PRESIDENT TRUMP’s executive orders are mobilising faith groups. Action includes suing the administration over the reintroduction of immigration raids in places of worship and the freeze of the federal refugee-resettlement programme.
Twenty-seven faith groups, including the Episcopal Church, other Protestant denominations, and several Jewish organisations, have filed two lawsuits this month in response to the orders signed by the President the day after his inauguration on 20 January (Analysis, 24 January). The actions have been filed against the US Department for Homeland Security.
They argue that the administration is violating freedom of religion and freedom of association, on the grounds that congregations have reported that worshippers from immigrant communities are staying away for fear of arrest and detention, and faith organisations are unable to fulfil their faith’s mandate to welcome and serve immigrants.
In some places, even church memebrs with documented legal status are choosing to stay at home, for fear that they may be mistakenly arrested on the basis of their appearance, the lawsuit says.
One arrest has so far been reported, at a place of worship in Tucker, Georgia, as the sermon at the Iglesia Fuente de Vida church was ending. The daily newspaper Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that an asylum-seeker, Wilson Velasquez, was attending church when his Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) ankle monitor beeped. When he stepped outside the church, he was arrested by ICE agents.
The Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, Dr Sean Rowe, said that, in God’s Kingdom, “immigrants and refugees are not at the edges, fearful and alone, but are the very centre of God’s story. . . We believe their struggles reveal the heart of God, and we cannot worship freely if some among us live in fear. We are seeking the ability to fully gather and follow Jesus’s command to love our neighbours as ourselves.
“We are told by the rulers of our day that the rich shall be first; that compassion is a weakness; that we should regard the migrants and strangers among us with fear and contempt. But I ask us all to see that our true citizenship is in God’s Kingdom, where the meek shall inherit the earth, the merciful shall receive mercy, and the captives shall go free.”
Another lawsuit has been filed by the Quakers, with support from the Co-operative Baptist Fellowship and a Sikh temple, arguing that the administration has violated freedom of assembly.
Churches are also raising funds to continue their work supporting migrants, despite the freezing of the migrant-resettlement scheme, which has already led to the winding down of Episcopal Migration Ministries operations, for lack of funding.
The Bishop of Minnesota, the Rt Revd Craig Loya, has created a new migrant-support fund to continue the work and offer support to other organisations left without insufficient funds.
Bishop Loya told the Episcopal News Service (ENS) that he set up the fund because the diocese has nine congregations in which migrants form the majority or a large minority. “We are richly blessed by this diversity. We really feel as a diocese we have to provide a response.”
The diocese had donated $10,000, and more than 100 individuals had since donated, he said.
The Episcopal Church has also restated its commitment to, and solidarity with, marginalised groups, as President Trump banned diversity, equality, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, leading federal agencies and some private companies to cancel commemoration of Black History Month, Martin Luther King’s birthday, Pride month, and other observances.
“This decision to pause Black History Month celebrations and DEI work puts us in a profound moment to reflect out loud what as a Church — as a people — do we choose to remember and choose to forget,” the Episcopal Church’s chief of mission programme, the Revd Lester Mackenzie, told ENS.
The funding cuts and freezes, and the closure of streams of work on diversity and equality, has also made an impact in Washington itself: the Rector of St Mark’s Episcopal Church has reported anxiety and high demand for pastoral care, as many are put out of work. The church is a block away from the Capitol, and among its worshippers are many federal government workers.
Other places of worship have told ENS of the same concern. Rabbi Fred Scherlinder Dobb, of Bethesda, Maryland, said that his congregation was seeking to “rise to meet the moment” and care for at-risk federal workers, as well as immigrants.
Environmental projects have also found their funding frozen. Programmes to help urban areas adapt to climate change by planting trees have been put on hold.
Faith in Place, a charity in Chicago, had made grants to faith groups in Wisconsin, Illinois, and Indiana, for tree-planting. The charity’s president and CEO, the Revd Brian Saunder, a Mennonite pastor, said: “Its unconscionable to us that trees are now a partisan political tool.”
President Trump’s proposal to “take over” Gaza and turn it in to the “Riviera of the Middle East” has also led to the mobilisation of faith groups. Jewish leaders and activists took out a full page advert in The New York Times which said: “Jewish people say NO to ethnic cleansing.”
A Vatican official has said that there must be “no deportations” from Gaza. The Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, said: “Neighbouring countries are not willing [to take in refugees]; we heard for example the King of Jordan recently who absolutely said ‘no.’”
The Zionist Organization of America has described the plan as “brilliant and courageous”, and described the President as “the Winston Churchill of our time”.
Read more on the story from Paul Vallely
