In late January 2025, Quakers sued the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) over potential immigration raids at houses of worship. Plaintiffs include Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, New England Yearly Meeting, Baltimore Yearly Meeting, Adelphi (Md.) Meeting, and Richmond (Va.) Meeting. The suit argues that plaintiffs’ religious liberty is violated by the Trump administration’s January 20, 2025 rescindment of protections for people without legal status in “sensitive locations” such as places of worship.
Updates, February 2026
Judge greenlights most parts of lawsuit to move forward
On February 3, 2026, Theodore Chuang, a federal judge in Maryland, ruled that most portions of the lawsuit can proceed, Law 360 reported. Chuang ruled that the January 2025 rescinding of the sensitive locations policy altered the parameters of immigration enforcement officers’ activities and that the policy change is subject to the Administrative Procedure Act (APA).
The APA is a 1946 law that requires federal agencies to inform the public ahead of suggested rule changes, offer citizens a chance to comment, and explain the rationale for changes that are final decisions, according to Ballotpedia. Judges can review agency changes to avoid arbitrary and capricious rules that overstep agency authority.
Judge Chuang determined that while the policy change is subject to the APA, it is not subject to the notice-and-comment requirements of the APA because it is not legislative. Legislative rules are binding, according to the Administrative Conference of the United States. Non-legislative rules are non-binding and are intended to offer interpretation or guidance.
Quaker Scholars and others file friend of the court briefs in support of plaintiffs
On January 5, 2026, several organizations filed four friend of the court briefs supporting the plaintiffs.
One of the groups that submitted a brief was Quaker Scholars, which includes professors Isaac Barnes May of Yale University; Stephen Angell of Earlham College; Jane Calvert of the University of Kentucky; Thomas D. Hamm, professor emeritus of Earlham College; Julie Holcomb of Baylor University; Andrew Taylor of the College of St. Scholastica; and David Watt of Haverford College.
The new policy infringes upon Constitutional and legal entitlements of Quakers even if ICE does not raid a meetinghouse, the brief argues.
“Simply put, so long as DHS may legally raid a Quaker meetinghouse, religious exercise is affected,” the brief said.
The change in policy has forced Quakers to close parts of their meetinghouses and to train members how to interact with law enforcement officers, according to the brief.
The U.S. Supreme Court has unanimously ruled that the government cannot have any role in the selection of ministers, the brief states. Given that Quakers believe each worshiper has a direct relationship with the Divine and can offer vocal ministry in meeting for worship, the new policy allows the government to limit who can be a minister.
The case in which the Supreme Court ruled in 2012 that the government cannot influence the choice of ministers was Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. EEOC.
“The testimony of equality bars Quaker meetings from enacting any policy that might make non-U.S. citizens less welcome than citizens. It further prevents Quakers from taking actions that put any of their members at risk of government detention,” the brief said.
The brief notes Quakers’ history of helping Japanese Americans during World War II as well as participating in the Sanctuary Movement in the 1980s. These examples show that Quakers consider helping people regardless of nationality as essential to their faith, according to the brief.
Contemporary care for immigrants stems from the same love of humanity that inspired Quaker abolitionists to oppose slavery, the brief explains.
“The ever-present potential of these raids severs Quakers from their long history of offering aid to immigrants and the disadvantaged—those whom Jesus called the ‘least of these,’” the brief said.
Friends can argue that they are suffering an Article III injury and mount a pre-enforcement challenge even if enforcement does not happen at their houses of worship, according to the brief. An Article III injury refers to Article III of the Constitution. To claim such an injury, plaintiffs must demonstrate concrete harm rather than just fear of harm.
The threat of armed raids reminds contemporary Quakers of the persecution that caused their spiritual ancestors to leave England, according to the brief. Quakers were also persecuted by Puritans in the Massachusetts Bay Colony who outlawed Friends meetings. Puritans also executed four Quakers.
Friend of the court briefs are written by organizations that are not involved in the case but that provide expertise to illuminate the legal issues the court is considering.
Other organizations that filed friend of the court briefs include Muslim Advocates and the National Immigration Law Center, which collaborated to submit one brief; the Religious Freedom Clinic at Harvard Law School; and Fair and Just Prosecution.
Update, February 24, 2025: Judge grants a preliminary injunction
On February 24, 2025, U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang granted a preliminary injunction for plaintiffs in the case but stopped short of enjoining immigration enforcement at all houses of worship nationwide. The judge noted that the Quakers in the lawsuit expressed concern that having armed DHS agents near meetinghouses would violate Friends’ pacifist convictions. The judge also pointed out that embracing the equality testimony and seeing that of God in everyone, regardless of immigration status, are central to Quaker beliefs.
The judge noted that DHS was obligated to explain how the new policy advances a “compelling state interest” that could not be furthered through less restrictive means but that the government did not offer such an explanation. The injunction prevents immigration enforcement at plaintiffs houses of worship while the lawsuit continues.
Update, February 10, 2025: New England Quakers explain their participation
New England Yearly Meeting (NEYM) Secretary Noah Merrill noted that when making the time-sensitive decision to join the lawsuit he and others at the yearly meeting level discerned based on guidelines in a 2015 minute on responding to urgent matters.
NEYM has received support from other Christians, as well as communities of Sikhs, Muslims, and Jews, according to Merrill. Across the country, monthly meetings, yearly meetings, and other Quaker entities, have endorsed the lawsuit by adopting minutes, offering to become plaintiffs, and expressing their willingness to file amicus briefs, Merrill noted.
An amicus brief is filed by entities that are not directly involved in a lawsuit but who have a compelling interest in the outcome.
The lawsuit represents Quakers’ discerned response to a difficult political situation.
“We continue to see the fruits of the Spirit arising from this action, and pray that this small step may be an encouragement—to Friends and many beyond—in these troubled times we have been given. We are grateful for Friends holding us in prayer in the coming days, weeks, and months as the lawsuit and the chaos in response to which arises continue to unfold,” Merrill said.
Original story, January 27, 2025
Quakers Sue DHS over Immigration Enforcement and Religious Freedom
Quakers are suing the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) over potential immigration raids at houses of worship. Plaintiffs include Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, New England Yearly Meeting, Baltimore Yearly Meeting, Adelphi (Md.) Meeting, and Richmond (Va.) Meeting. The suit argues that plaintiffs’ religious liberty is violated by the Trump administration’s January 20 rescindment of protections for people without legal status in “sensitive locations” such as places of worship.
Since 2011, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents have been restricted from arresting, interrogating, searching, or surveilling people in such places as meetinghouses, churches, mosques, synagogues, schools, and hospitals.
The suit states that immigration enforcement in and around houses of worship violates worshipers’ First Amendment right to freedom of religion.
“The core of the lawsuit argues that if the protections of religious exercise mean anything under the law, it must include the right of people to gather together for worship. If the government is going to impede that right, it must have a very good reason for doing so. The government has not enforced immigration law at houses of worship for at least the last 31 years, so it is difficult to see how an about-face on that policy could satisfy any meaningful level of review,” according to a statement on Philadelphia Yearly Meeting’s (PYM) website.
The councils of the yearly meeting met and easily came to unity about becoming plaintiffs of the suit, according to PYM general secretary Christie Duncan-Tessmer. Immediately prior to the suit being filed the clerks of monthly and quarterly meetings gathered to hear the news and were also supportive and excited.
“Everything just moved lightning fast. By Quaker standards, it was breathtaking,” said Duncan-Tessmer.
Representatives from PYM, Baltimore Yearly Meeting, and New England Yearly Meeting worked with lawyers from Democracy Forward, the nonprofit legal group that filed the suit, in the middle of last week, according to Duncan-Tessmer. The suit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland on January 27.
Friends’ historic experience of religious persecution motivated modern Quakers to join the lawsuit, according to Duncan-Tessmer. William Penn protected freedom of religion in the Charter of Privileges. The framers of the Constitution drew on this tradition to enshrine religious liberty in the First Amendment, she explained. The First Amendment was ratified in 1791. The Constitution was ratified between 1787 and 1789.
“That’s why we have freedom of religion in this country because of Quakers,” Duncan-Tessmer said.
Protections for individuals without legal status at sensitive locations included exceptions for cases involving national security hazards, terrorism, and imminent threats of death or violence, according to DHS.
“U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement does not comment on ongoing litigation,” said an ICE spokesperson.
Correction: The process of PYM’s decision making and work with other yearly meetings and Democracy Forward has been clarified. We have also added a response from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
This is a developing story, originally published January 27, 2025. Please check frequently for updates.
I admire and respect Quakers
I am Jewish and if I was to become Christian it would be with friends society .
Many people are not familiar with Treaty of Tripoli Article 11 ratified by president Adams and congress ” America is not a Christian country”.
And Evangelical Christian churches white nationalists force their New testament upon us and others .
The new testament curses us Jews and Torah laws.
Centuries of pogroms inquisitions forced conversions expulsions burning alive Jews heretics holocaust in Christian Europe and Russia.
These fact of history are glossed over and ignored .
How do the Quakers view the antisemitic passages in your new testament?
Which of the hundreds of variant versions of the Christian bibles do Quakers rely on?
תודה רבה שלום ?Peace out .
James,
There are Quaker-Jews (and Quaker-Unitarians and many other combinations), so you should be welcomed as fully equal.
The New Testament was written over 2,000 years ago with plenty of outdated biases (slavery, minorities, women, children, etc.), yet the core of what Jesus said is love God and neighbor, and share God’s equal infinite love of all of us.
While Jews tormented early Christians, the proper Christian response is to love and forgive. Unfortunately, our human instinct for demonizing others and revenge gets in the way of what Jesus asked us to do to reflect God’s equal infinite love for all of us. Without prioritizing forgiveness (as a form of love) we see religions in the Middle East falling prey to our base human instinct and spiraling down in an endless cycle of vengeful violence, as force consistently fails in the long run. An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.
Jesus shared with us the solution…individual love and forgiveness are the only sustainable way to achieve social peace and justice.
I, too, am of Jewish descent (and practice, until a couple of years ago) and have joined my Abington Meeting where no creed, Christian or otherwise, is required. And I am thoroughly enjoying my new religious life of prioritizing the “light” and love in every person, while trying to live a life that prioritizes simplicity, peace, integrity, equity, sustainability, and plain and constant attempts to be the best person I can be. Quakerism springs from Christianity, more as a reaction to it than an adherence to it. We preach from no “testaments,” old or new, and strive to find and share the beauty and pain of this life in as constructive and spiritual way as possible. In Friendship,
James, Quakers come in all styles and theologies. You can even be a non-theist Quaker. See https://nontheistquakers.org/contemplative-conversations/ , nontheist-quakers.org.uk , and wikipedia.org/wiki/Nontheist_Quakers . Continuing revelation expands all boundaries.
DHS should specify “credible” imminent threats of death or violence, as teen pranks and online ranting without any credible means to act, or any tangible action, could be easily be abused by government. When search warrants are requested, there must be a public defender present with the judge and prosecutor to represent the defendant, as well as the church. Also important to limit any exceptions for search warrants to violent felons or felony, not non-violent felon or violent misdemeanor, and certainly not for non-violent misdemeanor or petty offense.
Hi James,
Quakers see that of God in everyone (or at least try very hard) and endeavor to discern what is right or wrong on an ongoing basis.
While they started out as a group of protestants during the reformation, they ere considered rebels. They do not follow a doctrine or script or rules imposed from the top down, but rather seek to find divine inspiration and clarity in a multitude of sources: spiritual writings (including bibles), different faiths, philosophical texts, messages given in Meeting, what your neighbor said last night or what you saw on the subway this morning or a what a bird told you during a walk in the park. LISTENING with your heart is essential! It is an experiential faith, grounded in life, not words, and we can always learn and develop further.
Individual Meetings can differ substantially; some Meetings are more Christ-centered, others more universal, many are very small, others bigger, some rural, others urban. The Meeting I belong to (Brooklyn Monthly Meeting) is rather large (about 100 – 130 people present on a given Sunday). It is considered rather liberal and also contains quite an array of people coming from other faith traditions – including Jewish – who somehow manage to find the common elements that they feel make up the essence of a spiritual life for them.
Of late, our Meeting is also experiencing an astonishing influx of young people who are in search of openness and honesty and a hope for the future by striving for peace and acceptance within a supportive and loving community. I am not saying this to brag (we are very human and therefore also very fallible), but to explain that the written word is not the be-all and end-all for us and that everyone needs to find their own way to seek and create peace and love.
It’s not about the differences between us humans – it’s about realizing that we are all creations of the same force and have the monumental task of sharing this planet in peaceful ways. A never-ending labor of love!
But I’m sure, other Quakers can give you somewhat differring answers…
I found this piece very affirming! I live very rurally, so when I actually do attend Meeting, or connect with it through email offerings of a variety of workshops, the emphasis is more on spiritual nurturing than I connect with. I think I’m simply more a person of faith through social action. Sometimes I think I’m not spiritual enough to consider myself a Quaker, although I’m a birthright Quaker for many generations on my mother’s side (who attended the Brooklyn Friends School and Meeting) in the early 1900s. So your piece gave me the comfort, and the peace, to continue to consider myself a Quaker, but in the most liberal sense. And that feels good. Thank you!
Quaker scholars (FJ 3/26 p.40f) are misguided in supporting a special legal protection for Quaker meetings and other religious institutions from invasion by ICE of DHS. Quaker leaders should advocate for protection from ICE invasion into homes, schools, and other institutions. of which Quaker meetings are one. Quaker leaders should not ask for a special religious treatment and should advocate for appropriate protections, and equal due process procedures for all.
I’d go even further: Quaker leaders should advocate for the total dismantling of the carceral state. Until we can get to that point, however, we can at least hold the state accountable to the promises it makes to its citizens, including any guarantee it might have made against prohibiting the free exercise of religion. This isn’t “special religious treatment,” but rather a freedom everyone should expect the state to honor.