Twenty-seven religious organizations came together earlier this month to sue the Trump administration over its decision to authorize immigration enforcement actions in churches and other religious settings. “Criminals will no longer be able to hide in America’s schools and churches to avoid arrest,” said a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokesperson about the administration decision that led to the lawsuit.
Filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, their lawsuit claims:
The rescission of the sensitive locations policy is already substantially burdening the religious exercise of Plaintiffs’ congregations and members. Congregations are experiencing decreases in worship attendance and social services participation due to fear of immigration enforcement action. For the vulnerable congregants who continue to attend worship services, congregations must choose between either exposing them to arrest or undertaking security measures that are in direct tension with their religious duties of welcome and hospitality. Likewise, the choice that congregations currently face between discontinuing social service ministries or putting undocumented participants at risk of arrest is no choice at all… (pp. 8-9)
This lawsuit overlaps in important ways with one that five Quaker congregations filed in late January in a federal district court in Maryland. The judge in this case issued a preliminary injunction on Monday that bars – unless the conditions of the rescinded policy are satisfied – enforcement on the premises of the congregations that filed the lawsuit, which now also include the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and Sikh Temple Sacramento, among a few others. The injunction does not apply nationwide.
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David Trimble serves as president of the Religious Freedom Institute.