Dear friends at Philadelphia Yearly Meeting,
At our Meeting for Business on March 2nd, we recorded the following minute of support:
St. Petersburg Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends is united in our support for the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends et al v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security et al.
We offer our gratitude to the plaintiffs, Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, New England Yearly Meeting, Baltimore Yearly Meeting, Adelphi Friends Meeting, and Richmond Friends Meeting, for being faithful and for acting swiftly and courageously to protect religious freedom. We will hold them in the light as they move forward in this lawsuit, which asks the court to set aside the Trump Administration’s rescission of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) ‘sensitive locations’ policy that, for over 30 years, had restricted Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) from conducting immigration raids, arrests, and other enforcement actions at houses of worship.
We steadfastly oppose allowing ICE enforcement actions in Quaker meeting houses or any place of worship. Such actions would violate our Constitutional right to practice our religion free of interference from the federal government — by desecrating the sanctity of our Meetings for Worship, and by preventing us from obeying our sacred calling to provide a safe and welcoming community for any and all persons, regardless of their race, gender, or immigration status.
We also oppose this new DHS policy because it would interfere with the Constitutional right of immigrants, whether documented or undocumented. The First Amendment protects the freedom of religion for all people in the United States, including undocumented immigrants; the Constitution protects people based on their personhood, not their citizenship status.
Blessings on your journey,
Linda Morganstein, Clerk
St. Petersburg Monthly Meeting
