After saying he proudly voted for Donald Trump three times, the COO of the National Hispanic Evangelical Leadership Conference told a group of faith leaders Oct. 22 he was unaware Trump’s ICE agents had been physically attacking pastors in Chicago.
At the conclusion of a live interview with Jack Jenkins of Religion News Service, in which Tony Suarez explained not only why he voted for Trump but publicly endorsed him, he was asked from the audience about recent events in Chicago.
The questioner asked Suarez about ICE agents shooting Presbyterian pastor David Black in the head with rubber bullets while he was praying and about Methodist pastor Hannah Kardon being violently forced to the ground while peacefully protesting. Both accounts — and others — have been widely reported in national media, including BNG, and on social media.
Yet Suarez said he couldn’t answer the question because he was not aware of the circumstances.
“So I guess I apologize to say that I’m not aware of that,” he replied, then turned to say he also has been arrested protesting for immigration reform. “I’ve not been shot and I don’t want to downplay that, but to say, I guess I’m not as involved in the protests the way I used to be to know about that. And maybe I just need to find out more about that. I don’t know enough about that. So I apologize. I’ll have to do some more, a little work on this.”
His answer left many in the room stunned, as he had just delivered a mixed review of Trump’s confrontational immigration policies and admitted he does not like Stephen Miller, Trump’s chief strategist for the deportation policies.
Jack Jenkins (left) interviews Tony Suarez at the RNS conference. (BNG photo by Mark Wingfield)
How he came to support Trump
Suarez introduced himself as “a seven-mountain believing, prosperity-preaching, rapture-seeking Pentecostal creature of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.”
Back in 2015, he was supporting Marco Rubio in the Republican race for the presidential nomination, he said. Trump, he said, should have been fired from the Republican primary.
But when Trump won the nomination, Suarez’s attitude changed, he explained. “I was very surprised that we had a call that came from the Trump campaign at that time, inviting us to the table. And I sat at the table and we had a voice at the table and it really changed my opinion enough that I voted for him.
“What I found was someone that allowed us a seat at the table and because we had a seat at the table, we had a voice at the table.”
“And I had no problem telling him that I voted three times, and I’ve been on the Evangelical Advisory Board and I was the first Hispanic to join the Evangelical Advisory Board. What I found was someone that allowed us a seat at the table and because we had a seat at the table, we had a voice at the table.”
Hispanics, he said “have never been married to one political group over the other. We’ve been married to the causes that that are important to our community, primarily immigration reform.”
Both Republicans and Democrats failed to bring about immigration reform when they had opportunities to do so, he said.
He cited examples, including his critique of the Obama administration, which created the DACA program for children brought illegally into the United States by parents. Obama took that step by executive order when Congress again refused to act.
According to Suarez, Hispanics “did not celebrate DACA. We were very nervous because DACA said it is the deferred action program, which means I won’t deport you today, but I might deport you tomorrow. There was legitimate concern, and if you go back and study the history of DACA, people were very reluctant to sign up because once you signed up, you were giving the government all of your information.”
COVID derailed any chance at immigration reform in the first Trump presidency, Suarez said, not addressing the controversial anti-immigration policies of that administration. And then the Biden administration did “nothing” to advance immigration reform, he said.
That’s what led him and some other Hispanic evangelicals to support Trump, Suarez said. “Hispanics are saying out of the frustration, out of the Biden administration, they’re saying, ‘OK, we’re going to try this way.’ But if they don’t see Republicans follow through and do anything that actually benefits their community, they will not be married to the Republican Party. They’ll stand as independents and say, ‘We’re going to vote for the candidate that best serves our interest.’”
Tony Suarez stands front and center as President Donald Trump meets with evangelical leaders inside the Oval Office on May 3, 2017. ( Photo by Mark Burns via National Catholic Reporter)
Not in favor of idolatry
Jenkins asked Suarez: “How do you today theologically outline and articulate your continued support for the president?” He also asked the pastor about photos taken in the Oval Office showing him as part of a group of evangelical leaders praying over Trump, which some have said amounts to idolatry.
Even though he has been vocal in support of Trump, Suarez said, “I get frustrated with both sides. I long for the day when the left and right can come back to the same table of reason and have dialogue. I was at those tables. I was at those tables where we could sit together and not even within the Christian faith as just religious leaders, we could come together, we could reason together.”
“I was expelled from the Evangelical Immigration Table, they kicked me off.”
Suarez then said he had been a victim of “cancel culture” when he endorsed Trump. Because of that endorsement, he was forced off the board of the Evangelical Immigration Table.
“I was expelled from the Evangelical Immigration Table, they kicked me off. They said, ‘We don’t want you at this table.’ People that used to take my phone calls all of a sudden unfollowed, they wouldn’t answer the phone. They no longer wanted to talk.”
Sitting at a table for conversation with other presidents or administrations hardly drew anyone’s attention, “but with Trump, it was different,” he said. “That made headlines. That was divisive. And all we were doing was sitting at the same table. Sometimes the players change, but it’s still the same table.”
Hispanic evangelicals needed to be represented at that table to have influence, he said. “If you’re going to have influence, you have to meet with the people who are in power. … We want to get to the same table to advance the issues that are important to our community. So that’s my frustration with the left that I don’t always believe the left actually wants to have a conversation.”
In opposing Trump, the left just wants to “rebuke and just push us aside rather than come to the table of reason,” he asserted. “Why is it when you talk about Christian nationalism and you call it white Christian nationalism, a Colombian is standing in front of you. Yes, my pigmentation is a little lighter, but I’m a Hispanic. You can’t call me a white Christian nationalist; call me a Hispanic Christian nationalist. But let’s have a conversation of how that happened.
“Stop blaming white people for why there’s Hispanic conservatives who support Trump.”
“Stop blaming white people for why there’s Hispanic conservatives who support Trump.”
As much as he’s frustrated with the left, he’s also frustrated with “what I call the ultra-cons, the ultra conservatives that have made of Donald Trump a messiah.”
That kind of idolatry of Trump violates the biblical teaching that the Lord is God and believers must have no other gods before him, Suarez said.
Deportation assessment
Jenkins then asked Suarez his assessment of how Trump “famously denigrates people who he disagrees with” and about Trump’s controversial mass deportation project that also infringes on churches.
“This administration has not helped to qualm the fear,” he replied. “If they’re not going to raid churches and they’re not going to set up in the parking lots,” they should say so clearly, Suarez replied.
But he countered that Trump so far has not deported as many immigrants as Obama — who served as president eight years. “We call him the deporter in chief because it’s still the truth that he deported more people than any other president in American modern history.”
On Sept. 23, Trump’s own Department of Homeland Security reported 2 million illegal aliens had been removed or self-deported since Jan. 20. That puts Trump on a vastly greater path to deportations than the Obama administration.
Syracuse University reports: “Throughout eight years in office, the Obama administration logged more than 3.1 million ICE deportations, according to Syracuse’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse. The peak was fiscal year 2012, when more than 407,000 people were removed.”
In reality, Trump has removed five times as many immigrants in eight months than Obama did in an entire year. Yet Suarez repeatedly called Obama, not Trump, “the deporter in chief.”
Then Suarez cast blame for Trump’s immigration practices on White House adviser Stephen Miller, who is accountable to the president. I don’t blame President Trump as much as I blame Stephen Miller. OK, I don’t have any problem telling you. I’m not a Stephen Miller fan. I’m very frustrated with him and I hold him responsible for a lot of the ideology.”
He added: “I believe President Trump does want immigration reform. But we’ve always said, both left and right, … you can’t have immigration reform without securing the southern border first.”
He then praised Trump for closing the southern border “for the first time in most of our lifetimes. This is the most secure the southern border has ever been. We always said that was the first step.”