Here’s How Faith Leaders Are Standing Between ICE and Their Congregants

The first time I sat down at a Quaker meeting I started to cry. Outside, it was a hot and frenetic summer day in the city. But the quiet, light-filled sanctuary was just that — a refuge. I hadn’t realized how deeply I’d yearned for the calm until I was enveloped in it.

I, like many other queer people, have a fraught relationship with organized religion. Still, nearly three years ago, I found myself missing having a spiritual practice and the comforts of community and ritual that come with it. I was particularly drawn to the Religious Society of Friends because of Quakers’ longstanding commitment to nonviolence and social action. Parts of Quaker history are ugly and contradictory — many early Quakers enslaved people — yet it was also the first religious establishment in the English colonies to call for abolition. Nonviolence is a core tenet of the faith, and throughout history, Friends have played an active role in antiwar and civil rights movements.

So, I was proud to see that Quakers are rallying to fight against another urgent injustice: Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda. On January 27, five Quaker groups sued the Trump administration after it announced it had rescinded a 14-year-old policy that limited raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in “sensitive locations,” including houses of worship.

“Allowing armed government agents wearing ICE-emblazoned jackets to park outside a religious service and monitor who enters or to interrupt the service and drag a congregant out during the middle of worship is anathema to Quaker religious exercise,” the lawsuit, filed on behalf of the Quakers by Democracy Forward, states. The suit notes that attending services is part of the constitutionally protected right of religious freedom, but the threat of ICE raids “deters congregants from attending services, especially members of immigrant communities.”

NBC News reported that the lawsuit appears to be the first instance of a faith-based organization challenging Trump’s new order in court. But the Quakers are far from alone. The legal route is only one way in which religious groups across the country are mounting a firm defense against Trump’s draconian immigration crackdown.

“What we’re hearing from our base, affiliates, and congregations … is that they’re going to stand for the rights, and they’re going to protect communities, to work with communities even if they are targeted,” Omar Angel Perez, the director of the immigration justice program at Faith in Action, told Sojourners magazine in December, as concerns about the potential loss of sanctuary status began to spread. “They’re going to put themselves on the line.”

It isn’t the first time: The church sanctuary movement has deep roots. During the 1800s, U.S. churches served as safe harbors along the Underground Railroad; later, during the Vietnam War, they housed people resisting the draft. In the early 1980s, a network of as many as 500 churches provided sanctuary to refugees fleeing conflict in Central America. And during Trump’s first term, churches rose to meet the sanctuary call once again, opening their doors to immigrants facing deportation. More than 800 congregations in at least 30 states supported the modern-day sanctuary movement.

In 2025, religious groups are once again galvanized. Earlier this month, ahead of Trump’s second inauguration, Catholic, Protestant and Jewish faith leaders came together at a church in Newark, New Jersey, to vocalize their opposition to Trump’s deportation machine.

“In the face of tactics of intimidation and division, the Catholic Church will work to protect our families,” Mark Seitz, a bishop of the Catholic Diocese of El Paso, Texas, told the multifaith congregation, “to defend our religious liberty, and, let me be clear, to oppose mass deportation.”

Unlike in 2016, however, the New Jersey faith leaders were cautious not to explicitly call their churches “sanctuaries,” given Trump’s escalating rhetoric. “It is not safe any longer to say what we are going to do because of the political situation,” Rev. Ramon Collazo told the Bergen Record. “It could be more harmful for the people we are trying to help.”

But the political climate calls for religious groups to be strategic — not complacent. On January 16, Union Theological Seminary, Jewish Theological Seminary, Riverside Church and the Interfaith Center of New York hosted an event titled, “Know Your Rights, Find Your Voice,” which provided practical tools and tactics for faith communities to protect immigrants. Panelists included an Episcopal bishop, an imam, legal experts from the New York Civil Liberties Union and NYU Law School, and the executive director of Afrikana, a community center in Harlem dedicated to supporting Black, Arab and Muslim immigrants. The co-legal director of Make the Road New York, an immigrant justice group, also spoke at the event. Make the Road has launched a massive on-the-ground initiative in recent weeks to train immigrants on their legal rights should they be confronted by ICE.

A fact sheet from the National Immigration Law Center includes some of this practical advice for communities concerned about Trump’s rescission of the sensitive areas policy. It notes that places of worship should clearly identify nonpublic spaces, because even in the face of Trump’s new order, ICE agents can only enter spaces at houses of worship that are open to the public. Offices and parsonages, for instance, are still out of bounds for agents without a warrant.

On the West Coast, faith leaders have also said they are organizing “know your rights” training sessions, labeling areas “private” and offering pro bono legal support to their congregations.

“I will do whatever I can to protect the people that I serve,” Rev. Carlos Ramirez told the Los Angeles Times. “I’m willing to — I’m not joking — even put myself in the middle between [an immigration agent] and my congregation.”