A reset for religious freedom?

Religious liberty advocates who gathered last week in Washington, D.C., cheered renewed interest from the White House in spotlighting—and stopping—persecution abroad.

Vice President J.D. Vance addressed the International Religious Freedom Summit on behalf of the Trump administration and quoted early church father Tertullian, who coined the term “religious liberty.” Vance also emphasized the need for a stronger role for religious freedom advocacy in America’s foreign policy. He said it was a priority to recognize regimes that respect religious liberty—and those that don’t.

“The United States must be able to make that distinction and possess the moral clarity to act when something goes wrong,” Vance said, citing the plight of Iraqi Christians over the last 30 years.

Vance then praised the appointment of Marco Rubio as secretary of state, calling him one of the “great living champions of religious liberty,” whose dedication to the cause flows from his own faith.

Given his track record, Rubio’s State Department seems likely to emphasize religious liberty, and advocates working in the field cheered his appointment. But the complex work of structuring foreign policy means religious freedom is only one factor of many to consider, and the plight of repressed faith groups may not significantly change U.S. foreign policy under the Trump administration. Even so, advocates insist the work of tracking violations makes a difference and must continue.

HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS perpetrated in other countries didn’t always carry weight in Washington. But as the last century came to a close, the issue became increasingly hard to ignore. U.S. lawmakers traveling abroad to meet with foreign leaders noted rising persecution and started voicing concerns about religious minorities being detained. Frank Wolf, then a Republican representative from Virginia, proposed a commission to systematically track and expose religiously motivated intolerance, discrimination, punishment, and killings.

The International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA), passed in October 1998, made condemning violations of religious freedom an official U.S. policy, and simultaneously established the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) and the post of ambassador-at-large at the State Department Office of International Religious Freedom.

Those two entities work separately but in concert to raise awareness. USCIRF is an independent commission that tracks religious freedom violations worldwide. Its annual reports inform the ambassador-at-large, the secretary of state, and ultimately the president as they consider foreign policy positions.

“The role of the U.S. commission is to have a single-minded focus on religious freedom,” said Judd Birdsall, a fellow at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs at Georgetown University. “The goal of the State Department is to promote U.S. foreign policy interests, national security interests across the board, and maintain peace and stability everywhere.”

That means that while sanctioning religious liberty violations seems straightforward enough, the goals and concerns of the Office of International Religious Freedom play just one part of the overall foreign policy equation. The office is just one of 51 sections—including the offices of Global Criminal Justice; Arms Control, Deterrence, and Stability; Energy Resources; and Population, Refugees, and Migration—that inform the secretary of state’s decisions.

Anna Lee Stangl is lead advocacy officer at Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW). She calls the commission a “watchdog organization.”

“We may not always see concrete responses, but it has an important role in holding the State Department accountable,” she said. “The State Department has to justify its actions to someone.”

IRFA requires the U.S. president to review the status of religious freedom in every country of the world every year and designate violators as Countries of Particular Concern (CPC). To earn that designation, a country’s government must have engaged in or at least tolerated “particularly severe violations of religious freedom.” Those are defined as violations that are systematic, ongoing, and egregious, and include torture, prolonged detention without charges, forced disappearances, or other denial of life, liberty, or security.

In 2016, at the height of the Islamic State terror group’s activities, the commission added a new designation: Entities of Particular Concern (EPC). That made it possible to recognize violations by non-state actors like Boko Haram, Al-Shabaab, al Qaeda, and the Taliban.

Even when USCIRF labels a nation a bad actor that deserves sanctions, the U.S. government can issue a waiver because of that nation’s strategic foreign policy value. Saudi Arabia is a good example. The kingdom is on the CPC list, as it has been for seven years, for prohibiting non-Muslim public worship and doling out long prison sentences for dissenting religious views. But the oil-rich kingdom is too important to U.S. foreign relations for the State Department to risk slapping its leaders with any kind of penalty.

India is another country on the commission’s list that has gotten a pass in Washington. The world’s largest democracy does billions of dollars in business with the United States. But in recent years, it has experienced an alarming increase in religious persecution. Prime Minister Narendra Modi stakes his power on partnerships with nationalists who equate Indian identity with Hinduism and aim to stamp out other religions. In the Manipur and Chhattisgarh regions last year, nationalist mobs destroyed churches, killing hundreds of Christians and displacing tens of thousands, often with government authorities overlooking or encouraging the violence. Muslims, an even larger minority in India, face similar discrimination and persecution. Yet despite USCIRF’s recommendation, the State Department once again chose not to designate India as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC).

David Curry, a former USCIRF commissioner and former president of Global Christian Relief, told WORLD that the State Department likely wanted to avoid upsetting India in the past because Washington saw it as essential to counterbalance China.

“It’s a shame,” Curry said. “We need India to succeed financially and in every other way. But if we can’t believe that they’re going to treat people the right way, if they don’t have a human rights record, you’ll see all manner of issues come up in the business community. Friends don’t let friends commit human rights atrocities.”

Other State Department decisions seem less obvious. The Biden administration took Nigeria off the CPC list in 2021 despite ongoing and increasing violence against Christians.

WHILE USCIRF HAS a small permanent staff, its nine commissioners drive the focus of action and effort during their two-year terms. Commissioners are appointed—three by the president, two by leaders of his party in Congress, and four by congressional leaders of the party not in the White House. The goal is to create a bipartisan entity that brings together experts in fields relevant to international religious freedom.

Some critics say that mandate has drifted in recent years. They point to commissioners with little to no experience in the religious liberty world, raising the possibility of appointments being used as political favors. In 2018, then-Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer appointed Gayle Manchin, wife of then-critical West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, to the commission. Her prior work had been in the field of U.S. education.

No matter which party holds the White House, observers say commissioners are genuinely committed to the work. But the commission’s budget must be approved annually, which means funding often becomes a bargaining chip in Congress. Another obstacle is that by Washington standards, the amount earmarked for the work is relatively low: For 2025, the commission will have between $3.5 million and $4.8 million to work with. That means overstretched staff and hard choices about which violations to investigate.

Despite its limitations and a static CPC list, observers within government and working for nonprofit advocacy groups say USCIRF’s work is invaluable.

Anna Lee Stangl with CSW says the commission plays a vital role in creating a historical record. That helps empower people doing humanitarian work on the ground in countries in question. Pre-IRFA, various organizations made their own reports, but no government entity did that kind of work. Since the commission’s start, it has inspired other governments to create similar entities, helping to keep the issue of freedom of religion on the international table.

“Even if the reports and recommendations are rejected by the offending governments, at least we’re standing in solidarity with those who are suffering, with those who are pushing for more religious freedom and tolerance,” Judd Birdsall said.

And while it may seem like USCIRF’s reports don’t influence the State Department’s listings, there is generally more to the story than meets the public eye.

“The State Department has real tools, such as sanctions, but it’s constrained by concerns from other parts of the State Department,” Stangl said. “USCIRF has fewer tools, but without those constraints, so it can address concerns more directly.” That leads to a good cop/bad cop dynamic that ends up working well, as behind the scenes diplomats work with governments for freedom of conscience policies.

Even when the State Department doesn’t follow USCIRF’s recommendations, reports don’t fall on deaf ears. Two Indian media outlets, The Hindu and The Indian Express, reported last year’s USCIRF findings about their own country. The reports give something journalists, advocacy groups, and scholars can point to when criticizing their own governments. When a country’s government denounces a USCIRF report, NGOs or religious groups within the country will publicly or privately thank the U.S. government for accurately describing what’s happening.

ANOTHER INDICATOR OF an administration’s religious liberty priorities is how quickly and with whom the president fills the State Department post of ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom. A prior working relationship between the secretary and the ambassador means he or she can all the more easily bring religious freedom issues to the secretary’s attention.

Former senator and Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback was Trump’s ambassador appointee during the president’s first administration, and he has high hopes for the second. He points to the first-ever religious freedom ministerial summit hosted by the United States in 2018, and said he hopes the second Trump administration will use the fundamental rights listed in the UN Charter Declaration to relaunch a global human rights movement with religious rights as its cornerstone.

“It’s the freedom of freedoms,” Brownback said. “You can build your other freedom of assembly and freedom of speech around this one, if you can get this one right.”

After decades spent in the religious freedom field, Birdsall isn’t discouraged by the oftentimes slow work of eradicating religious persecution. He notes that in the history of a world that long considered religion immutable—like race or ethnicity—the 25 years USCIRF has had to work is a relatively short time: “This is a process. I joke that 500 years ago, just about all Western European countries would have been CPCs for the way they persecuted dissenters. Some American colonies would have been on a Special Watch List. That keeps me humble and patient in my frustration with the behavior of other countries.”