Legal Action
Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Filed in: U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland
Summary
A group of Quaker congregations, together with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and the Sikh Temple of Sacramento, sued the Trump-Vance administration to prevent deportation raids from occurring in places of worship. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced it would remove previous limitations on where Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents could conduct deportation raids by rescinding a previous policy to not conduct raids in “sensitive locations,” particularly places of worship and religious ceremonies. The plaintiffs argued that the new rule allowing ICE raids on religious sites violated their congregants’ First Amendment right to religious freedom and should be declared unconstitutional and unenforceable.
Plaintiffs
- Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends
- New England Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends
- Baltimore Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, Inc.
- New York Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends
- Adelphi Friends Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends
- Richmond Friends Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends
- Cooperative Baptist Fellowship
- Sikh Temple Sacramento
Plaintiffs' Counsel
- Democracy Forward Foundation
Defendants
- U.S. Department of Homeland Security
- Secretary Kristi Noem