Indianapolis-based church joins lawsuit challenging arrests made inside houses of worship

• Two Indiana-based churches are challenging the Trump administration’s policy allowing arrests and raids in houses of worship
• The Indiana churches named in the lawsuit were Disciples of Christ, based out of Indianapolis, and Mennonite Church USA, based out of Elkhart.
• “We don’t take this step lightly, but this extreme action from the federal government challenges a foundation of our faith and threatens to shatter our consecrated spaces,” said Rev. Terri Hord Owens.

Weeks after President Donald Trump’s administration implemented a policy that allowed immigration enforcement agents to conduct arrests inside places of worship, a joint lawsuit was filed against the administration by dozens of religious and advocacy groups, including two Indiana churches.

The lawsuit, which was filed on Feb. 11, claims that the administration’s decision to allow immigration enforcement agencies to execute arrests and raids without judicial warrants inside of “sensitive locations” such as places of worship violates these groups’ rights to religious freedom and has caused a decrease in worship attendance and social services participation due to fear of immigration enforcement action.

The Indiana churches named in the lawsuit were Disciples of Christ, based out of Indianapolis, and Mennonite Church USA, based out of Elkhart.

“We don’t take this step lightly, but this extreme action from the federal government challenges a foundation of our faith and threatens to shatter our consecrated spaces,” Rev. Terri Hord Owens, general minister and president of Disciples of Christ, said in a statement about the lawsuit.

“Our faith compels us to take a stand and protect our places of worship.”

The lawsuit claims that the administration’s decision to allow such raids has had a lasting impact on places of worship across the county and highlights the impact of an immigration arrest inside a Georgia church earlier this year.

ICE agents had entered a Pentecostal church in Georgia in order to arrest Wilson Velásquez, a migrant from Honduras, who escaped the country with his wife and three children in 2022 and was in the process of seeking asylum in the United States.

Velásquez had entered the country illegally but immediately turned himself and his family into U.S. custody after crossing the border in order to seek asylum.

As part of the process, an immigration judge placed a GPS-tracking monitor on Velásquez’s ankle.

The lawsuit claims that Velásquez had attended all of his scheduled appointments with the immigration court, but “ICE agents arrested him anyway, explaining that they were simply “looking for people with ankle bracelets.”

The pastor of that church claimed that after the arrest he could see “the fear and tears on (his congregation) faces.”

“We take seriously the command in Scripture to welcome the stranger (Leviticus 19:33-34 NRSV), and Jesus’ teaching that whenever we minister to one of the least of these, we are ministering to him,” Owens’ statement reads.

On Monday, in a similar lawsuit, a federal judge blocked immigration agents conducting arrests in houses of worship for a number of religious groups.

U.S. District Judge Theodore Chang believed that the Trump administration policy could be violating churches’ religious freedom and noted that arrests should be blocked until these lawsuit challenges are completed.

Contact IndyStar reporter Noe Padilla at npadilla@indystar.com, follow him on X @1NoePadilla or on Bluesky @noepadilla.bsky.social.