When Sen. James Lankford stood up on Tuesday to praise the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom for its annual report, the Republican was emphatic: “The hope is that this report is not a report that everyone says, ‘Look, there was a release,’ but that it’s actually applied and is implemented,” he said.
“Thank you, and I really, truly mean it,” he told the commissioners.
Lankford didn’t draw attention to just how far apart Donald Trump’s policies are from the panel’s 2025 recommendations — very far — or how tech billionaire Elon Musk’s cost-cutting crusade has undermined international religious freedom work. But those dynamics were on many attendees’ minds during the normally bipartisan event.
“DOGE hasn’t come by yet,” one attendee nervously joked with another beforehand.
Religious freedom advocates often find themselves challenging powerful government leaders, but in Trump’s “America First” administration, they are facing uncertainty where they previously expected allies. These activists are alarmed by the president’s foreign aid freeze, deportations of asylum seekers who escaped religious persecution and his halt in refugee admissions, which all run directly counter to the commission’s recommendations this year.
The conflicting priorities are clear in the panel’s report as early as the first page, where the commissioners lament persecution in Nicaragua. Trump plans to end protected status for Nicaraguans and deport those who fled to the United States in recent years.
The report also urges the U.S. government to accept refugees who have escaped religious persecution through the Refugee Admissions Program — a program Trump has stopped indefinitely. It then warns that “expedited removals” of asylum seekers can send people who face genuine threats back into danger. The Trump administration has ramped up such deportations and recently sent at-risk Iranian Christians to a jungle camp in Panama without considering their asylum claims.
In another recommendation, the panel calls for officials within the now-largely dismantled U.S. Agency for International Development to deploy a community engagement plan for advancing religious freedom — a strategy since erased from USAID’s website.
The USCIRF report also urges Congress to approve funding for USAID’s efforts to protect and restore religious heritage sites in vulnerable areas, and for the government to support human rights organizations “who document and monitor religious freedom violations” — some of the very groups the Trump administration has cut off from funding.
The commission’s chair, Stephen Schneck, who was appointed to the panel by Joe Biden, said during the event Tuesday that Trump’s policy changes “will undoubtedly impact international religious freedom.”
“This has included the suspension or cancellation of programs that Congress had funded specifically for IRF-related work, including emergency support to victims of religious oppression,” Schneck said. “And we have likewise seen a suspension of refugee resettlement programs for those fleeing religious persecution in their countries of origin.”
Democratic Rep. Jim McGovern also shared concerns during the event, pointing to the U.S.-government funded news organizations that Trump’s team has targeted for dismantlement.
“This is as shocking as it is self-defeating,” McGovern said of halting the work of Radio Free Asia and Radio Free Europe.
“If not reversed, I worry that the cause of international religious freedom will suffer,” he continued. “How can we speak up for those who are suffering for their beliefs if we lose the ability to know what they are experiencing?”
Religious freedom advocates hope the commission itself is safe from Musk, as it enjoys bipartisan support in Congress. If Musk were to target it, he may also face different legal hurdles than he has for changes made across executive agencies.
Congress created the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom in 1998, and it is mostly made up of members appointed by congressional leaders. Its budget is a tiny drop in the bucket of overall federal spending. But the size of a program’s budget — and concerns about the separation of powers — haven’t stopped Musk from targeting other programs created and funded by Congress.
Some Republican lawmakers said they wouldn’t mind if the Department of Government Efficiency took a look at the panel.
“I don’t think anything is off limits to have a good, honest conversation about,” Rep. Bill Huizenga said. The Republican — who spoke in support of the new report — spoke to NOTUS about the prospect of DOGE turning its attention to the commission. He said he believes every organization “needs to make the case as to why the work that they do makes sense and advances the American agenda.”
Huizenga dismissed the idea that freezing money for human rights groups and foreign aid programs has hurt international religious freedom work, saying he doesn’t believe “that there’s any kind of downside to having an honest conversation about how we are spending our money as U.S. taxpayers, by the way, on borrowed dollars.”
Other Republican lawmakers told NOTUS that — despite the chasm between the commission’s recommendations and Trump’s actions so far — they believe he is an ally to religious freedom advocates and the commission is safe.
“I don’t know why we would want to get rid of the commission on religious freedom,” Sen. Josh Hawley said. “We ought to be promoting religious freedom abroad.”
Rep. Chris Smith said he’s not worried about the commission’s future and that it should be spared from DOGE. He voiced confidence in Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is “a humanitarian,” Smith told NOTUS.
“The commission is not going to get hurt, and I introduced the bill to reauthorize it,” he said Tuesday. “I’ll fight hard to preserve it, because I think it’s fantastic.”
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Haley Byrd Wilt is a reporter at NOTUS. Helen Huiskes, a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow, contributed reporting.