Over five times as many Iranian Christian refugees were resettled in the United States last year than in 2020, according to a new report, but there are fears the trend may only be temporary.

Two hundred and seventy-eight Iranian Christians were resettled in the 2024 fiscal year, which ended on 30 September, compared to just 54 in 2020, when refugee resettlement fell to an historic low, according to the ‘State of the Golden Door’ report by World Relief and Open Doors. 

However, the report authors warn there is no guarantee the trend will continue, with the Biden-Harris administration “significantly reducing due process protections” for those seeking asylum over the past year, while Donald Trump has vowed to suspend resettlement entirely “on day one” if re-elected.

The report, released on 14 October, is the third in a series, following previous reports in 2020 and 2023 which were both titled ‘Closed Doors’ and highlighted the dramatic reduction in resettlement of refugees from countries in which Christians are most persecuted, including Iran.

The 2020 report found there had been a 97% drop in the resettlement of Iranian Christian refugees between 2015 and 2020, while last year’s report found the situation had only slightly improved and was still 95% fewer than in 2016.

This year’s report has a more “neutral” title, the authors say, to “celebrate the return to our country’s historic leadership in offering refuge to the persecuted”, while acknowledging that “serious concerns” remain that could see the progress “quickly undone”.

And despite the “dramatic increase” in the resettlement of Christian refugees from countries including Iran, the numbers resettled are still “dramatically below the numbers resettled in 2016 and prior years”.

The report cites the introduction of the Welcome Corps refugee sponsorship programme as one of the reasons for the increase, while acknowledging that there remain “some ongoing challenges” to the process, “particularly in that refugees in some host countries that happen to host large numbers of persecuted Christians, such as Türkiye, are ineligible for sponsorship due to limited US governmental ability to interview and process refugees in these countries”. 

One of the case studies included in the report is of an Iranian woman referred to as “Souzan”, who was finally resettled last year after 12 years as a refugee in Indonesia.

“As religious persecution around the world rises, more Christians than ever before are facing religious persecution with scant hope of resettlement if they flee,” the report states

The authors say they chose to release the report in the run up to the US presidential election, not as “an endorsement or a denunciation of any political party or candidate” but “to remind the US church that our country’s refugee and asylum policies impact their brothers and sisters around the world persecuted for their faith in Jesus, and to give candidates, as they angle for Christians’ votes, the opportunity and incentive to commit to refugee resettlement and asylum policies that prioritize the wellbeing of persecuted Christians”.