By Michael Gryboski, Editor Tuesday, February 11, 2025
Several spiritual organizations, including Christian and Jewish denominations and conferences, maintain filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration’s decision to enable immigration enforcement agents to enter homes of esteem.
In a joint complaint filed Tuesday within the U.S. District Court docket for the District of Columbia, the larger than two dozen spiritual bodies argued that allowing raids by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement at church buildings violated their spiritual freedom rights below the First Modification to the U.S. Structure.
“An immigration enforcement motion throughout esteem products and services, ministry work, or diversified congregational activities shall be devastating to their spiritual discover,” reads the suit.
“It will rupture the consecrated home of sanctuary, thwart communal esteem, and undermine the social carrier outreach that’s central to non secular expression and spiritual discover for Plaintiffs’ congregations and members.”
Christian entities amongst the plaintiffs include the Mennonite Church, USA, the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, the Episcopal Church, the Disciples of Christ, Church of the Brethren, the Total Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA), and regional bodies of the United Church of Christ and the United Methodist Church.
Diverse plaintiffs include the Latino Christian National Community, the Central Convention of American Rabbis, the North Carolina Council of Churches, the Union for Reform Judaism, the Unitarian Universalist Association and the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism.
Defendants named within the lawsuit include the U.S. Department of Fatherland Security, Fatherland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, CBP Acting Commissioner Pete Flores, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and ICE Acting Director Caleb Vitello.
Longtime innovative Evangelical leader Jim Wallis, director of Georgetown University’s Heart on Faith and Justice and founding father of Sojourners social justice nonprofit, acknowledged in an announcement emailed to The Christian Post on Tuesday morning that “the Trump administration threatens to violate sacred areas of esteem from living out their commandments to welcome ‘the stranger’ as instructed by our scriptures.”
“To enact so is an egregious assault on free relate of religion in violation of every and each the First Modification and the Spiritual Freedom Restoration Act,” acknowledged Wallis.
“The filing of this lawsuit, which brings together many denominations and traditions across many boundaries, marks a brand recent chapter within the historic legacy of religion communities standing up for their scriptural tasks in defense of spiritual liberty and justice for the most marginalized and susceptible.”
Kelsi Corkran, lead counsel for plaintiffs, claims that “traditions provide irrefutable unanimity on their spiritual duty to include and motivate the refugees, asylum seekers, and immigrants of their midst with out regard to documentation or apt jam.”
“The Department of Fatherland Security’s abrupt decision to rescind the fragile locations policy and field areas of esteem to immigration enforcement motion is a transparent violation of Plaintiffs’ rights below the First Modification and the Spiritual Freedom Restoration Act,” Corkran acknowledged. “We take a seat up for presenting our case in court docket.”
Final month, DHS announced the rescinding of a policy first and major enacted in 2011 throughout the Obama administration that prevented ICE and CBP from imposing immigration law in “gorgeous” areas, amongst them colleges and church buildings.
“This motion empowers the plucky ladies and males in CBP and ICE to build in force our immigration licensed pointers and win felony aliens — including murders and rapists — who maintain illegally come into our nation,” acknowledged DHS.
“Criminals will now not be ready to cowl in The United States’s colleges and church buildings to dangle faraway from arrest. The Trump Administration will not tie the hands of our plucky law enforcement, and instead trusts them to make consume of customary sense.”
The Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Convention, informed CP in an earlier interview that the recent policy mustn’t ever straight injure immigrants who entered the nation legally or church buildings.
“I enact now not foresee any circumstance the build [Immigrations and Customs Enforcement] agents in cooperation with diversified law enforcement companies drag guns a-blazing on a Sunday morning carrier,” acknowledged Rodriguez.
“They are now not going to salvage back into church buildings, but they are going to most definitely be exterior the automobile automobile automobile car parking space build of abode. Now not within the automobile automobile automobile car parking space, but exterior within the premises, exterior the church property, procuring for that felony ingredient to per chance come out of a church carrier — that gang banger or that one who has a legend. That is a possibility.”
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