Samuel Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference (NHCLC), one of President Donald Trump's evangelical advisers - serving on his Evangelical executive advisory board -- and who read from the Beatitudes during Trump's inauguration, recently pointed out that "The anxiety in Christian conservative, evangelical churches has grown exponentially, because many of our worshipers, many of the families we serve, many of the families in our pews, may very well lack the appropriate documentation, even though we have a `don't ask don't tell' policy."

Rodriguez, the lead pastor of the Sacramento, California-based New Season Christian Worship Center, where a "safe haven" project for undocumented immigrants has been put in place, "affirmed that he is in favor of Trump's call to stop illegal immigration and not offer amnesty to illegal immigrants. He is also in favor of Trump's plan to protect `the sovereignty of our nation' by building a wall, as long as he builds `a bridge towards Hispanics and Latinos in America.' Rodriguez also said he affirms, `on steroids,' Trump's commitment to deporting illegal immigrants who engage in nefarious activities," The Christian Post recently reported.

"In the past few weeks, yes, the majority of people that were deported are hardened criminals and we are grateful for that. But there was a percentage, a number of great God-fearing, hard-working people who were not criminals who don't even have a traffic violation that were deported," Rodriguez told CP. "These are egregious stories."

"These new guidelines create anxiety and concerns about the future of the members of our church and their families," the Hispanic Baptist Pastors Alliance (HBPA), a coalition of Hispanic Southern Baptist pastors, recently stated.  

"Pastorear en Tiempos de Trump es más difícil y duro de lo que imaginé. Orando, sirviendo, y trabajando por nuestras familias," Felix Cabrera, pastor of Iglesia Bautista Central in Oklahoma City and a leader of the HBPA, recently tweeted. ("Pastoring in the time of Trump is more difficult and harder than I could have imagined. Praying, serving, and working for our families.")

Shellnutt pointed out that "Half of all Latino Christians living in the United States are worried that either they or someone close to them will be deported, the Pew Research Center found. This includes 1 in 3 of those born in the US (including Puerto Rico)."

According to the Pew Research Center data, more than 4 in 10 Latino Christians are worried that they and/or family members will be caught up in random immigration raids. In an earlier piece for Christianity Today, Shellnutt reported that "Hispanic Catholics (54%) and Protestants (47%) were more likely than the unaffiliated (38%) to say they worry `a lot' or `some' about the threat of deportation, Pew's survey of Hispanic adults living in the US found. One in four Protestants worry a lot (25%), while Catholics are significantly most likely to worry a lot (37%)."

One side affect of intensified immigration enforcement is that it has forced ministers and church workers to rethink their aid to immigrant communities.  According to Shellnutt, "Some pastors and churches may be scared or confused over whether serving undocumented immigrants puts them on the wrong side of the law. Similar hesitancies came up when Alabama criminalized certain activities like offering rides to people in the country illegally.
`We're now facing new religious liberty concerns related to our churches' ability to minister to immigrants,' wrote Alabama pastor Alan Cross and NHCLC executive committee member Gus Reyes in an op-ed for Time."  

Groups providing rides to immigrants and other services may be running afoul of the law. Trump's policies "not only target immigrants themselves, each of whom we believe is made in the image of God with inherent dignity regardless of their legal status, but also encroach upon religious institutions' ability to minister," wrote Cross and Reyes wrote.

Over the past several years, Samuel Rodriguez has pointed out numerous times that immigrants presented an enormous opportunity for evangelicals to expand their outreach in the US. And, Rodriguez opined, drawing immigrants and Hispanics to evangelical churches, gave Republicans an opportunity to increase Hispanic electoral support for conservatives.

According to People for the American Way's Right Wing Watch, Rodriguez, a regular speaker at Religious Right gatherings, "has fostered a media image as a nonpartisan moderate while simultaneously urging Hispanic voters to support right-wing candidates and Religious Right causes, and even filming a video promoting the Republican Party's faith outreach project. In May, for example, he said it would be `morally reprehensible' for Christians to vote for a candidate who supports Planned Parenthood, saying they would need to repent."