Ever since I started reporting on the migrant crisis at the U.S. southern border, there’s a question I’ve been asking: Is somebody funding this mass migration? Is someone paying for these migrants’ travel, food, and shelter—and if so, who? What’s the agenda?

Nowhere do I hear more confusion—amid what David Brooks calls “a rapid, dirty river of information coursing through us all day”—than when Christians have conversations about immigration, perhaps the central issue of the Trump presidency. 

Is there a crisis at the border? Do we need the military to settle it? How many minors have been separated from parents? Are they part of “a big fat con job,” as President Donald Trump says? 

When Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election, Christians had good reason to believe the United States had turned a corner when it came to prioritizing persecuted believers overseas. But under his administration refugee admissions have plunged to historic lows, with persecuted Christians in the Middle East suffering from the fallout.

President Donald Trump tweeted Friday that he was reversing his administration’s decision to place additional sanctions on North Korea. “It was announced today by the U.S. Treasury that additional large scale Sanctions would be added to those already existing Sanctions on North Korea,” he wrote.

When I immigrated to the United States, people told me stories about America that scared the socks off of me.

“Guns are legal and criminals will shoot you in the streets if you go out after 9 p.m.,” someone said. “Just read the news about street gangs and mass shootings!”

“Kids there are over-sexualized and will pressure you to have sex and use drugs,” another said. “Even little girls wear makeup and bikinis.”

When I first started reading about the thousands of migrants traveling from Central America through Mexico to seek asylum in the United States, I (like many fellow Americans) asked this logical question: Why aren’t these migrants staying in Mexico instead, especially since the Mexican government is offering them asylum and work permits? Wouldn’t they adjust better in Mexico, with its language and culture similar to their own? Why would people still insist on applying for U.S. asylum, some even crossing the border illegally to do so? 

Agents at the U.S. southern border last month arrested a record 76,000 migrants who either crossed illegally into the United States or attempted to enter at a port of entry without permission—more than double the number from the same period last year, U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan said Tuesday. The government plans to construct a new processing center in El Paso, Texas, to accommodate the increasing numbers.