Christmas came early this year. Pakistani Catholic Michael D’Souza and his eldest daughter Rochelle — who have suffered two decades of religious persecution and mistreatment from Muslim extremists, corrupt immigration authorities, and predatory human traffickers — arrived safely at Toronto Pearson International Airport on Dec. 10. With the White House and corporate media giving persecuted religious minorities across the world an unprecedented degree of attention, I’m grateful to be able to share this exciting story of answered prayers, which also offers lessons about the continued reality of global persecution of Christians, as well as legal (and illegal) immigration.
A Global Story of Persecution
I first reported the story of Michael D’Souza to Federalist readers in 2018. I met Michael and his family while I was working in Thailand more than a decade ago. We attended the same English-language Catholic parish in downtown Bangkok. I befriended Michael and learned his incredible story of persecution. After his father’s death, religious extremists in his home city of Karachi, Pakistan, had approached him and tried to persuade him to convert to Islam. After Michael refused, the men began harassing him and his family and eventually physically assaulted him. The family fled to Thailand, where it’s easy to get tourist visas.
Things didn’t go well in Bangkok. Corrupt Thai immigration authorities multiple times detained Michael’s family in the infamous Bangkok Detention Center for overstaying their visas, demanding huge fees for their release. My wife and I raised funds to put the family on an airplane back to Pakistan shortly before we moved back to the United States.
Back in Pakistan, Michael found work as a motorized rickshaw driver. The same Muslim extremists from before recognized him, pulled him out of his vehicle, burned it, and beat him almost to death. Many Federalist readers graciously contributed to a GoFundMe page to assist with Michael’s medical expenses. After that, Michael’s family went into hiding, and twice were deceived by exploitative human traffickers to escape Pakistan, once to Sri Lanka, and another time to Poland via Russia. Eventually, they fled to Azerbaijan, though Rosemary and two of the children were later apprehended by local authorities and sent back to Pakistan. Until this December, Michael and his daughter Rochelle were living in hiding in Azerbaijan.
To Rescue A Single Persecuted Christian Family
Since I first met Michael D’Souza, I have written almost twenty articles on the plight of persecuted Christian minority communities in the Muslim world, trying to highlight his terrible saga. I was able to get Michael’s story included in a congressional subcommittee hearing in 2020. The next year, I wrote a book about his experience and that of other similar Christian asylum seekers I encountered while living abroad. None of it seemed to move the needle.
Finally, two years ago, Michael’s family got a break when Canada-based nonprofit International Christian Voice helped them receive sponsorship to open an application with the Canadian government’s office of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC). That process involved raising $50,000 to cover the cost of that application, which was subsequently accepted by the Canadian government. Now, after a very, very long wait, Michael and his older daughter are in Canada with their Canadian sponsors, eager to start a new life. (His wife Rosemary and the other two children are still in Pakistan waiting for the final authorization to purchase their tickets, which, God willing, should happen later this month or in January.)
“We praise the Lord for all this journey, and we thank everyone, especially the Canadian government… they accepted us,” Michael’s daughter Rochelle declared in a video recorded at the airport in Toronto on Dec. 10. “We suffered a lot. And now as we are landed in Canada we are feeling a happiness, a joy, and that is not expressible.” Michael sent me a photo with him, his daughter, and their sponsors smiling, holding a big Canadian flag.
Persecutions Continue in the Muslim World
I have no doubt Michael’s family will have their fair share of struggles as they learn to navigate their new life in Canada. Michael will need to find work, his children are years behind in their education. But they no longer need fear for their lives. The worst is over.
The same cannot be said for the millions of Christians living in Pakistan. On Dec. 5, a pastor named Kamran Michael was assassinated in the city of Gujranwala while dropping off his children at school. This came after he survived an assassination attempt several months ago in Islamabad, in which he sustained a gunshot wound to his leg. The pastor was well known for his fearlessness in preaching the Gospel in public.
Last year, almost 5,000 Christians were killed for their faith, according to Robert Royal demonstrates in his recent book, The Martyrs of the New Millennium: The Global Persecution of Christians in the Twenty-First Century. Most of the top 50 countries responsible for the persecution of Christians are Muslim-majority.
A Lesson for Faith and Politics
Certainly, we can rejoice in the fact that my friend Michael and his family have finally escaped religious persecution in Pakistan. It is a remarkable story of God answering prayers over many years. It’s also beggars belief that Canada, of all places, was the country that welcomed Michael in.
The cost, of course, was not cheap, and required Canadian citizens willing to formally sponsor the D’Souza family upon their arrival, to ensure they effectively assimilate into Canadian society. I think there’s a lesson there for how the United States can help address the plight of persecuted Christians around the world. As the Trump administration seeks to realign our nation’s refugee admissions program, I hope they consider a means for American sponsors to raise large sums of money to serve as a trust and financial starting point for Christian asylum seekers’ new life in America, and for those sponsors to be held responsible for helping new arrivals assimilate.
As I’ve written here at The Federalist, the plight of asylum seekers has informed much of my thinking on immigration. Countries have every right to police their borders, and I never encouraged Michael D’Souza to illegally enter another country, as millions of people have done in the United States. While Michael and his family suffered for their faith, millions of economic migrants flooded into our country.
We need a better way to expeditiously (but prudently) evacuate people suffering acute levels of persecution. It shouldn’t take a decade of advocacy to rescue a man who was beaten multiple times, almost to death, because of his faith, while Somali migrants stole a billion dollars from American taxpayers. Though it mourns me to write, there are still many Michael D’Souza’s suffering in silence.
Those interested in donating to help the D’Souza family as they adjust to life in Canada can do so at this GoFundMe site.
Casey Chalk is a senior contributor at The Federalist and an editor and columnist at The New Oxford Review. He is a regular contributor at many publications and the author of three books, including the upcoming “Wisdom From the Cross: How Jesus’ Seven Last Words Teach Us How to Live (and Die)” (Sophia Institute Press, 2026).
