'Outrageous': Lawyers warn court of possible ICE raids in churches over holidays
Democracy Forward says they're especially vigilant today for the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, widely celebrated by people of Latin American heritage.
For Donald Trump’s Department of Homeland Security, the holiday spirit has consisted mainly of posting deportation memes with Santa hats and Christmas merchandise. Three Justice Department attorneys told a reporter that the agency plans to raid Spanish-speaking churches over the holidays.
Democracy Forward’s CEO and president, Skye Perryman, who has sued to protect houses of worship from Trump’s immigration agents, treats that report as credible.
“I would like to say that that’s an unbelievable plan, but we know with this administration, they seek to do truly the most outrageous things,” Perryman said in an interview with All Rise News on Legal AF. “The government hasn’t denied that that’s its plan.”
Indeed, the official social media account of Trump’s Department of Homeland Security has done everything to associate Christmas with immigration raids. One recently posted meme features a Giga Chad, a square-jawed, muscular man associated with incel culture and 4chan.
The so-called Chad, held up as the masculine ideal for the so-called involuntarily celibate, browses Homeland Security’s new database of noncitizens convicted of crimes while sipping a warm beverage from a holiday mug.
According to a recent court filing, the government’s social media posts aren’t only online posturing.
Democracy Forward’s attorneys cited “disturbing new reporting claims that DHS components ‘intend to implement a comprehensive plan to target Spanish-speaking churches across the country during the upcoming holiday season between Thanksgiving, Nov. 27, and Christmas, Dec. 25.’”
“According to these reports, which claim to be based on sources within the U.S. Attorney’s offices for the Districts of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New York, ‘the plan’ is a ‘nationwide strategy,’” the filing states.
The group’s attorneys said that they didn’t confirm the reporting.
“Even if the reported plan to single out Spanish-speaking churches for enforcement does not materialize,” Democracy Forward warns that their clients’ religious gatherings could be chilled over the holiday season, including the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, “held annually on December 12, which is an important religious holiday for many people of Latin American heritage.”
Democracy Forward’s team has been vigilant.
“Of course, we have established a team that’s monitoring, talking to groups on the ground, [and] monitoring what’s happening in communities so that we can hopefully get into court as quickly as possible if something were to happen,” she said.
A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson, answering a press inquiry without a name provided, insisted: “ICE is not conducting enforcement operations at, or ‘raiding,’ churches.”
Perryman noted that the Trump administration’s policy expressly moved to facilitate such raids.
“The administration rescinded a memo that essentially protected so-called sensitive locations, which are hospitals, schools, and houses of worship, from indiscriminate immigration enforcement,” she noted. “You just can’t go and conduct raids in these sensitive locations. This was a policy, by the way, that was in effect for years — for Republican administrations, Democratic administrations, including Trump himself. So just to be clear, this is a longstanding policy.”
The Christian Broadcast Network, a conservative Christian outlet founded by televangelist Pat Robertson, highlighted such arrests in a lengthy profile published today.
The Homeland Security spokesperson said that the policy allows enforcement if “a dangerous illegal alien felon like a gang member, murderer, or pedophile were to flee into a church,” but insisted that “this has not happened.”
“Our agents use discretion,” the spokesperson said. “Officers would need secondary supervisor approval before any action can be taken in a church. We expect these to be extremely rare.”
Democracy Forward’s lawsuit filed in July cites several examples to the contrary.
“For example, last month alone, agents seized a man in front of a church near Los Angeles and brandished a rifle at a pastor in the process; detained a grandfather in the same city who was dropping his granddaughter off at a church school; arrested a man outside a church in Oregon; and carried out arrests on two Catholic parish properties in Montclair and Highland, California,” the July complaint states.
The Christian Broadcast Network article highlighted another such incident in November.
Read Democracy Forward’s filing here.
This is a grotesque criminal regime.
What is the Trump regime not capable of?