GROUPS SUE TO PROTECT IMMIGRANTS' RIGHTS IN PLACE OF WORSHIP

More than 25 religious organizations including the Episcopal Church and the Union for Reform Judaism, as well as the Mennonites and the Unitarian Universalists, among others, sued the federal government in court in Washington D.C. a few days ago.

The lawsuit demands that ICE eliminate its new policy that allows officers to enter and detain people in religious places, hospitals and schools, places that had previously been respected for many years.

Religious groups are denouncing that this new policy infringes on religious freedoms by limiting the ability of immigrants to attend religious services, regardless of their immigration status or religious beliefs. For me it is hypocritical when many of Trump's collaborators talk about how important it is for people to attend churches, temples or religious places and at the same time they want to hurt them when they attend, just because of their immigration status.

There are also calls for the judge to order a halt to the practice of this new policy while he makes his decision and issues a ruling; we still don't know if they will suspend it while the case is ongoing in court.

We agree with these religious groups and we want to thank them for supporting immigrants. There are also several churches and temples that have put up signs on their doors saying that they do not authorize entry to ICE officers unless they have a specific warrant to enter and search the premises, authorized by a judge, which they almost never have.

This is another clear example of the war waged by Trump supporters against immigrants, demonstrating the bad faith they have and the hypocrisy of many evangelical Christian groups who supported Trump in his anti-immigrant campaign and now want to hurt immigrants who seek to practice their religious faith.

LAW AGAINST SO-CALLED SANCTUARY CITIES

Republican representatives in the Michigan State Legislature in Lansing are proposing another anti-immigrant law, this time against sanctuary cities.

On Tuesday the house of representatives, one of the two parts that make up the congress, presented a political proposal to punish cities such as Ann Arbor and Grand Rapids, among others, that decide to support immigrants. The proposal consists of withdrawing state funds from these sanctuary cities.

A sanctuary city is one that decides not to cooperate with ICE in its major campaign to detain, arrest and make life impossible for immigrants. In the House of Representatives all the Republicans, who are in the majority, voted in favor of this proposal, which is not yet law, it still has to go through the Senate and then it must be signed by the governor. If the governor does not sign it, Congress can approve it, but it would need more votes, which will be difficult.

Trump supporters lie when they say that each state will be safer by eliminating these dangerous people, which we know is just an excuse to deport more immigrants. Most of the people arrested under the current Trump administration have never been convicted of serious crimes or lack them, at most they have been arrested for driving without a license, because the law does not allow them to have one.

The funny thing is that those same people against the supposedly criminals voted for Trump after he had been convicted of several felonies and allowed Trump to pardon thousands of people who attacked the Capitol, beat up police officers and destroyed state property on January 6, 2021.

These people are now willing to punish cities that want to protect innocent immigrants, calling for them not to be treated with hate. We hope that Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer will oppose this program when it goes to the Senate, that she will defend immigrants and not fall for the lies and hate of the anti-immigrant crowd.