The Church Stands Up: Episcopal Leader Slams Trump’s Immigration Crackdown

Presiding Bishop calls military deployment and travel ban a "dangerous turn" in a rising tide of authoritarianism.

Jun 12, 2025

In a moment when many institutions remain silent, one just rang the bell.

On June 11, Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe of The Episcopal Church issued a blistering letter in response to Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, his newly reinstated travel ban affecting 19 countries, and his deployment of National Guard troops and Marines to Los Angeles — all over the objections of state officials.

Episcopal Church selects Erie Bishop Sean Rowe as presiding bishop

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Rowe didn’t mince words. He called the military presence in Los Angeles “a dangerous turn” and warned that the Trump administration is weaponizing core government institutions — not for public safety, but for political control.

“What we are witnessing is the kind of distortion that arises when institutions like the military and the State Department are turned on the people they were meant to protect,” Rowe wrote.

He went further. From Geneva, where he was meeting with the World Council of Churches and the UN Refugee Agency, Rowe issued a global call to faith-based resistance. He urged Episcopalians to support legal challenges to the travel ban, care for immigrants and refugees in their communities, and advocate against federal budget cuts targeting the vulnerable.

“Churches like ours, protected by the First Amendment and practiced in galvanizing people of goodwill, may be some of the last institutions capable of resisting the injustice now being promulgated.”

In an age when political power is blurring the line between law enforcement and campaign theater, Bishop Rowe is drawing a line in the sand — not with partisanship, but with principle.

It’s a reminder that the Constitution doesn’t just belong to lawyers and lawmakers. It belongs to people of faith, conscience, and courage — people who still believe in resisting evil and respecting human dignity.