Faced with the onslaught of executive actions from the first few weeks of the second Trump administration, it is tempting to tune out or become numb. The emotional weight of policies that target our most marginalized and vulnerable neighbors can seem too much to bear. For me, this feeling is compounded by the knowledge that we could have avoided this outcome if the majority of Catholics had voted differently in the 2024 election.
While it is important to set healthy boundaries around our media consumption, Catholics are called to deepen our engagement with public affairs even when we feel overwhelmed, and we have an acute moral responsibility to mitigate the harms being perpetrated now. For all who want to stand in solidarity with those being targeted, I have a few suggestions.
First, we can urge church leadership to stand up for religious freedom. This week more than two dozen Christian and Jewish denominations and ecumenical groups joined a lawsuit against the Trump administration’s rescission of the Department of Homeland Security’s “sensitive locations” policy. That policy has instructed ICE and other immigration enforcement officers to avoid making arrests at places of worship (as well as schools and hospitals). While some significant Christian denominations, such as the Episcopal Church and the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, have signed on as plaintiffs, the Catholic Church has not done so as of this writing. This lawsuit—historic in its scope and breadth, representing millions of people and tens of thousands of houses of worship—approaches the sensitive locations policy from the standpoint of religious freedom.
According to the complaint filed by the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection at Georgetown Law, in partnership with the Center on Faith and Justice at Georgetown University (where I work), the plaintiffs:
bring this suit unified on a fundamental belief: Every human being, regardless of birthplace, is a child of God worthy of dignity, care, and love. Welcoming the stranger, or immigrant, is thus a central precept of their faith practices.… An immigration enforcement action during worship services, ministry work, or other congregational activities…would shatter the consecrated space of sanctuary, thwart communal worship, and undermine the social service outreach that is central to religious expression and spiritual practice for Plaintiffs’ congregations and members.
The Trump administration has created a task force that it says will counter “anti-Christian bias” and defend “religious liberty,” but this lawsuit protests that this administration is itself egregiously threatening the freedom of Christians to practice our faith by freely sharing worship and ministry with people regardless of their immigration status.
Not only does this lawsuit make a clear and unambiguous statement about the centrality of affirming human dignity to our faith tradition; it also backs that up with action. The plaintiffs will ask for a temporary injunction of the order rescinding the sensitive locations memo, and if granted, each plaintiff’s congregations will be able to gather and worship without fear of disruption by D.H.S. agents while it is being litigated.
While words of encouragement and solidarity are important, and while some bishops have spoken out against the D.H.S. policy change (including Bishop Mark J. Seitz of El Paso, Texas), taking further action is crucial. I hope our church will do more to step up. In his letter to the U.S. bishops on Feb. 11, Pope Francis addressed the crisis of the mass deportation plans, expressing gratitude for the church’s work in protecting the vulnerable while exhorting them to continue working “for the protection and defense of those who are considered less valuable, less important or less human.” Signing on to this lawsuit as an institution offers a constructive way to walk in solidarity that will have immediate positive consequences. (In the meantime, lay Catholics can sign a petition associated with the lawsuit that will be delivered to the White House, D.H.S. and every member of Congress.)
Beyond advocating our leadership to sign on to this lawsuit, there are other possibilities for action. The important thing is to get started. Identify the vulnerabilities and assets of your local community, and defend against the former by developing the latter. For me, this has meant inviting members of my parish to form a social justice committee. We meet every week to discuss what steps we can take to protect parishioners who are at risk of racial profiling and deportation, listening primarily to those who are vulnerable in order to learn their specific concerns and how we might support them.
Some of the actions we’ve come up with include planning “know your rights” trainings and identifying attorneys in our parish who might consider offering legal advice; training ushers and others in the community to respond to ICE, should they arrive during Mass; organizing community support networks to provide for immediate needs—like child care, meals and emergency funds—if a parishioner is detained; and educating our parishioners about the crisis and why Catholics must show up in solidarity. This last one is important, both to ensure that our parish is receiving accurate information and to counter the sacrilegious “narratives that discriminate against and cause unnecessary suffering to our migrant and refugee brothers and sisters” that Pope Francis warns against. Discerning how to do this work without increasing the risk to our already vulnerable neighbors is critical.
While much of my local effort focuses on the deportation crisis at the moment, there are myriad issues of concern. I recommend the book Active Hope, by Joanna Macy and Chris Johnstone, and the related resource Active Hope Training. In that series, we learn to ask what it is that we hope for—the best possible outcome for the issue that most concerns us—and then to discern and identify one thing that we can do to make that outcome more likely. This has been such a helpful framing for me in this moment, when I feel so insignificant and overwhelmed.
I might not be able to solve all the problems, and the authoritarian activity of this administration feels overwhelming and isolating, but I can identify an action that will make what I hope for more likely. Collaboration and community are key: isolation weakens us; organizing is power. And importantly, even the act of allowing ourselves to feel the pain of this moment is “doing” something: As this administration is implementing acts of callousness and cruelty, leaning into the vulnerability of compassion and allowing it to move us is an act of resistance.
[Read next: “Faith groups sue over Trump administration policy to permit ICE arrests at churches.”]
