Nearly 200 foreign Protestant clergy and their families, including many Americans, have been forced to leave Turkey since a severe crisis between Ankara and Washington over the imprisonment of a US pastor in 2018. Members of Turkey’s tiny Protestant community describe a pattern of expulsions, based on secret reports by the National Intelligence Organization (MIT), with no explanation why the deported Protestants constitute a security risk for the country.

Thirty-five foreign Protestants were deported in 2019, 20 more in 2020 and another 13 in 2021, according to a report by the Association of Protestant Churches in Turkey, released last week. The missionaries left the country with their spouses and children, which brings the number to 185.

Soner Tufan, the spokesman of the association, told Al-Monitor that 28 Americans were among those expelled. Eight were nationals of the United Kingdom, another eight of South Korea, five of Latin American countries and the rest of other nations.

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In August 2018, then US President Donald Trump slapped sanctions on Ankara over its refusal to free pastor Andrew Brunson, a native of North Carolina, who had served a small Protestant congregation in the western Turkish city of Izmir for more than two decades. The move sent the Turkish lira into a tailspin, and Brunson was finally released in October 2018 after two years behind bars on dubious terrorism charges, including links to the perpetrators of the failed coup in July 2016. His release has been followed by what appears to be a systematic drive to purge foreign Protestant missionaries in Turkey.