Luma Simms

Fellow

Luma Simms, a Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, studies the life and thought of immigrants. As a humanist writer, she publishes on a broad range of topics, with a focus on the human (individual and communal), ethical, religious, and philosophical dimensions of immigration. She is particularly concerned with the crisis of rootlessness, identity, and dehumanization.

Read full bio.

Luma Simms, a Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, studies the life and thought of immigrants. As a humanist writer, she publishes on a broad range of topics, with a focus on the human (individual and communal), ethical, religious, and philosophical dimensions of immigration. She is particularly concerned with the crisis of rootlessness, identity, and dehumanization.

Mrs. Simms’s essays, articles, and book reviews have appeared in a variety of publications including National AffairsThe Wall Street JournalThe Point magazine, Public DiscourseLaw and Liberty, the Institute for Family Studies, and others. She has been interviewed on Arabic television and American and Canadian radio on topics such as religious freedom in the Middle East, Congress and DACA, immigration and the Middle East, divorce, parenting, and elder care in Eastern cultures. Before joining EPPC, Mrs. Simms was an Associate Fellow at The Philos Project where her research and writing focused on a Christian presence in the Middle East, anti-Semitism, and immigrant life and thought.

Some of Mrs. Simms’s notable essays include Identity and Assimilation at National AffairsImmigration and the Desire for Rootedness at Public DiscourseI Am My Enemy: A Naturalized American Finds Herself at War with Her Homeland at Plough Magazine; and Thinking Is Self-Emptying at The Point magazine.

Her background includes a Bachelor of Science degree in physics from California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. She studied law at Chapman University School of Law before leaving to become an at-home mom. Mrs. Simms was born in Baghdad, Iraq; her parents and ancestors are from Mosul, and she speaks Arabic with a Moslawi dialect.

Close bio

Human Dignity Does Not Mandate Unlimited Immigration

Luma Simms

I converted to Catholicism after years of misgivings over what I perceived as its readiness to excuse all manner of…

Articles

 

Why I Am Not Ashamed to Support War with Iran

Luma Simms

My family arrived in America from Iraq in December of 1978. Less than a year later, on November 4, 1979…

Articles

Providence Magazine / April 30, 2026

I’m a Middle Eastern Immigrant – Zohran Mamdani Is Dangerous

Luma Simms

Since taking office earlier this year, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has made good on his dangerous campaign promises…

Articles

AMAC / April 27, 2026

The Real Target In This Vatican Drama Isn’t Rome. It’s American Voters.

Luma Simms

This has the fingerprints of the DNC and NGO operatives all over it.

Articles

The Daily Wire / April 14, 2026

Bread Grows in Winter offers bracing vision of faith, Christ-centered triumph

Luma Simms

A review of the first English translation of a powerful 1970 book written by Ida Friederike Görres, who was praised by Joseph Razinger for speaking “with an insightful certainty and a fearlessness about the pressing questions and tasks of the Church today…”

Articles

The Catholic World Report / January 12, 2026

Marriage Annulment and False Mercy

Luma Simms

Pope Leo XIV recently told participants in a juridical-pastoral formation course of the Roman Rota that the process of matrimonial annulments is…

Articles

First Things / December 9, 2025

As an American Catholic immigrant, I feel abandoned by the USCCB

Luma Simms

If I were to sum up in one word what I experienced when I read the “Special Message” on immigration released on November 12,…

Articles

Washington Examiner / November 20, 2025

On the Taliban and the dehumanizing “regulations” of radical Islam

Luma Simms

Establishing a government ministry to regulate people, creating a morality police department, and establishing laws that vanish the entire female population is saying, fundamentally, that people cannot be trusted to be good and do good.

Articles

Catholic World Report / November 11, 2025

Passing Social Conservative Values from One Generation to the Next: A Q&A with Nathanael Blake

Luma Simms, Nathanael Blake

Policies matter, as do choices by individuals, families, and congregations. But ultimately our hope, both for rolling back the sexual revolution and then keeping it at bay, is in the grace of God.

Interviews

Public Discourse / October 28, 2025

Democracy without Religion Is Dead – II

Luma Simms

The most important benefits the Christian religion can give to democracy is the awakening of conscience, the substance of ethics, and the rehumanization of society. It gives human freedom guidance, and the human spirit of toleration and forbearance. And it is the Christian religion that teaches a true equality—that of human dignity, on which an imperfect yet a more just society can be built.

Articles

Public Discourse / August 28, 2025

Democracy without Religion Is Dead – I

Luma Simms

Editors’ note: This is Part I of a two-part essay.  In his article “We’re All Soviets Now,” Niall Ferguson marshals…

Articles

Public Discourse / August 27, 2025

The Identity Question We Can’t Avoid

Luma Simms

In 1984, when my parents were sworn in as American citizens, I distinctly remember their differing reactions: My father was…

Articles

Tom Klingenstein / August 27, 2025

Secret Link