Fatima Guzman prays during a church service at the Centro Cristiano El Pan de Vida, a mid-size Church of God of Prophecy congregation in Kissimmee, Florida, Sunday, Feb. 2, 2025. (AP)
"We have immigrants, refugees, people who are documented and undocumented," the Most Rev. Sean Rowe, the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, told The Associated Press.
"We cannot worship freely if some of us are living in fear," he added. "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."
A similar lawsuit was filed Jan. 27 by five Quaker congregations that was later joined by the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and a Sikh temple. That case is currently pending in U.S. District Court in Maryland.
The new lawsuit names the Department of Homeland Security and its immigration enforcement agencies as defendants.
"We are protecting our schools, places of worship, and Americans who attend, by preventing criminal aliens and gang members from exploiting these locations and take safe haven there because these criminals knew that under the previous Administration that law enforcement couldn’t go inside," DHS assistant secretary for public affairs, Tricia McLaughlin, said in a statement.
"DHS’s directive gives our law enforcement the ability to do their jobs," she said.
A memorandum filed Friday by the Department of Justice, opposing the argument in the Quaker lawsuit, could also apply to the new lawsuit.
The DOJ claims that the plaintiffs’ request to block the new immigration enforcement policy is based on speculation of hypothetical future harm, which the department says makes for insufficient grounds for the courts to side with the Quakers and issue an injunction.
In the memo, the DOJ said that immigration enforcement affecting places of worship had been allowed for decades and that the new policy announced last month stated that field agents should use "common sense" and "discretion" but could now carry out immigration enforcement operations in houses of worship without pre-approval from a supervisor.
One part of that memo may not apply to the new lawsuit, as it argued the Quakers and their fellow plaintiffs have no basis for seeking a nationwide injunction to protect all religious groups against the new policy.
NOEM, HEGSETH, BONDI PLEAD WITH CONGRESS FOR MORE BORDER FUNDING AMID LARGE-SCALE DEPORTATIONS
Jean-Michel Gisnel cries out while praying with other congregants at the First Haitian Evangelical Church of Springfield, Sunday, January 26, 2025, in Springfield, Ohio. (AP)
One religious group that did not join the new lawsuit is the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which leads the nation's largest denomination, although it has criticized Trump's mass deportation plan.
On Tuesday, Pope Francis criticized the administration's immigration policies, saying that the forceful removal of people because of their immigration status deprives them of their inherent dignity and that doing so, he argued, "will end badly."
Many conservative faith leaders and legal experts across the country, however, share no concerns about immigration enforcement targeting places of worship to arrest migrants.
"Places of worship are for worship and are not sanctuaries for illegal activity or for harboring people engaged in illegal activity," Mat Staver, founder of the conservative Christian legal organization Liberty Counsel, told The Associated Press.
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"Fugitives or criminals are not immune from the law merely because they enter a place of worship," he said. "This is not a matter of religious freedom. There is no right to openly violate the law and disobey law enforcement."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/dozens-religious-groups-sue-stop-trump-admin-from-arresting-migrants-places-worship