The Episcopal Church's migration service is refusing a directive from the federal government to help resettle white South Africans granted refugee status, citing the church's longstanding “commitment to racial justice and reconciliation.”
Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe announced the step Monday, shortly before 59 South Africans arrived at Dulles International Airport outside Washington on a private charter plane and were greeted by a government delegation.
Episcopal Migration Ministries instead will halt its decades-long partnership with the government, Rowe said.
President Donald Trump opened a fast-tracked refugee status to white South Africans, accusing their government of discrimination, even as his administration abruptly shut down the overall U.S. refugee program. The South Africans jumped ahead of thousands of would-be refugees overseas who had been undergoing years of vetting and processing.
Episcopal Migration Ministries has long resettled refugees under federal grants. Rowe said that about two weeks ago, the government contacted it and said it expected the ministry to resettle some of the South Africans under terms of its grant.
“In light of our church’s steadfast commitment to racial justice and reconciliation and our historic ties with the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, we are not able to take this step,” Rowe said. “Accordingly, we have determined that, by the end of the federal fiscal year, we will conclude our refugee resettlement grant agreements with the U.S. federal government.”
Another faith-based group, Church World Service, said it is open to helping resettle the Afrikaners.
South Africa's government has vehemently denied allegations of discriminatory treatment of its white minority residents.
“It has been painful to watch one group of refugees, selected in a highly unusual manner, receive preferential treatment over many others who have been waiting in refugee camps or dangerous conditions for years,” Rowe said. “I am saddened and ashamed that many of the refugees who are being denied entrance to the United States are brave people who worked alongside our military in Iraq and Afghanistan and now face danger at home because of their service to our country.”
He also said many refugees, including Christians, are victims of religious persecution and are now denied entry.
He said the church would find other ways to serve immigrants, such as those already in this country and those stranded overseas.
The move marks the end of a ministry-government partnership that, for nearly four decades, has served nearly 110,000 refugees from countries, including Ukraine, Myanmar and Congo, Rowe said.
It's not the first high-profile friction between the Episcopal Church and the Trump administration. Bishop Mariann Budde of Washington drew Trump's anger in January at an inaugural prayer service in which she urged “mercy” on those fearing his actions, including migrants and LGBTQ+ children.
The Anglican Church of Southern Africa includes churches in South Africa and neighboring countries. It was a potent force in the campaign against apartheid in the 1980s and 1990s, an effort for which the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984.
Another faith-based refugee agency, Church World Service, says it is open to serving the South African arrivals.
“We are concerned that the U.S. Government has chosen to fast-track the admission of Afrikaners, while actively fighting court orders to provide life-saving resettlement to other refugee populations who are in desperate need of resettlement," Rick Santos, CWS president and CEO, said in a statement.
He added that the action proves the government knows how to screen and process refugees quickly.
“Despite the Administration’s actions, CWS remains committed to serving all eligible refugee populations seeking safety in the United States, including Afrikaners who are eligible for services," he said. “Our faith compels us to serve each person in our care with dignity and compassion.”
The Episcopal ministry and CWS are among 10 national groups, most of them faith-based, that have partnered with the government for refugee resettlement.
Associated Press writer Tiffany Stanley contributed reporting.
Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
FILE - White South Africans demonstrate in support of U.S. President Donald Trump in front of the U.S. embassy in Pretoria, South Africa, Saturday, Feb. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay, File)
Twenty-three men have died by court-ordered execution so far this year in the U.S., and seven other people are scheduled to be put to death in five states during the remainder of 2025.
A South Carolina man's execution on Friday evening was the state's sixth in the past nine months. Stephen Stanko was put to death after a federal judge ruled that the man’s lawyers didn’t have evidence there were problems with the state’s lethal injection process.
A day earlier, an Oklahoma man was put to death after an appeals court lifted a temporary stay of execution issued by a district court. That followed the execution Tuesday of two men in Florida and in Alabama.
So far this year, executions have been carried out in Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Indiana, Louisiana, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas.
States with scheduled executions this year are Florida, Mississippi, Ohio, Tennessee and Texas, though Ohio’s governor has routinely postponed the actions as the dates near.
All of 2024 saw 25 executions, matching the number for 2018. Those were the highest totals since 28 executions in 2015.
Here's a look at recent executions and those scheduled for the rest of the year, by state:
Anthony Wainwright, 54, died by lethal injection Tuesday for the kidnapping, rape and murder of Carmen Gayheart in 1994. Gayheart was abducted from a grocery store parking lot with another man in Lake City, Florida.
Thomas Lee Gudinas, 51, is set to die by lethal injection June 24. Gudinas was convicted in 1995 and sentenced to death for raping and killing Michelle McGrath near a bar. He would be the seventh person to be executed in Florida this year.
Gregory Hunt, 65, died by nitrogen gas Tuesday for the 1988 beating death of Karen Lane. She was found dead in an apartment in Cordova. Hunt had been dating Lane for about a month.
Alabama last year became the first state to carry out an execution with nitrogen gas. Nitrogen has now been used in five executions — four in Alabama and one in Louisiana. The method involves using a gas mask to force a person to breathe pure nitrogen gas, depriving them of the oxygen needed to stay alive.
John Fitzgerald Hanson, 61, died by lethal injection Thursday after he was convicted of carjacking, kidnapping and killing a Tulsa woman in 1999.
A judge temporarily delayed the execution on Monday after Hanson’s lawyers argued that he did not receive a fair clemency hearing last month before the state’s Pardon and Parole Board. They claimed board member Sean Malloy was biased because he worked for the district attorney’s office when Hanson was being prosecuted.
Malloy has said he never worked on Hanson’s case at the time and was unfamiliar with it before the clemency hearing. Malloy was one of three members who voted 3-2 to deny Hanson a clemency recommendation.
On Wednesday, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals lifted the stay. The court wrote that the district judge didn’t have the authority to issue the stay.
Hanson was transferred to Oklahoma custody in March by federal officials following through on President Donald Trump’s sweeping executive order to more actively support the death penalty.
Stanko was executed for killing his 74-year-old friend Henry Turner in April 2006.
Stanko, 57, was also on death row for killing a woman he was living with and raping her teenage daughter.
Stanko chose to die by lethal injection instead of in the electric chair or by firing squad.
Mikal Mahdi was executed by firing squad in South Carolina on April 11. Mahdi’s lawyers released autopsy results that show the shots that killed him barely hit his heart and suggested he was in agonizing pain for three or four times longer than experts say he would have been if his heart had been hit directly.
The state Supreme Court rejected a request from Stanko’s lawyers to delay his execution so they could get more information about the death of Mahdi. A doctor hired by the defense said Mahdi suffered a lingering death of about 45 seconds to a minute because his heart was not destroyed as planned.
On Wednesday, a federal judge allowed the execution to go on despite arguments from Stanko's lawyers that inmates in the past three lethal injection executions died a lingering death — still conscious as they felt like they were drowning when fluid rushed into their lungs.
Mississippi’s longest-serving death row inmate is set to be executed on June 25.
Richard Gerald Jordan, 78, was sentenced to death in 1976 for kidnapping and killing a woman in a forest. Jordan has filed multiple death sentence appeals, which have been denied.
Mississippi allows death sentences to be carried out using lethal injection, nitrogen gas, electrocution or firing squad.
Byron Black, 69, is scheduled to die by lethal injection on Aug. 5. Black was convicted in 1989 of three counts of first-degree murder for the shooting deaths of his girlfriend, Angela Clay, and her two daughters.
Harold Nichols, 64, is also scheduled to die by lethal injection on Dec. 11. Nichols was convicted of rape and first-degree felony murder in the 1988 death of Karen Pulley in Hamilton County.
Blaine Milam, 35, is scheduled to die by lethal injection on Sept. 25. Milam was convicted of killing his girlfriend’s 13-month-old daughter during what the couple had said was part of an “exorcism” in Rusk County in East Texas in December 2008.
Milam’s girlfriend, Jesseca Carson, was also convicted of capital murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole.
Ohio has two executions set for later this year, with Timothy Coleman scheduled to die on Oct. 30 and Kareem Jackson scheduled to be executed on Dec. 10.
However, Republican Gov. Mike DeWine already has postponed into 2028 three executions that were scheduled for June, July and August of this year. DeWine has said that he does not anticipate any further executions will happen during his term, which runs through 2026.
Associated Press reporters Jeffrey Collins in Columbia, South Carolina, and Sean Murphy in Oklahoma City contributed.
FILE - A guard stands in a tower at Indiana State Prison on Tuesday, Dec. 17, 2024, in Michigan City, Ind. (AP Photo/Erin Hooley, File)
This photo provided by Florida Department of Corrections shows death row inmate Glen Rogers. (Florida Department of Corrections via AP)
