Supreme Court hears case supported by Episcopal leaders challenging US asylum policies

[Episcopal News Service] The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments March 24 over the Trump administration’s policies toward asylum-seekers in a case that includes a “friend of the court” brief signed by Episcopal leaders, including the church’s two presiding officers.

Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe and House of Deputies President Julia Ayala Harris were among a long list of ecumenical and interfaith leaders who signed the brief in support of a lawsuit filed by Al Otro Lado, a California-based organization that supports refugees and migrants. The class-action lawsuit seeks to end the Department of Homeland Security’s practice of turning away asylum-seekers at the border based on criteria that, opponents say, do not follow U.S. immigration law.

At issue are administration policies under which border officials have ordered those migrants to remain in Mexico or have denied them asylum because they did not first seek asylum in another country.

“You cannot ask someone fleeing rape, torture, or death threats to wait in danger indefinitely because a government has decided their lives are inconvenient,” Nicole Elizabeth Ramos of Al Otro Lado said in a recent statement quoted by The New York Times. “The question before the court is whether those laws can be set aside by executive action, or whether they remain binding at the border, as written.”

The Kairos Center, which led the faith-based show of support for Al Otro Lado’s Supreme Court case, also organized a morning vigil outside the court on March 24, calling this “the most important asylum case in generations.”

Alan Yarborough, The Episcopal Church’s director of government relations, spoke at the vigil. “We gather today as people of faith to say with one voice: we urge our government to honor the right to seek refuge from persecution and violence,” he said in written excerpts of his remarks provided to Episcopal News Service.

“We are to see others as human and welcome them as not a stranger but a child of God,” Yarborough said. “All Episcopalians reiterate the promise we make and reaffirm in our baptismal covenant: to respect the dignity of every human being. Today we urge the courts to protect the right to asylum.”

Later in the day, The New York Times reported that a majority of justices appeared open to siding with the Trump administration in its efforts to block asylum-seekers at the border.

The Episcopal Church has long spoken in favor of upholding the dignity of refugees and migrants while citing the biblical call to “welcome the stranger.”  Such beliefs were stated by the presiding officers and the dozens of ecumenical and interfaith partners in the “friend of the court” brief opposing the Trump administration policies. The Episcopal Diocese of New York and Episcopal Divinity School also joined the brief.

“Many of these faith traditions are practiced across every country on Earth and have roots stretching back thousands of years,” the brief says. “All make safeguarding the stranger a core component of faith, a duty obligatory upon not just the individual but upon society as a whole.”

– David Paulsen is a senior reporter and editor for Episcopal News Service based in Wisconsin. He can be reached at dpaulsen@episcopalchurch.org.