Members of President Donald Trump's Evangelical Advisory Board are reportedly taking credit for a six-month delay until a program protecting 800,000 young illegal immigrants is ended.
"We are responsible for this extension . . . That's our work," Tony Suarez, executive vice president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, told the Washington Post.
According to the Post, Suarez said he and conference president Samuel Rodriguez have worked on behalf of "Dreamers" since the board was formed last summer — and stepped up pressure last week.
On Friday, a small number of evangelical pastors met with Trump, with Jentezen Franklin, a pastor from a multiethnic church near Atlanta, pleaded with Trump on behalf of those protected by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, the Post reported.
"I shake their hands at the end of my sermons," Franklin said he told the president, the Post reported. "I stand and shake hands for hours: I pastor the dreamer kids."
A White House official didn't directly corroborate the advisory board's assertion, the Post reported, saying only a large number of people were "part of the process."
Though other presidential advisory boards have been disbanded in the wake of Trump's statements following a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, Suarez said he'll continue to serve.
"If the administration gives us a deaf ear, that is a different conversation," he told the Post. "In today's decision, we see the result of having access to the president. We were able to be a voice for the voiceless."
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