On Feb. 23, 2015, faith-based organizations, evangelical and Catholic, that provide a large proportion of refugee resettlement services in the United States sent a comment to the administration asking for a change in a new regulation about how unaccompanied refugee children needing resettlement are to be treated.

The comment, a response to an interim final rule from the HHS Office of Refugee Resettlement, says that the new regulation wrongly imposes requirements related to abortion and other matters of human sexuality that do not respect the religious convictions of some of the faith-based organizations that have long been the government’s major resettlement partners. Modifications to the rule to accommodate those convictions are possible; not accommodating the faith-based organizations risks driving away organizations vital to resettlement.