On a fall Sunday within the U.S. electoral battleground state of Wisconsin, Masomo Rugama and different members of the Congolese group danced and sang worship songs of their native Kinyamulenge. The ladies wore colourful clothes, the boys primarily fits. Little kids, dressed of their Sunday finest, ran up and down the halls. They prayed for an excellent consequence within the presidential elections.
This Congolese church is considered one of a number of within the metropolis of Appleton which have sprung as much as serve a rising variety of refugees who’ve settled there after fleeing the war-torn African nation.
Rugama, 31, got here to the US in 2016 after six years in a refugee camp in Uganda. It was just some months earlier than Donald Trump gained the presidency and decimated the refugee resettlement program that had legally introduced him there.
Rugama, who grew to become a US citizen in 2022, is new to US politics, however is nicely conscious that Trump has repeatedly portrayed Congolese immigrants as previously incarcerated criminals – regardless of any proof of widespread criminality amongst them – and is He hopes it’s going to as soon as once more significantly cut back refugee inflows. from overseas.
Rugama provides Trump the advantage of the doubt. “I believe I’ll have by no means met a Congolese,” he stated.
Rugama’s brother and sister, his nieces and nephews, in addition to his mother-in-law, are nonetheless ready in Uganda, Rwanda and Kenya in hopes of finishing the prolonged resettlement vetting course of. They’re watching from afar the US presidential election marketing campaign, during which Trump faces Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, he stated, questioning what the consequence would possibly imply for his or her hopes of resettling there.
Whereas the refugee resettlement program has loved robust bipartisan assist previously, Trump has described it as a safety vulnerability. The distinction between the 2 candidates on the problem couldn’t be extra stark.
Trump is predicted to briefly droop the US refugee admissions program after which sharply cut back refugee entries if he’s re-elected, mirroring what he did throughout his 2017-2021 presidency.
Trump’s first-term efforts to clamp down on refugees, lowering the admission restrict to a file low of 15,000, have been a part of a broader effort to limit each authorized and unlawful immigration that he has vowed to take even additional if win. The inflammatory rhetoric about immigrants has additionally been uncomfortable for some conservative pastors, who level to the Bible’s name to look after refugees.
“The Congo, Africa, simply freed lots of people, lots of people from their prisons and jails and introduced them to the US of America,” Trump stated at a information convention in Could. There is no such thing as a proof for this declare.
When requested about its plans for refugees, the Trump marketing campaign stated in an announcement that the Biden administration had “unconscionably abused our refugee and asylum methods” and that Trump would “restore its efficient immigration insurance policies” and implement “new repressive measures”.
It took President Joe Biden’s administration almost 4 years to revive the refugee program, as deep cuts beneath Trump meant resettlement organizations needed to cut back employees and dismantle infrastructure that took time to rebuild.
However final fiscal 12 months, the US resettled extra refugees (100,000) than in 30 years. Of those, Congolese have been the biggest nationality, with round 20,000 resettled, in keeping with knowledge from the US Division of State.
The prospect of his family members’ instances being delayed worries Rugama, who sends them the cash he earns as a group chief at Nestlé to assist them whereas they wait.
Rugama is a member of the Banyamulenge, a tribe in jap Democratic Republic of the Congo that has lengthy confronted discrimination and violence attributable to its ethnic hyperlink to Rwanda’s Tutsi group. Throughout final 12 months’s Congolese elections, the Banyamulenge confronted hate speech and voter suppression.
“We come from a spot of struggle, the place we have been discriminated towards,” he stated. “We do not need to see discrimination.”
Rugama will vote for the primary time within the US presidential election on November 5 in Wisconsin, considered one of seven battleground states that might determine the presidency. Trump misplaced the state to Biden, a Democrat, by about 21,000 votes in 2020 and polls present an in depth race towards Harris. Outagamie County, a Republican-leaning space the place Appleton is positioned, went for Trump in 2020 and 2016 however backed Democrat Barack Obama in 2008.
At one other Congolese church in Appleton, Mia Mukendi, 34, pushed her three-month-old child out of a service. Mukendi, who got here to the US in 2016 as a refugee, stated Trump’s feedback damage her. “It is loopy, is not it. He hates folks for no purpose.” Now an American citizen, she stated she would vote for Harris.
His pastor, Robert Mutombo, stated Trump’s feedback concerning the Congo had been broadly shared on native Congolese WhatsApp messaging teams.
Some folks, he stated, thought it was merely marketing campaign grandstanding or that Trump was given incorrect info. Others have been involved concerning the doable penalties of the rhetoric. Everybody remembered their earlier actions with the refugees.
“Even being Congolese, I can really feel embarrassed to say someplace that I am Congolese, as a result of everybody would suppose, ‘Oh, these are the fellows President Trump was speaking about,'” Mutombo stated.
At a current occasion Mutombo attended with a number of evangelical pastors, one other pastor apologized to him for Trump’s feedback, he stated.
This month, a number of hundred conservative evangelical Christian leaders and pastors from throughout the nation signed an open letter to each candidates urging them to keep away from “offensive” and dehumanizing language about immigrants.
The letter additionally cited a January 2024 survey by Lifeway Analysis that discovered that greater than two-thirds of evangelicals imagine the US has an ethical duty to just accept refugees.
Joel Zeiner, senior pastor at Christ the Rock Church within the Appleton space, stated he signed the letter as a result of he was involved about partisanship and rhetoric round refugees.
After a number of members requested the church to talk on election-related points, he ready a sequence of sermons referred to as “the politics of Jesus” during which he urged that folks suppose twice earlier than placing up yard indicators, for instance. For instance, to keep away from alienating others within the election. group.
“The message was to steer together with your religion, lead together with your identification as a follower of Jesus and be very cautious the way you specific your political identification,” Zeiner stated. “Love God with all of your thoughts and with all of your power, and love your neighbor as your self.”
He stated some church members discovered this message “difficult.”
Final Sunday, after giving a passionate sermon on gratitude, Pastor Mutombo headed dwelling to organize for his night time shift as a equipment operator at a cheese manufacturing unit.