cuba. In addition to its International Disaster Response, the United Methodist Committee on Relief, the denomination’s aid agency, has helped people through projects in multiple countries of the travel ban: Afghanistan, Burundi, Cuba, Haiti, Laos, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Venezuela and Yemen.
In short, the world is still our parish, as Methodism’s founder John Wesley asserted, and the travel ban directly interferes with the UMC’s First Amendment right to practice its religion without government sanction or intervention.
“The travel ban directly interferes with the UMC’s First Amendment right to practice its religion without government sanction or intervention.”
Even a brief look at the work of the United Methodist Committee on Relief, a unit of the General Board of Global Ministries, underscore’s the UMC’s worldwide ministry. Its website states:
The United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR), a unit of Global Ministries, is a humanitarian organization that helps alleviate human suffering, one of the two main goals of Global Ministries. Originally founded in 1940 in response to displaced and vulnerable populations in the wake of World War II, UMCOR assists the most vulnerable people affected by crisis or chronic need without regard to their race, religion or status. UMCOR’s work is carried out by providing relief and assistance in response to natural and human-made disasters and supporting programs in the areas of migration, health, food security and environmental sustainability.
Through their financial gifts and volunteer service from local churches and annual conferences, United Methodists also care for those seeking to escape poverty, hunger and danger through UMCOR’s Migration and Refugee program. Again, from the website:
UMCOR encourages, supports and equips Methodist and ecumenical partners for migration ministry. It provides relief and recovery in the form of food aid, basic necessities, and legal services for vulnerable migrants and refugees with support to organizations working directly with these populations.
What will happen to these vital ministries if United Methodists from strife-stricken countries are prevented from coming to the United States for training and support? How long will it be before UMC staff and volunteers from the United States are prevented from traveling to banned countries to bring relief and recovery to those in need?
Within United Methodism, church governance will be damaged when church leaders from places such as Sierra Leone and Burundi are kept from attending the 2028 General Conference slated for Minneapolis. Even though church-wide board and agency meetings can be held online, General Conference business can’t be conducted virtually by church policy. Time zone differences pose further hardships on international United Methodists if they must attend online meetings in the middle of their nighttime.
The U.S. travel ban goes into effect June 9, 2025. The countries listed have been banned because of “national security threat” and “hostile attitudes” toward the United States, according to President Trump’s executive order. Considering that other aggressive nations such as Russia and Israel aren’t on the list, thoughtful United Methodists are compelled to wonder how much racism — considered a sin by their church — has gone into the selection of countries with predominantly Black and brown populations.
The new U.S. travel ban typifies this federal administration’s chainsaw attitudes and actions toward public policy that indiscriminately harm the most vulnerable among us. Although U.S. officials insist otherwise with their “America First” priority, United Methodists and all Christians must demand that the U.S. government respond humanely in a world that is far more complex than its short-sighted, destructive policies would have it be.
Now is the time for U.S. United Methodist leaders and members to contact their federal representatives to challenge the travel ban, demanding to know specifically why these countries are singled out. Only by raising voices against the travel ban can the UMC hope to forestall the impending harm it would cause to the church’s worldwide ministries to comfort, heal and protect people as Jesus requires us to do.
Cynthia B. Astle is a longtime religion journalist who covers The United Methodist Church.
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