RICHMOND, Va. — Alongside the Law Enforcement Action Partnership, Fair and Just Prosecution, a network of elected prosecutors, filed an amicus brief urging the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit to prohibit immigration enforcement activity in or around houses of worship, arguing the practice undermines public safety and community trust.
The brief advocates for these spaces to remain protected despite the Department of Homeland Security’s attempts to eliminate these safe areas.
The brief states: “FJP and LEAP are committed to ensuring that all members of the community feel protected, while building and maintaining a cooperative relationship between immigrant communities and local law enforcement based on trust and respect.”
The brief goes on to explain that spaces such as houses of worship, schools and hospitals receive special protections from the government for their essential services that bolster community health and safety. Government-authorized enforcement is a last resort, such as in “national security threats” or “imminent risk of death, violence, or physical harm to a person.”
In January, the federal administration granted ICE and Border Patrol agents entry to these protected places to conduct aggressive action. The brief calls rhetoric from the Department of Homeland Security “bellicose, overt threats,” such as: “Criminals will no longer be able to hide in America’s schools and churches to avoid arrest.”
“The decision to allow immigration arrests in sensitive locations like houses of worship, schools, and health care facilities is a direct threat to community safety,” said Aramis Ayala, executive director of Fair and Just Prosecution. “Public safety depends on trust and cooperation, and aggressive enforcement actions in spaces meant for care, learning, and worship destroys both.”
The brief states that prosecutors’ and law enforcement’s work to solve and prosecute crimes is “acutely dependent on community members’ confidence in the system.” The brief adds that when people perceive law enforcement as biased or as a threat, they are more likely to avoid the legal system as a whole, undermining the ability of police and prosecutors to work effectively.
Prosecutors and law enforcement have taken steps to protect immigrants and maintain trust, such as the creation of U visas, which grant temporary legal status to survivors of crime who can be helpful to law enforcement.
The brief explains that this reciprocal communication and trust has massive implications for public safety as a whole. When immigrant communities do not trust the legal system, crimes go unreported out of fear of “adverse immigration consequences.”
The brief states that undocumented people are “susceptible to victimization” from criminals who know immigrants are less likely to report crimes. For instance, the brief cites a study that says immigrants are more susceptible to robbery because they may not have a bank account and therefore carry cash.
“Aggressive enforcement into areas at or near houses of worship magnifies this negative effect by disconnecting immigrants from their faith communities, which are often their most important social support networks,” the brief states.
The brief also notes that beyond damage to public safety and legal trust, the ability of ICE and other agencies to enter essential, once-protected places that form the backbone of a strong and stable civil society is uniquely invasive and stands to damage community trust across all law enforcement.
“ICE agents have waited outside courthouses, ultimately arresting people who appear for their court dates while seeking asylum; they have conducted massive workplace raids … admittedly based on racial profiling; they have stepped outside their civil enforcement role to arrest and detain U.S. citizen protesters; and agents have consistently concealed their faces and failed to identify as law enforcement, leading some people to believe they are armed and masked kidnappers,” the brief states.
It also states that “sweeping raids that violently harass and detain U.S. citizens is not theoretical,” noting that immigration agents have wrongfully detained more than 170 citizens since January during raids or protests, as well as more than 50 citizens, most of whom were Latino, after agents questioned their citizenship.
The central argument of the brief, to prohibit immigration enforcement activity around houses of worship, is not only about the precedent set by removing federal protections for these areas but also about the broad discretionary power given to enforcement agents by the DHS. The department stated that the new policy “empowers” and does not “tie the hands” of ICE agents, allowing them to act on their own “discretion” and “common sense.”
In an article for Reuters, a DHS spokesperson said, “If a dangerous illegal alien felon like a gang member, murderer, or pedophile were to flee into a church, there may be a situation where an arrest is made to protect public safety.” However, based on the indistinct boundaries of an enforcement officer’s “discretion,” there is no certainty about what proves a “dangerous illegal alien felon” is a gang member, murderer or pedophile.
The brief cites a case in which a Latino man was detained in a church parking lot in Downey, California. According to a The New York Times article, men in SUVs with out-of-state license plates and bulletproof vests labeled “POLICE” descended on a man who was merely passing by the church. When the Rev. Tanya Lopez spoke to a man in the SUV in Spanish, an agent pointed a rifle at her.
Any ICE activity deters churchgoers who fear anti-immigration enforcement. The brief states that the policy “weakens houses of worship as core civic institutions by effectively excluding people from them.”
“For many community members, the practice of religion is a deeply personal exercise in understanding their lives and place in the world, and many congregants view in-person worship as a religious mandate that they cannot abandon without spiritual consequences,” the brief states. At the same time, houses of worship also serve as meeting places for nonreligious community groups, including volunteer organizations, support groups and food pantries.
The brief states that interviews with more than two dozen pastors and other religious leaders across the country indicated that fear has driven down attendance at services and hindered their ability to conduct community service activities.
The brief concludes: “It will ultimately be local prosecutors and law enforcement in high-immigrant jurisdictions and the communities they serve, not federal officials, who will bear the brunt of this breakdown in civil society.”
Courts are urged to uphold protections for houses of worship and rescind policy changes that “strike at the core of human existence and send a clear message that nowhere is safe, that law enforcement and the legal system will punish you, your family, and your friends merely for exercising core constitutional rights and seeking essential services, including spiritual well-being.” As reflected in DHS rhetoric, however, such protections are viewed as creating hiding places for “criminals.”
Lt. Diane Goldstein (ret.), executive director of the Law Enforcement Action Partnership, said, “People must be able to go to class, see a doctor, or attend religious services without fearing an immigration raid. We urge the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to reverse this harmful decision and reaffirm that true safety comes when everyone feels secure in seeking care, education and community.”
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