*** DEBUG START ***
*** DEBUG END ***

US churches challenge Trump immigration raid

31 January 2025

EPISCOPAL MIGRATION MINISTRIES

A group of Episcopalians, mostly from All Saints’, Atlanta, wait to welcome a refugee family at Atlanta International Airport, on 17 January

FAITH communities in the United States have declared that they will launch a legal challenge if the new government enacts its threats to allow immigration raids in churches and other places of worship.

President Trump issued a slew of executive orders in the hours after his Inauguration last week. They were aimed at limiting illegal and legal migration, including increasing deportations and allow immigration raids in “sensitive” or “protected” areas, such as schools, hospitals, and places of worship.

The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that “criminals will no longer be able to hide in America’s schools and churches to avoid arrest.”

The Justice Department has also ordered federal prosecutors to investigate state or local officials whom they believe to be interfering with anti-immigration measures — a move interpreted by cities and dioceses offering support and sanctuary to migrants as a warning from the government.

The Bishop of Los Angeles, the Rt Revd John H. Taylor, told the Church Times that he and fellow church leaders “look forward to joining with colleagues if the government follows through on its stated intention to violate the sanctity of churches and other places of worship when they shelter those fleeing unjust power”.

The diocese of Los Angeles is one of several dioceses of the Episcopal Church to declare themselves sanctuary dioceses, which means that their churches will offer sanctuary to immigrants who fear arrest because of their legal status. The other such dioceses are Washington, Chicago, and San Diego.

Los Angeles has been a sanctuary diocese since 2021. Bishop Taylor said that he was not currently aware that any of the 133 parishes and missions of the diocese were currently offering sanctuary, but they were prepared to do so.

Sanctuary was also a “personal spiritual discipline”, he said, “finding a place in our hearts for a better understanding of immigrants’ narratives and predicament. . .

“As Bishop Budde said in her sermon a week ago [News, 24 January], the vast majority of undocumented people in our country are doing their jobs, caring for their families, and paying their taxes. A hypothetical government could promise to treat these workers and their families humanely while securing the border and holding accountable any violent criminals who have slipped through. Our government makes no such distinctions, causing millions of our neighbours to live in fear.”

Immigrants who were trans or non-binary were being “twice scapegoated”, he said. “Wherever and however we can, we resolve to be pastorally present to them and all who are being victimised by our politicians.”

The RC Bishop of El Paso, the Most Revd Mark J. Seitz, said that his community was fearful, and promised migrants that the Church would “make your anxieties and fears at this moment our own. We stand with you.

“The diocese of El Paso will continue to educate our faithful on their rights, provide legal services, and work with our community leaders to mitigate the damage of indiscriminate immigration enforcement. Through our Border Refugee Assistance Fund, in partnership with the Hope Border Institute, we are preparing to channel additional humanitarian aid to migrants stranded in our sister city of Ciudad Juarez.”

Juarez is the Mexican city just across the border from El Paso, where hundreds of migrants are now stranded after all appointments for those wishing to claim asylum were cancelled.

Deportation of migrants is not new to the Trump administration. The Biden administration carried out 1.5 million deportations in its four years, and the Obama administration carried out 2.9 million in its first term. Early figures show that more than 1000 deportations were carried out on the fourth day alone of the new administration.

President Trump also ordered the immediate halt of all refugee-resettlement programmes on his first day in office. The Episcopal Church has helped to resettle more than 100,000 refugees, and it said the suspension of all programmes was “devastating”.

“The historic and ongoing work of Episcopal Migration Ministries is a living expression of Christ’s command to care for those in need and offer hope to the weary,” the director of Episcopal Migration Ministries, the Revd Sarah Shipman, said in a statement to the Episcopal News Service. “The executive order halting refugee resettlement is devastating for many vulnerable people who were close to starting new lives in the United States. Our hearts hurt for them, and our prayers go out for them.”

Around the world, at least 10,000 migrants are now in limbo as a result of the pause in the programme: 1600 Afghans had been cleared to travel to the US this week for resettlement, only to be told that plans had changed.

The executive order suspends the refugee-resettlement programme entirely, “until such time as the further entry into the United States of refugees aligns with the interests of the United States”, it says.

Some churches have vowed to carry on supporting migrants despite the order, and will rely on private donations for funding for their work.

Matt Soerens, the vice-president of advocacy and policy at World Relief, the humanitarian arm of the National Association of Evangelicals, said that the work of faith-based refugee-resettlement groups would continue.

“I don’t think that the government has any authority to tell us, or any church, ‘Don’t bring your refugee friends to the grocery store. . . Or don’t help them go to their medical appointment,’” he told the Religion News Service.

In some areas, fear of deportation is preventing people from going outside their homes. A pastor at the First Haitian Evangelical Church, in Springfield, Ohio, the Revd Philomene Philostin, said that church attendance had dropped since the inauguration. She said that people were “scared to the point where they don’t come to church”.

A fellow pastor, the Revd Reginald Silencieux, called for people to gather around him as he prayed for God to protect people. “I asked God to protect my people. I prayed especially for the Haitian community, and I prayed for the USA, too, because Trump is our President,” he said after a service last Sunday.

About 15,000 people in the city are Haitian. Last year, Mr Trump accused migrants in Springfield of eating people’s cats and dogs, during the acrimonious election campaign.

A survey last year for Pew Research showed that attitudes to migrants differed between faith groups. Most White Evangelical Protestants (70 per cent), White Catholics (64 per cent), and White non-Evangelical Protestants (57 per cent) said that the large number of migrants seeking to enter at the border with Mexico was a “crisis” for the US. Black Protestants (32 per cent) and religiously unaffiliated Americans (27 per cent) were less likely to agree with this statement.

Browse Church and Charity jobs on the Church Times jobsite

Forthcoming Events

Women Mystics: Female Theologians through Christian History

13 January - 19 May 2025

An online evening lecture series, run jointly by Sarum College and The Church Times

tickets available

 

Festival of Faith and Literature

28 February - 2 March 2025

tickets available

 

Visit our Events page for upcoming and past events 

Welcome to the Church Times

 

To explore the Church Times website fully, please sign in or subscribe.

Non-subscribers can read four articles for free each month. (You will need to register.)