Several Utah clergy applauded a lawsuit filed by 27 religious organizations this week hoping to block immigration officers from entering religious spaces to find undocumented immigrants.
President Donald Trump’s move revoking a government rule barring immigration raids in sensitive spaces such as houses of worship, hospitals and schools, Religion News Service reported, violates the groups’ constitutional rights.
Under this new edict, “our churches are no longer considered safe places for immigrants,” said the Rev. Kim James of Ogden’s First United Methodist Church. “Our Constitution has a First Amendment protecting Americans’ right to worship how they desire to do. It’s a pretty important aspect of American history, culture and practice.”
For Immigration and Customs Enforcement “to come into a building and scare people,” James said, “is really wrong.”
Plaintiffs in the lawsuit include the Episcopal Church, Presbyterian Church (USA), the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, the Union for Reform Judaism, the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), the Unitarian Universalist Association, the Latino Christian National Network and Mennonite Church USA.
First Unitarian Church of Salt Lake City “is proud to belong to the Unitarian Universalist Association, which is a party to the suit against the Trump administration for its order, which is in violation of our rights under the First Amendment,” the Rev. Monica Dobbins wrote in an email. “For religious freedom to have any meaning in our society, all people must feel safe when they worship, both people who are immigrants and nonimmigrant citizens who are entitled to worship spaces that are not violated by intrusion. It’s during the most difficult times in life when people most need safe places to pray, be among others, and seek pastoral support.”
When law enforcement “targets worshippers, it makes the whole community less safe,” Dobbins added. “Unitarian Universalists are committed to the dignity of all people, and strenuously oppose the racialized targeting of our undocumented neighbors.”
For more than three years, the Salt Lake City Unitarian Church near the University of Utah had provided sanctuary to a Honduran mother of two small children until federal officials offered her a stay in her immigration case in spring 2021.
The Rev. Curtis Price of First Baptist Church of Salt Lake City said his congregants were “shocked” by the administration’s new policy.
“It has been tradition over millennia that churches and sacred places of worship were safe spaces that were respected by authorities,” Price wrote in an email. “We fully support the lawsuit being brought by several faith communities.”
The Rev. Curtis Price of First Baptist Church of Salt Lake City says he "pray[s] that ICE thinks the better of going into houses of worship."
Christian faith “tells us to welcome the stranger (Leviticus 19:34) and to love our neighbor as ourselves (Luke 10:27),” Price said. “To be told that we may no longer be that safe harbor for anyone seeking to join with us in worship and fellowship is a direct violation of the free practice of our faith. I pray that ICE thinks the better of going into houses of worship because the very notion that armed immigration officers would enter our church would put us in direct confrontation with those officers, escalating the process from one of apprehension of a suspect, to dealing with direct resistance by church members exercising their faith — a freedom afforded to everyone by our Constitution.”
Utah’s predominant religion, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, known widely for its defense of religious freedom, was among the many faiths that did not join the lawsuit.
When asked why, a church spokesperson declined to comment, pointing instead to a recent reiteration of the faith’s long-standing principles regarding immigration: to obey the law, love all God’s children, provide basic food and clothing, and work to keep families together.
