During President Donald Trump’s first administration, more than a dozen migrants took refuge in Philadelphia churches, the most of any city in the country, blocking their deportations and away from ICE agents.
Agency policy has deemed houses of worship off limits except in extraordinary circumstances.
Now that protection is gone. The Trump administration’s directive issued Monday lifted restrictions preventing federal agents from entering churches, schools and hospitals in what the federal Department of Homeland Security said was a move aimed at keeping American citizens protected.
On Wednesday, Philadelphia activists who helped shelter undocumented immigrants in churches in Germantown, University City and North Philadelphia announced recent resistance, emphasizing that knocking on doors does not automatically require a response.
“It feels like an emotional war, that this is really the goal, to try to take away every safe space,” said Peter Pedemonti, co-director of the New Sanctuary Movement in Philadelphia, which includes 33 churches in the region. “Gatherings are not just safe spaces, they are sacred spaces. This looks like a desecration.”
The New Sanctuary Movement is warning church leaders that the policy change does not mean ICE can enter a church at its discretion, Pedemonti said, and clergy should ask to see court orders if agents show up. Churches should have response protocols in place and train staff on how to respond if U.S. Customs and Immigration Services agents arrive, he said.
ICE officials in Philadelphia did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.
Hours after Trump’s inauguration on Monday, homeland security officials recommended that federal law enforcement agents be allowed to operate in places where they were previously barred, including colleges, funerals, rallies and shelters, eliminating church shelters that Philadelphia immigration advocates had deemed for the last -Trench, but a life-saving tactic.
“Criminals will no longer be able to hide in America’s schools and churches to avoid arrest,” the Department of Homeland Security, which manages ICE, said in a statement. “The Trump administration will not tie the hands of our brave law enforcement and instead trusts them to use common sense.”
The the repeal also applies to U.S. Customs and Border Protectionwhose mission is to protect borders and boost economic prosperity.
“He says there is no place where people can be safe,” said the Rev. Renee McKenzie, who, less than a year into Trump’s first term, made the decision to welcome a frightened, undocumented family of five to the Church of the Advocate in North Philadelphia. “I expected that based on what was said and knowing how the administration feels about immigrants.”
McKenzie, who currently serves at St. Calvary Episcopal Church. Augustine in West Philadelphia’s Belmont neighborhood, expressed concerns that some churches would think twice about helping undocumented immigrants knowing they could become targets.
Is Philadelphia prepared for federal immigration enforcement?
The directive called into question the Philadelphia school district’s “sanctuary schools” policy on Wednesday, even as City Council member Rue Landau convened a hearing on Trump’s readiness to face four complex years for the Democratic-led large city.
The City Hall hearing highlighted criticism of Mayor Cherelle L. Parker for not forcefully supporting Philadelphia’s status as a sanctuary city, a place that deliberately limits cooperation with federal immigration authorities.
City attorney Renee Garcia said the city’s asylum protections remain in effect but did not confirm whether Parker was considering additional steps as she and her staff reviewed a number of Trump’s day one executive orders on immigration.
The city faces an additional challenge at a time of federal scrutiny: Hours after the Trump administration ordered U.S. prosecutors to investigate local officials who do not cooperate with mass deportation plans, Parker announced that Bureau of Immigration Affairs Director Amy Eusebio will leave her job on Friday . The city will undertake a nationwide search for a successor, the mayor announced.
The Philadelphia Public Defenders Association, which provides advice to people who can’t afford to hire private attorneys, said at the hearing that it intends to create an “immigrant defense unit” to aid people at risk of deportation, according to lead defense attorney Keisha Hudson. She added that the association will demand an additional $800,000 from the city for this purpose.
How churches became the backdrop for the national immigration debate
There are approximately 47,000 undocumented people living in Philadelphia, and their lack of legal status puts them at risk of deportation. They are among 153,000 statewide, with an additional 440,000 in New Jersey.
Many Americans want them, of the 13 million in the country illegally, to be deported. AND recent poll by Ipsos and the New York Times shows that 63% support removing immigrants who entered the country without permission in the last four years, and 55% said they support deporting all undocumented immigrants.
According to activists, no one is currently in the church sanctuary in Philadelphia.
During Trump’s first term, the sanctuary provided a dramatic backdrop to a furious national debate over immigration, with families and church leaders across the country opposing the authority of the federal government.
Between 2016 and 2018, as ICE stepped up its enforcement efforts, the number of immigrants in sanctuary increased from five to 42, and the churches, synagogues and mosques that were willing to provide housing nearly tripled to 1,110.
Philadelphia was ground zero. In most cities there were no people in the church sanctuary, in others maybe one or two, in Philadelphia there were 14 at one point.
Only the most desperate families took refuge here, mainly mothers and children who believed they could be killed if they were sent back to their homeland.
Some remained at home for years, supported in their daily lives by a network of clergy and groups such as the New Sanctuary Movement. Everyone at the sanctuary ultimately exited safely after finding legal ways to stay in the United States.
The church sanctuary is a nuisance to all concerned, but its protection, provided in part by a sensitive locations policy, has given families a key advantage in their fight to stay in the country: time. The years spent in the sanctuary created space for the development of recent legal strategies, the development of court cases and the change of the presidential administration.
ICE’s sensitive locations policy goes back many years: it was created during Barack Obama’s presidency, was in place during the first Trump administration, and then was strengthened during Joe Biden’s presidency. In particular, he directed agents to focus on migrants who pose a risk to national security, border security or public safety.
All versions of this policy discouraged agents from operating in churches and other places except in extraordinary cases.
Immigration advocates in Philadelphia say ICE sometimes violates its own rules by taking action in places that should be sacred.
In 2020, agents detained a woman after she brought a child to Eliza B. Kirkbride Elementary School in South Philadelphia. School district officials said the woman was approached near Seventh and Dickinson streets, but did not know if she was on school property.
That same year, ICE arrested a Honduran man at a Scranton hospital and later booked him into the Pike County Correctional Facility. Pennsylvania attorney Juliette Gomez said her client’s arrest clearly violated sensitive locations rules. ICE said the arrest began and continued in federal court.
In 2019, an ICE agent showed up in Courtroom 906 at the Philadelphia Criminal Justice Center, showing a badge and looking for a specific defendant. Due to this incident, the city’s sheriff required agents to identify themselves to deputies if they were on courtroom duty.
“We withdrew before the note on sensitive locations and we will withdraw now,” Pedemonti said on Wednesday. “The Trump administration does not dictate what congregations do. God yes.”
Staff writers Kristen Graham, Anna Orso and Fallon Roth contributed to this article.
