Faith organizations suing to prevent immigration raids on or near houses of worship have gained support from a diverse array of prosecutors, civil liberty and religious groups in a case against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
Fair and Just Prosecution, the Harvard Law Religious Freedom Clinic, the National Immigration Law Center and groups of Muslim and Quaker scholars and advocates filed friend-of-the-court briefs Jan. 5 in Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends et al. v. Department of Homeland Security, according to Democracy Forward, plaintiffs’ representation in the case.
Numerous Quaker meetings filed the action in January 2025 after President Donald Trump rescinded a decades-old policy barring federal agents from pursuing and apprehending immigrants on or around churches, schools and hospitals. The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and the Sikh Temple of Sacramento later joined the suit.
Then in February, a federal district court prohibited Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents from entering plaintiffs’ facilities as is challenged by the federal government in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. The federation for American Immigration Reform filed an amicus brief in support of the plaintiffs in October, Democracy Forward added.
Bradley Girard
“For decades, the federal government recognized a simple truth: Targeting people at houses of worship violates religious freedom and harms communities,” said Bradley Girard, senior counsel at Democracy Forward. “These briefs make clear that the Trump-Vance administration’s policy is not only unlawful — it is dangerous. It chills religious exercise and undermines public safety by driving people into the shadows.”
The amicus brief filed jointly by the National Immigration Law Center and Muslim advocates represents the views of 19 immigrant justice, faith-based and civil rights organizations opposed to ICE raids in or near sensitive locations such as hospitals, schools and houses of worship.
“The Sensitive Locations Policy offered reassurance that federal immigration agents would treat mosques, churches, synagogues and temples across the United States as sanctuaries for communal worship, not immigration-enforcement sites,” according to the brief. “The rescission of the Sensitive Locations Policy violates those bedrock legal protections. It disregards the unique legal and cultural status of places of worship, imposes predictable and substantial burdens on religious exercise and expressive association, and resurrects a troubling history of alienation and suspicion directed at minority faith communities, including Muslims.”
Quaker scholars argued in their brief that the administration’s approach to immigration enforcement in churches has troubling parallels with the persecution of the founders of their movement in England in the 17th century.
“The abrupt recission of these guidelines means government agents may now make armed incursions into Quaker meetings without notice or a judicial warrant. Such incursions are a direct affront to Quaker teachings. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have already wielded their newfound authority to enter houses of worship and detain people.”
Fair and Just Prosecution, an organization of progressive prosecutors, argued honoring the sanctity of sensitive locations promotes communication and trust between authorities and communities: “DHS’ policy rescinding protections against enforcement actions in and around houses of worship represents a unique and specific threat that will severely alienate immigrant communities and push them further away from prosecutors and other law enforcement actors and into the shadows, jeopardizing the safety of us all.”
Democracy Forward also represents 11 faith groups in New England Synod, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, et al., v. Department of Homeland Security, a lawsuit filed last July against the targeting of faith organizations by ICE agents.
“Raids in churches and sacred spaces violate decades of norms in both Democratic and Republican administrations, core constitutional protections, and basic human decency,” Democracy Forward President Skye Perryman said when the action was filed.