“This is really — I hope — going to be one of the greatest Easters ever,” President Donald Trump told faith leaders he invited to the White House last week, “because we have something going that I don’t think this country has seen in 100 years. And as we gather with family and friends, we’ll not forget the true source of our joy and our strength: America has put our trust in God.”
Will Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents be at your seder or Easter Sunday service?
While Trump and members of his conservative Christian circle are celebrating Easter, though, some immigrants may be afraid to gather with members of their faith.
It’s likely not a question you’ve ever had to ask before, but will Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents be at your seder or Easter Sunday service?
It’s possible after a federal judge sided with the Trump administration April 11 and gave permission to ICE to conduct enforcement operations at houses of worship. U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich’s ruling lets the Trump administration disregard the Biden administration’s advice not to conduct immigration raids at places including houses of worship, schools and hospitals.
Twenty-seven Christian and Jewish groups had sued the Trump administration, claiming that a Jan. 20 Department of Homeland Security policy letting ICE enter houses of worship violated their religious freedom under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Friedrich issued her ruling just in time for Holy Week and Passover. Having this ruling come at such an important religious moment for both groups is cruel.
What this means in practice is that ICE can come into the religious services or outside of houses of worship to take away any immigrant they deem out of compliance. It has already happened several times since Trump was inaugurated. The first recorded instance was ICE arresting a Honduran man at the church he helped plant in Georgia.
Any decline in immigrants’ church and synagogue attendance this week won’t be a surprise. Freidrich, however, dismissed plaintiffs’ reports of reduced attendance at their worship services. The judge said “such limited and conclusory assertions are not enough for the Court to conclude with ‘little doubt’ that the policy rescission has caused the widespread declines in attendance.” She said the plaintiffs didn’t present “any objective statistical evidence showing that religious attendance declines were a predictable effect of the rescission policy.”
The judge may not believe the plaintiffs’ claims, but there will no doubt be fewer immigrants comfortable with attending religious services this week and in the foreseeable future. “One Part of the Body,” a recent survey commissioned by several religious groups, estimates that at the end of 2024, 10 million Christians in the United States were vulnerable to deportation.
A recent survey estimates that at the end of 2024, 10 million Christians in the United States were vulnerable to deportation.
Imagine, then, the impact Trump’s deportation policies and Friedrich’s ruling will have. Immigrants will be even more on edge, and religious leaders not following the news may be left wondering why their sanctuaries are emptier than they usually are this religious season.
In America’s not-so-distant past, churches and religious edifices were reliable sanctuaries and refuge for immigrants. The Sanctuary Movement was started in the 1980s by two Quakers and a Presbyterian minister in Arizona to help people fleeing political repression in Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua. Catholic priests joined the movement on both sides of the border, defying the U.S. government’s refusal to give asylum to these political refugees.
The New Sanctuary Movement, a 21st-century reboot, is a coalition of faith and community leaders. In New Haven, Yale divinity students have mobilized to help protect immigrants targeted by ICE. Pennsylvania faith leaders built an altar at Philadelphia’s ICE office to protest the administration’s policy allowing immigration arrests at churches.
Trump’s administration is also threatening to withhold federal money from sanctuary cities. Tom Homan, a Catholic, has promised to increase the presence of federal agents in sanctuary cities to step up arrests. All this from an administration that claims to be very Christian.
There is an increasing rift between religious groups who are supporting immigrants and an administration that believes, wrongly, that it is upholding a Christian worldview. For immigrants, visa holders and green card holders who are fearful of being picked up by ICE, this is an uneasy Easter season. The message of Easter is resurrection, but what Trump is resurrecting is fear among those who never thought they’d be putting themselves at risk during worship.
