Christian and Jewish groups sue Trump over immigration raids, worship arrests policy
The suit argues a Trump policy allowing arrests of migrants at houses of worship spreads fear and discourages attendance, while infringing on religious freedom
More than two-dozen Christian and Jewish groups representing millions of Americans – ranging from the Episcopal Church and the Union for Reform Judaism to the Mennonites and Unitarian Universalists – filed a federal court lawsuit on Tuesday challenging a Trump administration move giving immigration agents more leeway to make arrests at houses of worship.
The lawsuit, filed in US District Court in Washington, contends that the new policy is spreading fear of raids, thus lowering attendance at worship services and other valuable church programmes. The result, says the suit, infringes on the groups’ religious freedom – namely their ability to minister to migrants, including those in the United States illegally.
“We have immigrants, refugees, people who are documented and undocumented,” said Reverend Sean Rowe, the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church.
“We cannot worship freely if some of us are living in fear,” he said. “By joining this lawsuit, we’re seeking the ability to gather and fully practice our faith, to follow Jesus’ command to love our neighbours as ourselves.”
The new lawsuit echoed and expanded on some arguments made in a similar lawsuit filed on January 27 by five Quaker congregations and later joined by the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and a Sikh temple. It is currently pending in US District Court in Maryland.
Named as defendants in the new lawsuit are the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its immigration enforcement agencies. The DHS assistant secretary for public affairs, Tricia McLaughlin, offered this response via email: “We are protecting our schools, places of worship, and Americans who attend, by preventing criminal aliens and gang members from exploiting these locations and take safe haven there because these criminals knew that under the previous Administration that law enforcement couldn’t go inside.”
