Most Church leaders in the United States and abroad have condemned President Donald Trump's travel ban affecting mainly Muslims from seven Middle Eastern countries.
However, one Catholic bishop who himself arrived in the US as a refuge has spoken out in support of the ban.
He says that just as home owners lock their doors at night, so America has the right to secure its borders.
Bishop Bawai Soro, an Iraqi-American who is a bishop of the Chaldean Catholic Church in El Cajon in California, who arrived in the US more than 40 years ago, told Christian Today: 'I was a supporter of President Trump's original executive order on refugees, and I hope the new order will likewise include priority for those who were targeted for genocide by ISIS.
'The United States has long prioritized as refugees those persecuted for their faith, whatever their religion. Not doing so now would be a win for ISIS and a huge disappointment to the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi-American Christians in places like Michigan, Arizona and California.'
He was speaking after he wrote in an article in the San Diego Tribune that the 9/11 terror attack that destroyed the World Trade Centre 'illustrated how radical Islamic terrorism is the clear and present danger facing America'.
Coming to America is not a right but a privilege, he adds, and one that is earned by waiting in line for however long it takes. So Trump has no need to apologise.
'In 1973, I left Iraq for Lebanon ultimately wanting to seek political asylum in the US, as Saddam Hussein was rising to power in Iraq,' he says.
Thousands of Iraqi Christians got stuck in Lebanon for years, enduring unemployment, poverty and dangers of war.
'Most refugees were thankful to stay in Lebanon while tolerating such conditions for the purpose of reaching America,' the bishop writes. 'Most of us waited not for three months but for three years; I know a family who waited 15 years. Ultimately it all paid off when in 1976 the US resettled these Iraqi refugees in the land of the free and home of the brave.'
Being delayed as a refugee is not a new problem, he adds.
'If America is to accomplish her historic vocation by offering her values to newcomers, she must first herself be safe, prosperous and stable.'
If America needs to build a wall and vet refugees, then it must be so.
'If a simple house is to be secured, doesn't the owner of the house lock the doors at night? What happens if thieves know the door is unlocked? Open borders and easygoing immigration policies are what could inflict the US with the fire that has been burning in the Middle East for centuries,' he says.
He also says it is not a Muslim ban because 90 per cent of the world's Muslims are not included: 'Being prudent about security and caring for human rights are not mutually exclusive. America shall remain the land of the free and home of the brave, as long as she is secure and safe.'
