Amica Center is preparing to file a lawsuit in U.S. District Court challenging ICE’s unlawful arrests without warrants in the state of Maryland. The lawsuit is modeled after their successful warrantless arrest lawsuit in DC, which they filed with a number of partner organizations.
As they did in the DC warrantless arrest case, they are seeking to file several amicus briefs in the Maryland warrantless arrest case, including one signed by members of Maryland’s faith community.
These amicus briefs will help demonstrate the larger chilling effect, i.e. how ICE’s mass arrests have caused wide-ranging harm on different key sectors of Maryland life and community. An amicus brief from religious organizations will focus on the warrantless arrests of parishioners or other community members, and the resulting impairment of the members of the religious organization to freely practice their faith. However, the brief will also emphasize the moral obligation to treat immigrants with dignity, building from the recent statements of Pope Leo, the Archbishop of Washington’s homily and statements calling for compassion and justice. Therefore, religious groups do not need to have members impacted to sign on.
The number of signatories/potential signatories for the amicus brief continues to increase! There are now 24 faith communities that have either agreed to sign on or are seriously considering it, pending reviewing the brief. Amica Center would love to grow this number! The deadline to sign on will be sometime around September 9. If you and/or your faith community are interested in signing on, please contact Kathy at kathy@harc.datachievereview.xyz.
