27 Christian and Jewish groups are suing the Trump administration. Here is the Associated Press:
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 Tuesday challenging a Trump administration move giving immigration agents more leeway to make arrests at houses of worship.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, contends that the new policy is spreading fear of raids, thus lowering attendance at worship services and other valuable church programs. 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 the Most Rev. Sean Rowe, the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church.
“We cannot worship freely if some of us are living in fear,” he told The Associated Press. “By joining this lawsuit, we’re seeking the ability to gather and fully practice our faith, to follow Jesus’ command to love our neighbors as ourselves”….
Among the other plaintiffs are the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), with more than 3,000 congregations; the Church of the Brethren, with more than 780 congregations; the ConvenciĂłn Bautista Hispana de Texas, encompassing about 1,100 Hispanic Baptist churches; the Friends General Conference, an association of regional Quaker organizations; the Mennonite Church USA, with about 50,000 members; the Unitarian Universalist Association, with more than 1,000 congregations; the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, with more than 500 U.S. congregations; and regional branches of the United Methodist Church and the United Church of Christ….
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which leads the nation’s largest denomination, did not join the lawsuit, though it has criticized Trump’s migration crackdown. On Tuesday, Pope Francis issued a major rebuke of the deportation plan, warning that the forceful removal of people purely because of their illegal status deprives them of their inherent dignity and “will end badly.”
Many conservative faith leaders and legal experts across the U.S. do not share concerns about the new arrest policy.
“Places of worship are for worship and are not sanctuaries for illegal activity or for harboring people engaged in illegal activity,” said Mat Staver, founder of the conservative Christian legal organization Liberty Counsel.
“Fugitives or criminals are not immune from the law merely because they enter a place of worship,” he said via email. “This is not a matter of religious freedom. There is no right to openly violate the law and disobey law enforcement.”
Professor Cathleen Kaveny, who teaches in the theology department and law school at Boston College, questioned whether the plaintiffs would prevail with the religious freedom argument, but suggested the Trump administration might be unwise to disregard a traditional view of houses of worship as places of sanctuary for vulnerable people.
“These buildings are different — almost like embassies,” she said. “I think of churches as belonging to an eternal country.”
Read the entire piece here.