Will Trump's Feds Raid Churches?
President-elect Donald Trump claims to be a protector of Christianity, but in an expected change to current policy, we may see federal raids on churches during the next administration.
NBC News reports,
The incoming Trump administration intends to rescind a long-standing policy that has prevented Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents from arresting undocumented people at or near so-called sensitive locations, including houses of worship, schools and hospitals or events such as funerals, weddings and public demonstrations without approval from supervisors, according to three sources familiar with the plan.
President-elect Donald Trump plans to rescind the policy as soon as the first day he is in office, according to the sources — who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss the change publicly.
The move would be intended to boost ICE’s authority to arrest migrants across the country, and its speed in doing so, as part of Trump’s plan to carry out what he has said he wants to be the “largest deportation operation in American history.”
Under current policy, ICE can enter sensitive locations under limited circumstances, such as preventing imminent harm or to arrest a dangerous felon. But if the policy is revoked, ICE agents can enter any sensitive locations, including churches, to search for undocumented immigrants.
Christian leaders are sounding alarm bells over the potential change.
Myal Greene, president and CEO of World Relief, an evangelical organization, said,
While we respect the government’s authority – and affirm the existing exceptions to this general rule when there are public safety concerns – we believe that these ‘sensitive locations’ guidelines are a prudent policy and should not be abandoned. President Trump wisely kept this policy in place throughout his first term, and we hope that reports his administration will abandon the policy in his second term are inaccurate. Without such a policy, families – including many US citizens living in mixed-status families – will receive the message that they are putting themselves and their loved ones at risk by participating in their churches, by attending or picking their kids up from school or by going to the hospital, even in a genuine emergency where a decision to stay away could be fatal.
Catholics are also speaking out. J. Kevin Appleby, senior fellow for policy at The Center for Migration Studies of New York and the former director of migration policy for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said,
This certainly is an infringement on religious freedom and will deter immigrant families from attending Mass and receiving the sacraments. The U.S. bishops should be very concerned about this deportation scheme and push back against it strongly, as it is as much an attack on the life of the church in this country as it is against immigrant families.
The irony, of course, is that many Christian leaders vocally supported Trump's reelection while claiming, in part, that he would protect their religious freedom. Trump has also declared himself a protector of the faith. If this policy goes into place and we witness ICE raids at churches, will they speak up?
Just this week, Trump was in an ad on Fox News for his “God Bless the USA Bible” saying,
We love God and we have to protect anything that is pro-God. We must defend God in the public square and not allow the media and the left-wing groups to silence, censor, or discriminate against us. We have to bring Christianity back into our lives and back into what will be again a great nation.
The clip appears to be from the same filming as his previous ad, with some Christmas ornaments and music added to it. But are church raids “pro-God”? If the policy is implemented, churches will be targeted, not protected, and it’ll be Christians who are silenced and discriminated against.
If you are an employee or active member at one of these sensitive locations, it would be wise to bring awareness to this issue and plan for what your response might be if a raid happened there. You might, for instance, plan to video record the event, in order to bring greater awareness to what is happening.
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Have you seen your community and congregation divided over politics? We understand the struggles you face and are here to help. In today's hyper-polarized world, guiding your congregation through the complexities of politics while keeping Jesus at the center feels like an uphill battle. J29 Coalition is here to help.
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Jesus was asked the question, "Who is my neighbor?" He went on to tell the story of the Good Samaritan. This summit is designed to equip Christians with the tools to care for and advocate on behalf of their immigrant neighbors. Through informative sessions, personal stories, and collaborative discussions, participants will hear from
Director of The Haitian Support Center, Vilés Dorsainvil and other Haitian leaders from Springfield Ohio
Assemblies of God Pastor Dr. Gabriel Salguero director of the National Latino Evangelical Coalition
Myal Greene President of World Relief
Justin Giboney Founder of the AND Campaign
and more as we explore how the Church can play a transformative role in supporting immigrant communities and consider how the gospel frames how we think about our neighbor.
What Else We’re Reading
NYT: “Far-Right Militias Seek Role in Trump Deportation Plan”
A few days after the election, William Teer, who runs the Texas Three Percenters, a local far-right militia group, wrote to President-elect Donald J. Trump with an offer: His organization could help Mr. Trump carry out his plan to deport millions of people who are in the United States illegally.
“In support of our nation’s commitments to lawful immigration practices, I wanted to extend my willingness to assist, in cooperation with local law enforcement and community programs, to promote the safety and security of our state,” Mr. Teer wrote. “I am available for further discussion.”
He said Mr. Trump had yet to respond. A spokesperson for Mr. Trump’s transition team said the mass deportation plan would use state and federal resources, not private ones. But Mr. Teer’s offer was one of several recent efforts by far-right organizations, including some that have a history of taking it on themselves to patrol the border with Mexico, to insert themselves into the deportation plan.
The Guardian: “Conspiracy theories and cosying up to dictators: why intelligence experts are spooked by Tulsi Gabbard”
But within Washington foreign policy circles and the tightly knit intelligence community, Gabbard has long been seen as dangerous; some have worried that she seems inclined toward conspiracy theories and cosying up to dictators. Others, including the former secretary of state and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, have gone further, calling her a “Russian asset”.
Those concerns have been heightened by Gabbard’s nomination under Donald Trump to the post of director of national intelligence, a senior cabinet-level position with access to classified materials from across the 18 US intelligence agencies, and shaping that information for the president’s daily briefing. The role would allow her to access and declassify information at her discretion, and also direct some intelligence-sharing with US allies around the world.
The Bulwark: “Open-Government Nonprofits Are Dying Off Just When They’re Needed Most”
OpenTheGovernment.org, established in 2003 by a coalition of organizations to push back against the increase in secrecy following the 9/11 attacks, died in 2022 and was laid to rest alongside OMBWatch. The organization seems never to have had more than a half-dozen staff nor a budget of more than a few million dollars. It had been obviously ailing for some time. But, for two decades, it had been the central organizing force for civil society organizations doing open government work.
The ultimate cause of their demise is simple: reprioritization by foundations and high-net-worth individuals away from financially supporting this overarching, public-informing, community-building work. In their place we have seen a boom in partisan-aligned nonprofit organizations that use similar tools and techniques, but as auxiliaries for the parties in their trench warfare over political power.
The result is a tragedy of the public commons. Open government is essential to a flourishing democracy. It helps the public identify waste, fraud, abuse, and malfeasance. But even more importantly, it provides insight into whether policies are working as intended—and allows for course corrections. If you think transparency is a bad idea, try driving a car with the windows painted black.
Liberal Currents: “A Disease of Affluence: Trump's supporters are not motivated by economic anxiety, but by its opposite.”
Americans are prosperous, but without any deep sense of obligations to others. We are a highly commercial, individualist people, and when we let go of even a thin liberal conception of the public good, we become nasty, petty, small, vindictive and irrational. J.S. Mill, a philosopher who truly prized individual development, also warned of its dangers in isolation:
The spirit of a commercial people will be... essentially mean and slavish wherever public spirit is not cultivated by an extensive participation of the people in the business of government.
This, I think, is what has befallen America. This is a disease of affluence, not poverty. This isn’t a story of a working class that is being pinched. It’s the story of a working class that is doing better than any comparable working class ever has and a professional class who are angry about that. Who feel that this newfound security means they no longer show proper deference to their social betters.
NYT: “I Traded My News Apps for Rumble, the Right-Wing YouTube. Here’s What I Saw.”
As soon as President-elect Donald J. Trump won the presidential race, influencers on Rumble, the right-wing alternative to YouTube, flooded the platform with a simple catchphrase: “We are the media now.”
The idea seemed to capture a growing sense that traditional journalists have lost their position at the center of the media ecosystem. Polls show that trust in mainstream news media has plummeted, and that nearly half of all young people get their news from “influencers” rather than journalists.
In its place, they argue, are right-wing digital creators who have found hordes of fans online. Rumble, for instance, is tiny compared with YouTube, but it is a primary source of news for millions of Americans, according to Pew Research Center. On election night, its active viewership topped out at more than two million, and the company said in a statement that it averaged more than 67 million monthly active users in the final quarter of 2024.
If Rumble was the media now, I wondered what it would be like to consume an all-Rumble diet. So on Nov. 18, about two weeks after the election, I deleted my news apps, unsubscribed from all my podcasts and filtered all my newsletters to the trash. And for the next week, from early morning till late at night, I got all my news from Rumble.
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