Churches and congregations are standing up against Trump

Hear more from those leading the effort

Churches and congregations are standing up against Trump’s threatened immigration raids on behalf of the most vulnerable people we are called by Jesus to protect. And it is extraordinary to watch. Last week, national media extensively covered the faith-based lawsuit filed by the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection in partnership with the Center on Faith and Justice. My favorite line in all the press came from SLATE. With a headline that read, Trump is Siccing ICE on Churches. The Pastors Are Fighting Back, the opening line in the piece says:

“You know that you have well and truly stepped in it when you have pissed off the Mennonites.”

In the federal suit filed in Washington DC on Tuesday, January 11, the Mennonite Church USA was one of the 27 national church and organization plaintiffs whose combined membership numbers in the millions. And in fact, the lawsuit filed on behalf of whole churches and related organizations was officially titled Mennonite Church USA VS The Department of Homeland Security.

The long list of Christian and Jewish denominations and ecumenical groups— including the Episcopal Church, the Disciples of Christ, AME Zion, Presbyterian Church (USA), Baptists, the United Methodist Church, the Mennonite Church USA, Quakers, and the three largest Jewish denominations in America— will amaze you. The New York Times reported that a lawsuit of this magnitude by religious leaders is very “rare.”

To date, there are more than 70 lawsuits now underway alleging executive overreach in the actions and orders of the Trump administration. But our lawsuit was the first one driven by people of faith from both Christian and Jewish denominations, as well as ecumenical and interfaith organizations. Now the US Catholic Conference of Bishops have filed another one to protect refugee resettlement work. Our plaintiffs include those most vulnerable to the threats of invasions by ICE of churches and congregations: sacred spaces that are no longer respected by the Trump administration as “sensitive locations.” As a result, immigrants are afraid to come to church for services, needed food, health services, English language courses, and other things vulnerable people need to survive physically and spiritually.

Kelsi Corkran, the lead lawyer on the lawsuit, and Pastor Carlos Malave, the president of the Latino Christian National Network, of one of the plaintiffs, joined me this week on The Jim Wallis Podcast.

Corkran says on the podcast, “For over 30 years, DHS has had a policy under both Democratic and Republican administrations that it would not exercise its broad statutory authority to conduct immigration enforcement actions in or near sensitive locations, which include places of worship, hospitals, and schools. Essentially, DHS recognized that these are places where there's just an enormous personal and social cost [to] undocumented people [if they] can't be in those places to worship, to get health care, to get education.”

A DHS spokesperson said the violation of these sacred places is needed to catch “criminal aliens -- including murderers and rapists -- who have illegally come into our country…Criminals will no longer be able to hide in America’s schools and churches to avoid arrest.”

Corkran counters, "ICE and CBP were always authorized to go into places of worship if they had a judicial warrant and if there were exigent circumstances. So if someone dangerous was running and went into a place of worship, then, of course, law enforcement can follow in order to protect people."

The lawsuit does not try to prohibit ICE and CBP from lawfully and respectfully executing their duties in pursuit of dangerous criminals. This legal action, brought by a broad group of faith leaders, defends their spiritual vocation to welcome and serve the “strangers” in their midst.

On the podcast, Pastor Carlos Malave says, “It's regrettable the reason why we are working on this together, but at the same time, I'm glad that we have each other and that we are pulling together on this effort. The Latino Hispanic population in the USA is living a moment of deep fear. It is broader than just the church, the whole of the Latino community is living in fear. It does affect the spiritual and worship experience of our people, but it goes beyond the spiritual, because our churches are in the forefront of our community, serving our community with so many services.”

You can hear more from Corkran on our podcast as she discusses the legal case based on the First Amendment and Religious Freedom Restoration Act. But we also describe how the text of Matthew 25 is inspiring people all around the country to rise up and treat “the stranger” in the same way we treat Christ himself.

As I said last week, the word in the original Greek that Jesus uses (Xenos) literally means immigrants and refugees. You hear the Greek in the word xenophobia, literally the fear of strangers. And it is fear that drives the meaning of the word as it is defined today by the European Commission on Migration and Home Affairs: “Attitudes, prejudices and behaviour that reject, exclude and often vilify persons, based on the perception that they are outsiders or foreigners to the community, society or national identity.” Trump ran on the fear of strangers, and now the strangers are afraid. Carlos Malave speaks in this podcast to “the deep fear” Latino Americans now feel, and this lawsuit is a way to fight the fear.

But Jesus did not preach, nor practice, xenophobia. Rather, he modeled xenophilia: the love of the stranger, the immigrant, the refugee. This lawsuit is about the people Jesus was describing in his final judgement and test of discipleship; the same people we care for in our sacred spaces.

It’s fitting that a legal battle seeking to protect the teachings of Matthew 25 originated in a conversation at church, the same places where refugees and immigrants gather for sustenance for their souls and bodies. Jim Simpson, the Executive Director of our Center on Faith and Justice and Kelsi Corkran attend the same church. Pondering the danger in which our immigrant brothers and sisters find themselves, Corkran said “Well, I’m a civil rights lawyer and I know how to bring a lawsuit about that.” Jim replied, “Well we at the Center on Faith and Justice know how to bring faith leaders and groups together.” You never know what can happen in church.

You can listen to the entire podcast here and hear how in this Matthew 25 moment, faith and law are working hand in hand to fulfill the Scriptures; to obey the command of Jesus to treat immigrants and refugees as we would treat our Lord and Savior.

PS If you would like to support our efforts, sign and share this petition which already has over 7,000 thousand signers already. It will be sent to the White House, DHS, and every member of Congress.