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Churches have a long history of being safe havens — for immigrants and others
2007: Immigrant rights activist Elvira Arellano of Mexico defied a deportation order and took sanctuary for months in an apartment above the Adalberto United Methodist Church in Chicago. A new Trump administration policy no longer regards churches as “sensitive” areas where authorities should not pursue people in the country illegally. Arellano remains in the U.S.
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U.S. churches — once deemed off-limits to immigration authorities due to their “sensitive” status within communities — now face the prospect of federal agents arresting migrants within their walls, under a new Trump administration policy.
The new approach, which President Trump spoke of in a December interview, also applies to schools. The administration said it will trust agents to “use common sense” when enforcing immigration laws.
It’s an abrupt about-face for federal policies that had hewn much closer to decades and centuries of tradition. Migrants have long found support systems in houses of worship, including some churches that 40 years ago became sanctuaries for people facing deportation.
In the 1800s, U.S. churches gave safe harbor to enslaved people; during the Vietnam War, they sheltered people resisting the military draft.
Just last week, the Episcopal bishop of Washington, Mariann Budde, implored newly inaugurated President Trump to “have mercy” on immigrants seeking asylum in the U.S. and residents who “may not be citizens or have proper documentation.”
A similar pattern spans back to the early years of Christianity, of churches offering people refuge.
“Really this idea that we should show compassion and mercy to people who are vulnerable is so fundamental to any Christian, to our Christian values, to our Christian sacred texts — and really to all faith traditions,” the Rev. Noel Andersen, national field director for the refugee support organization Church World Service, tells NPR.
U.S. churches formed a sanctuary movement
The new U.S. policy countermands a 2011 Immigration and Customs Enforcement memo, which told agents and officers not to arrest people in “sensitive locations” such as churches, schools, hospitals and public demonstrations unless a clear danger or other exceptions existed.
The memo’s fate had been uncertain under the previous Trump administration. In Trump’s first term, churches granted sanctuary to immigrants in the U.S. illegally — including one woman who lived in an Ohio church for two years.
2017: Jeanette Vizguerra, who came to the U.S. without immigration documents, walks with two of her children as they seek sanctuary at First Unitarian Church in Denver, Colo. Vizguerra, who had been working in the U.S. for some 20 years, moved into a room in the basement of the church as she faced immediate deportation. Today, she continues working as an activist in the U.S.
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Marc Piscotty/Getty Images/Getty Images North America
During a crackdown in former President Obama’s second term, churches openly challenged immigration laws and sought lawyers to aid migrants. That followed record numbers of deportations reported in 2011. And in 2014, a Mexican immigrant spent a month in a Tucson, Ariz., church, which granted his family sanctuary.
In the 1980s, that same Tucson church, Southside Presbyterian, had been at the heart of a network of churches giving sanctuary to migrants from Central America who were under threat of deportation.
“Cold War politics brought U.S. support to repressive and violent regimes in Central America,” Filiz Garip, a sociologist at Princeton University, tells NPR. She adds that because the U.S. didn’t welcome people fleeing those regimes, “churches [and] synagogues declared themselves to be a sanctuary to refugees.”
Pastor recalls sanctuary movement’s spark
A pivotal moment came in July of 1980, when 13 Salvadorans died as a group of migrants entered the U.S. from Mexico. Southside Presbyterian’s minister, the Rev. John Fife, and other clergy were asked to help the survivors.
“For the first time I heard the extraordinary stories about the repression and the killings,” Fife told NPR in 2017. He and others helped the survivors find lawyers for asylum hearings.
“We’d take in people that had torture marks on their body, and doctors would testify, ‘Yeah, this guy’s been tortured in El Salvador,’ ” Fife said, “and the immigration judge would order him deported the next day.”
The Justice Department didn’t raid the churches helping migrants — but it mounted an undercover operation that resulted in felony charges.
“They infiltrated us with undercover agents pretending to be volunteers,” Fife said, adding that in court, a judge forbade the defendants from raising topics such as their religious faith, refugee laws, and conditions facing people in El Salvador and Guatemala.
2018: Members of the New Sanctuary Coalition hold a vigil and procession for Aura Hernandez, a mother from Guatemala taking sanctuary in a church in New York City. In 2022, Hernandez was granted status to stay in the U.S., putting her on a path to citizenship.
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Fife was convicted of conspiracy and transporting illegal aliens but was sentenced to parole rather than prison.
“Many people were able to apply for asylum eventually” in the years that followed, Andersen says, adding that policies such as the temporary protected status program that began in 1990 “were born out of the sanctuary movement.”
The TPS program allows people from countries designated as undergoing violent conflict, disasters, or other extreme conditions to gain work authorization and protection from deportation. In the first year of TPS, the U.S. granted the status to nationals of El Salvador; today, more than a dozen other countries are also on the list.
Churches often seen outside of official reach
The connection between religion and migration runs deep: Migrants from rural Mexico often ask their priests to bless their migration journeys, according to Garip. When they arrive in the U.S., she says, “the church is a key institution that makes newcomers feel welcome.”
Since Saint Toribio Romo was canonized by Pope John Paul II in 2000, the Mexican priest has been widely recognized as the patron saint of immigrants.
And in the 1800s, churches served as vital links in the Underground Railroad that helped enslaved people elude authorities and migrate to free states.
Such practices were built upon centuries-old ideas that held that churches were sacred and protected spaces — and that a “sanctuary” could refer to a physical meeting space, as well as to a concept of safety and refuge. And while “Sanctuary Cities” are a modern matter of contention, the Hebrew Bible lists six “Cities of Refuge” for people seeking refuge “and includes the ‘alien’ or ‘sojourner’ (gēr) among those who can seek refuge in the cities,” according to a paper by John R. Spencer of John Carroll University in Ohio.
Those cities helped spawn the broader idea of churches guaranteeing sanctuary, according to Rhonda Shapiro-Rieser of Smith College.
“Greek and Roman societies both held the concept of refuge and places of sanctuary,” she writes. “By the fourth century, the right to sanctuary was formalized among early Christians.”
It wasn’t until the 20th Century, Shapiro-Rieser writes, that states moved to claim the authority to enter churches at will.
The firing of US Navy Secretary John Phelan is the latest in a shakeup of the American military during the war on Iran, now in its eighth week.
The Pentagon said Phelan would leave office immediately.
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“On behalf of the Secretary of War and Deputy Secretary of War, we are grateful to Secretary Phelan for his service to the Department and the United States Navy,” said chief Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell. “We wish him well in his future endeavours”.
His firing comes at a critical moment, with US naval forces enforcing a blockade on Iranian ports and ships, and maintaining a heavy presence around the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20 percent of the world’s oil and gas passes during peacetime.
Although the Pentagon gave no official reason for the dismissal, reports indicate the decision was linked to internal disputes, including tensions with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
Phelan’s removal is part of a broader pattern of dismissals and restructuring within the US military under President Donald Trump’s administration – including during the current war.
So, who is John Phelan, and what impact could his firing have on US military strategy?
Who is John Phelan?
As the US Navy’s top civilian official, Phelan had various responsibilities, including overseeing recruiting, mobilising and organising, as well as construction and repair of ships and military equipment.
He was appointed in 2024 as a political ally of Trump, despite having no prior military or defence leadership experience.
Before entering government, Phelan was a businessman and investment executive, as well as a major Republican donor and fundraiser — a background that is fairly common among Trump appointees and advisers. The US president’s two top diplomatic negotiators, for instance, are Steve Witkoff — a real estate businessman with no prior diplomatic experience – and Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner.
According to the Reuters news agency, Phelan’s tenure quickly became controversial. He faced criticism for moving too slowly on shipbuilding reforms and for strained relationships with key Pentagon figures, including Hegseth and his deputy, Steve Feinberg.
In addition, Phelan was reportedly under an ethics investigation, which may have weakened his standing in the administration.
Navy Undersecretary Hung Cao, who was also reported to have a difficult relationship with Phelan, has become acting secretary. Fifty-four-year-old Cao is a 25-year Navy veteran who previously ran as a Republican candidate for the US Senate and House of Representatives in 2022 and 2024 respectively, but was unsuccessful on both occasions.
Democrats have criticised Phelan’s removal, calling it “troubling”.
“I am concerned it is yet another example of the instability and dysfunction that have come to define the Department of Defense under President Trump and Secretary Hegseth,” said Senator Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Who else has the Trump administration fired since the war with Iran began?
Phelan’s removal is the latest in a series of senior military leaders being fired or are leaving during the US-Israeli war on Iran, in addition to others since Trump was re-elected.
Among the most notable dismissals was Army Chief of Staff General Randy A. George, in the first week of April. George was appointed in 2023 under former US President Joe Biden.
According to reports, Hegseth also fired the head of the Army’s Transformation and Training Command, a unit concerned with modernising the army, and the Army’s chief of chaplains. The Pentagon has not confirmed their dismissal.
Why is Phelan’s dismissal significant?
The 62-year-old’s removal comes during a fragile ceasefire with Iran, as the US continues to move more naval assets into the region.
The Navy is central to enforcing Trump’s blockade of Iranian ports to restrict Iran’s oil exports and apply economic pressure on Tehran, as the US president looks eager to wrap up the war, which is deeply unpopular to many Americans.
However, there are no indications that Trump is willing to end the blockade or other naval operations in the Strait of Hormuz, as negotiations between Washington and Tehran have come to a standstill.
Tensions have escalated in recent days after the US military seized an Iranian container ship. The US claimed it was attempting to sail from the Arabian Sea through the Strait of Hormuz to the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas.
Tehran responded by describing the attack and hijack as an act of “piracy”.
Iran has since captured two cargo ships and fired at another.
Just two weeks ago, President Trump threatened to wipe out Iran’s civilization if it did not open the Strait of Hormuz. Days later, he said any Iranian “who fires at us, or at peaceful vessels, will be BLOWN TO HELL!”
Yet on Wednesday, after Iran seized two ships near the Strait of Hormuz, the White House was quick to argue the action was not a deal breaker for potential peace negotiations.
“These were not U.S. ships,” Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said on Fox News. “These were not Israeli ships.” Therefore, she explained, the Iranians had not violated a cease-fire with the United States that Mr. Trump has extended indefinitely.
She cautioned the news media against “blowing this out of proportion.”
The surprisingly tolerant tone from the White House suggests Mr. Trump is not eager to reignite a war that he started alongside Israel on Feb. 28 — a war that has proved unpopular with Americans and has gone on longer than he initially estimated.
The president on Tuesday extended a cease-fire between the United States and Iran that had been set to expire within hours, saying he wanted to give Tehran a chance to come up with a new proposal to end the war.
The American military has displayed its overwhelming might during the war, successfully striking thousands of targets. But it remains unclear whether Mr. Trump will accomplish the political objectives of the war.
The Iranian regime, even after its top leaders were killed, is still intact. Iran has not agreed to Mr. Trump’s demands to turn over its nuclear capabilities to the United States or significantly curtail them. And the Strait of Hormuz, a key passageway for world commerce that was open before the war, remains closed.
Nevertheless, the White House has repeatedly highlighted the military successes on the battlefield as evidence it is winning the war.
“We have completely confused and obliterated their regime,” Ms. Leavitt said on Fox Wednesday. “They are in a very weak position thanks to the actions taken by President Trump and our great United States armed forces, and so we will continue this important mission on our own.”
The oscillation between threats and a more conciliatory tone has long been one of Mr. Trump’s signature negotiating strategies.
Potential peace talks between the two countries are on hold. Vice President JD Vance had been poised to fly to Islamabad for negotiations. But the trip was postponed until Iran can “come up with a unified proposal,” Mr. Trump said.
The United States recently transmitted a written proposal to the Iranians intended to establish base-line points of agreement that could frame more detailed negotiations. The document covers a broad range of issues, but the core sticking points are the same ones that have bedeviled Western negotiators for more than a decade: the scope of Iran’s uranium enrichment program and the fate of its stockpile of enriched uranium.
Mr. Trump has not spoken publicly about the cease-fire, other than on social media. On Wednesday, he also posted about topics including “my Apprentice Juggernaut” — a reference to his former television show; the Virginia elections, which he called “rigged”; and a new book about Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.
Secretary of the Navy John Phelan speaks, as President Trump listens, at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club on Dec. 22 in Palm Beach, Fla.
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Alex Brandon/AP
WASHINGTON — Navy Secretary John Phelan is leaving his job, the Pentagon abruptly announced Wednesday, the first head of a military service to depart during President Trump’s second term but just the latest top defense leader to step down or be ousted.
No reason was given for the unexpected departure of the Navy’s top civilian official, coming as the sea service has imposed a blockade of Iranian ports and is targeting ships linked to Tehran around the world during a tenuous ceasefire in the war. Another Trump loyalist is taking over as acting head of the Navy: Undersecretary Hung Cao, a 25-year Navy combat veteran who ran unsuccessful campaigns for the U.S. Senate and House in Virginia.
Phelan’s departure is the latest in a series of shakeups of top leadership at the Pentagon, coming just weeks after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth fired the Army’s top uniformed officer, Gen. Randy George. Hegseth also has fired several other top generals, admirals and defense leaders since taking office last year.
The firings began in February 2025, when Hegseth removed military leaders, including Adm. Lisa Franchetti, the Navy’s top uniformed officer, and Gen. Jim Slife, the No. 2 leader at the Air Force. Trump also fired Gen. Charles “CQ” Brown Jr. as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Showing how sudden the latest move was, Phelan had addressed a large crowd of sailors and industry professionals on Tuesday at the Navy’s annual conference in Washington and spoke with reporters about his agenda. He also hosted the leaders of the House Armed Services Committee to discuss the Navy’s budget request and efforts to build more ships, according to a social media post from his office.
Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a post on X that Phelan was “departing the administration, effective immediately.”
Phelan had been a major Trump donor
Phelan had not served in the military or had a civilian leadership role in the service before Trump nominated him for secretary in late 2024. He was seen as an outsider being brought in to shake up the Navy.
Hung Cao speaks during the Republican National Convention on July 16, 2024, in Milwaukee.
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Matt Rourke/AP
Phelan was a major donor to Trump’s campaign and had founded the private investment firm Rugger Management LLC. According to his biography, Phelan’s primary exposure to the military came from an advisory position he held on the Spirit of America, a nonprofit that supported the defense of Ukraine and the defense of Taiwan.
The Associated Press could not immediately reach Phelan’s office for comment. The White House did not answer questions and instead responded by sending a link to Parnell’s statement.
Phelan is leaving during a busy time for the Navy. It has three aircraft carriers deployed in or heading to the Middle East, while the Trump administration says all the armed forces are poised to resume combat operations against Iran should the ceasefire expire.
The Navy also has maintained a heavy presence in the Caribbean, where it has been part of a campaign of strikes against alleged drug boats. It also played a major role in the capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro in January.
New acting Navy secretary ran unsuccessful bids for Congress
Taking over as acting secretary is Cao, who ran a failed U.S. Senate bid in Virginia to try to unseat Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine in 2024. He had Trump’s endorsement in the crowded Republican primary and gave a speech at the 2024 Republican National Convention.
Cao’s biography includes fleeing Vietnam with his family as a child in the 1970s. In a campaign video for his Senate bid, he compared Vietnam’s communist regime during the Cold War to the administration of Democratic President Joe Biden.
During his one debate with Kaine, Cao criticized COVID-19 vaccine mandates for service members as well as the military’s diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.
“When you’re using a drag queen to recruit for the Navy, that’s not the people we want,” Cao said from the debate stage. “What we need is alpha males and alpha females who are going to rip out their own guts, eat them and ask for seconds. Those are the young men and women that are going to win wars.”
Trump and Hegseth have railed against DEI in the military, banning the efforts and firing people accused of supporting such programs.
When he ran for Congress in Virginia in 2022, Cao expressed opposition to aid for Ukraine during a debate against his Democratic opponent.
“My heart goes out to the Ukrainian people. … But right now we’re borrowing $55 billion from China to pay for the war in Ukraine. Not only that, we’re depleting our national strategic reserves,” Cao said.
Cao graduated from the prestigious Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria, Virginia, before attending the U.S. Naval Academy.
He was commissioned as a special operations officer and went on to serve with SEAL teams and special forces in Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia before retiring at the rank of captain, according to his Senate campaign biography.
Cao also earned a master’s degree in physics and had fellowships at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University.
Since becoming Navy undersecretary, Cao has championed returning to duty service members that refused a Biden-era mandate to take the COVID-19 vaccine.
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