'Flashbacks to Tehran': Iranian pastor urges Trump to protect persecuted Christians, not deport them

 By CP Staff  - Posted at The Christian Post:

Evangelical Pastor Ara Torosian knows what it's like to become a "target" of Iran's Islamist regime.

Having been on house arrest for two years, Torosian, who now shepherds the Farsi-speaking congregation at Cornerstone Church in Los Angeles, California, fled his native country more than a decade ago and is grateful to have been resettled in the United States as a refugee.

"I experienced true religious freedom for the first time in my life in this country, of which I am now a proud, grateful citizen," Torosian, who is now a U.S. citizen, wrote in an op-ed for the Los Angeles Times this week.

But in June, he was "shocked" when masked federal immigration officials detained five members of his congregation, including one couple seeking asylum. He said they were "separated from their families and threatened with deportation" back to a country that would "kill them for their Christian faith."

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See also:

• Pastor speaks out after ICE agents arrest Iranian church members