In a stunning move that ended nearly four decades of relations between the federal government and the bishop’s church, the denomination announced Monday that it was ending its partnership with the government to relocate moral oppositions of white Africans from South Africa, which have been classified as refugees by President Trump.

In a letter sent to church members, Sean W. Ronaldo, the Bishop of the Chief Church Bishop, was Sean W.

The demand crosses the moral route of the Episcopal Church, part of the global Anglican Communion, a leader among the late leaders of the Arab Polytechnic Institute of South Africa, said Ron.

“We cannot take this step given our church’s strong commitment to racial justice and reconciliation and our historic links to the Anglican church in Southern Africa,” Rowe wrote. “We have therefore determined that by the end of the federal fiscal year, we will end the refugee resettlement grant agreement with the U.S. federal government.”

Rowe stressed that while the bishop’s Immigration Department will seek to “end all federally funded services before the end of the federal fiscal year in September,” the territory will continue to support immigrants and refugees in other ways, such as providing assistance to already approved refugees.

The news comes as the first entries announced by Trump through a February executive order when the flight with the South African Dutch was scheduled to arrive at Washington Dulles International Airport outside Washington, D.C., and the United States will accept "South Africa's South African Party victims who are victims of unjust racial discrimination." The South African government has severely denied allegations of systemic racial discrimination, as is the coalition of white religious leaders in the region, which includes many Anglicans.

The letter from the religious leaders of South Africa reads that the established justification (Trump’s actions) is a claim on victimization, violence and hate speech by white South Africa, as well as legislation that stipulates no compensation for land,” reads the letter from white South Africa’s religious leaders, including one of four authors. “We unanimously reject these claims because of the active leadership of white South Africa in the Christian community, representing multiple political and theological perspectives. ”

In addition to its relationship with Tutu, the Bishop Church has long advocated for apartheid in South Africa. It first began to change its financial holdings in the region in 1966, and by the mid-1980s the church voted for companies that operated in South Africa.

Ronaldo noted that his announcement was because the Trump administration almost freezes refugee programs, while the Afrikaans were among the few (and perhaps just) granted refugees since January. Shortly after Trump was sworn in, he signed an executive order that essentially stopped refugee programs and stopped payments to organizations that helped resettle refugees, including a group of people, including payments for work that had been executed.

The change left refugees (including Christians fleeing religious persecution) without a path forward and forced ten refugee resettlement groups, seven of which were faith-based groups to lay off employees while still trying to support recently arrived refugees. Thereafter, four faith groups filed two separate lawsuits, one of which recently led to a ruling that should restart the program. However, refugee groups accused the government of “delaying compliance with court orders.”

Representatives of Church World Service, one of the groups that currently prosecuted the government, said the group “agreed to support a family through remote services” but noted that another statement last week had continued to frustrate the government’s actions.

"We are concerned that the U.S. government has chosen to quickly accept the recognition of the Afrikaans while actively fighting court orders to provide life-saving placement to other refugee populations who are desperate to resettle," Rick Santos, head of the church's World Services Department, said in a statement last week.

“By relocating this population, the government shows that it still has the ability to quickly screen, process and leave refugees to the United States. It is time for the government to respect our nation’s commitment to thousands of refugee families, its cruel and illegal execution of orders.”

Matthew Soerens, vice president of World Relief Advocacy and Policy, evangelical Christian group, said in an email that his group expects his group to “serve a few” and arriving incoming people who are eligible for refugee resettlement funding services. But he said the situation “complexes the situation with the reality that the government has not brought it to the United States through the traditional initial resettlement process of the State Department, which in the past has been one of the ten private institutions implementing this public-private partnership, as the process remains suspended.”

He added: "Our primary response to this situation is to continue to urge the administration to resume that initial resettlement process for a broad range of individuals who have fled persecution on account of their faith, political opinion, race or other reasons outlined under US law — and to highlight the support for doing so from the evangelical Christians who are World Relief's core base of support, including some very conservative evangelicals who see refugee resettlement as a vital tool to protect those denied religious freedom abroad.”

This story is created through a collaboration between NPR and NPR Religious News Services.