Legislation enforcement authorities in New York and New Jersey have begun inspecting gurudwaras to determine unlawful immigrants amid Donald Trump’s crackdown on irregular migration and mass deportation.
Hours after Donald Trump was sworn-in as US President, performing Division of Homeland safety secretary Benjamin Huffman dumped the Biden administration’s tips for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Safety (CBP) enforcement actions that thwart regulation enforcement in or close to so-called “delicate” areas.
These “delicate” areas included locations of worship like gurdwaras and church buildings.
“This motion empowers the courageous women and men in CBP and ICE to implement our immigration legal guidelines and catch felony aliens—together with murders and rapists—who’ve illegally come into our nation. Criminals will now not have the ability to conceal in America’s faculties and church buildings to keep away from arrest. The Trump Administration is not going to tie the arms of our courageous regulation enforcement, and as a substitute trusts them to make use of frequent sense,” division of homeland safety stated in an announcement.
“The Biden-Harris administration abused the humanitarian parole program to indiscriminately enable 1.5 million migrants to enter our nation. This was all stopped on day one of many Trump Administration. This motion will return the humanitarian parole program to its unique objective of migrants on a case-by-case foundation,” it added.
In the meantime, Sikh group residing within the US noticed the motion as a menace to the sanctity of their religion and expressed grave concern over the directive rescinding the rules that designated “delicate areas”, reminiscent of homes of worship, the place immigration enforcement actions had been beforehand restricted.
In an announcement, the Sikh American Authorized Defence and Training Fund (SALDF) stated, “This troubling shift in coverage is available in tandem with group reviews of DHS brokers visiting gurdwaras within the New York and New Jersey areas simply days after the directive was issued.”
“We’re deeply alarmed by the Division of Homeland Safety’s resolution to remove protections for delicate areas after which goal locations of worship like gurdwaras,” it added.
Sikh coalition stated the Trump administration’s resolution to rescind the DHS coverage on “protected areas” (which additionally included hospitals, faculties, social service suppliers, and extra) opens the door to Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) brokers conducting surveillance, investigations, arrests, and raids at gurdwaras.”
“The concept that our gurdwaras may very well be topic to authorities surveillance and raids by armed regulation enforcement with or with out warrants is unacceptable to the Sikh religion custom. It’ll burden spiritual train by limiting the flexibility of Sikhs to collect and affiliate with each other in accordance with our religion,” Sikh Coalition stated.
“It additionally harkens to darkish intervals in our collective reminiscence when governments interfered within the means of Sikhs to observe our religion freely-with lethal penalties,” it stated.
“If Sikhs-whether documented or undocumented-are involved with gurdwara raids and surveillance, gurdwaras could be impacted by decreased attendance, and thus an lack of ability to hold out important spiritual practices in a significant method,” stated Sikh Coalition.
