At our Meeting for Business on April 13, 2025, we recorded the following minute of support:
The Missoula 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.
This lawsuit 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. ICE enforcement actions in Quaker meeting houses would violate our constitutional right to practice our religion free of interference from the federal government as well as desecrating the peaceful sanctity of our Meetings for Worship.
We understand that only the Meeting Houses associated with the Quaker Meetings, and the houses of worship of the other religious communities that are plaintiffs in the lawsuit, are currently protected under the February 24th injunction barring warrantless immigration actions. The Missoula Meeting joins many other U.S. and international Quaker Meetings, and other religious organizations, in asking that people in our Meeting House and all places of worship
also be protected in this manner.
From Montana, we hold the Philadelphia and other Friends Meetings, and our immigrant brothers and sisters in the Light as we “come through the darkness to the ocean of light.”
In Solidarity,
The Missoula Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends
