A Miami pastor whose megachurch will host President Donald Trump at an evangelical rally this Friday told undocumented parishioners at his Sunday service that they would not risk deportation if they attended, the Miami Herald reported.
“Do you think I would do something where I would endanger my people?” Pastor Guillermo Maldonado of King Jesus International Ministry told his congregation, which includes hundreds of Hispanic families, after he said he was asked “how can you bring Trump to church if there’s people who don’t have papers?”
Maldonado said the Trump rally was not being organized by his church, so anyone who wants to go to has to pre-register at DonaldTrump.com.
Citing the fears of some of his parishioners due to increased immigration raids under the Trump administration, Maldonado said, “I don’t think the president would do such a thing.”
The pastor added, “Don’t put your race or your nationality over being a Christian. Be mature ... If you want to come, do it for your pastor. That’s a way of supporting me.”
The evangelical rally for Trump comes after after an editorial in the evangelical magazine Christianity Today urged the U.S. Senate to remove the president from office after the House impeached him.
A poll from NPR-PBS News-Hour Marist earlier this month showed that 75 percent of white evangelicals support Trump, making up a large percentage of his base.
Brian Freeman ✉
Brian Freeman, a Newsmax writer based in Israel, has more than three decades writing and editing about culture and politics for newspapers, online and television.
© 2026 Newsmax. All rights reserved.