One Year of The Trump Administration’s Attacks on Faith Communities and Abuse of Religion

Since the start of the second Trump administration in January 2025, we have witnessed some of the most serious attacks on faith communities in modern American history. In addition to repeatedly weaponizing religion to justify its actions and policies, the Trump administration has advanced damaging attacks on both religious communities and religious freedom.

While too many American institutions have capitulated to the administration’s authoritarian agenda, faith communities have shown courage and continue to insist on fighting for our democracy, understanding that only in a pluralistic democracy can all faith traditions be free to thrive. We are confident that as the federal government continues to marshal resources to support a regressive, white Christian nationalist agenda, the pro-democracy faith movement will lead the way in pushing back.

Below, we include some of the most notable examples of the Trump Administration’s egregious attacks on faith communities during its first year in office:

• In January 2025, President Trump used the immense force of the presidency to single out Bishop Marianne Budde on social media for having had the courage to use her pulpit to advocate for compassionate policies towards all Americans. Only a few days later, Vice President J.D. Vance delivered one of the ugliest attacks on the Catholic Church by a political leader in modern American history by suggesting that Catholic bishops are out for financial gain in their efforts to aid and protect immigrants and refugees.

• President Trump revoked previous guidelines that protected sensitive locations from ICE encroachment, including houses of worship. This clearly infringed on the critical role these spaces play for vulnerable people, and a group of Baptist, Quaker, and Sikh houses of worship sued the government on religious freedom grounds. In February 2025, a federal district court barred immigration officials from conducting immigration-enforcement operations at or near the plaintiffs’ houses of worship.

• In late January, President Trump issued an executive order allegedly aimed at addressing antisemitism – with an accompanying fact sheet filled with Islamophobic and anti-immigrant rhetoric. Multiple Jewish organizations issued statements voicing alarm at Trump’s “dehumanizing anti-immigrant policies,” stoking a “climate of fear,” and cautioning that “antisemitism should never be weaponized.”

• Their use of false accusations of antisemitism failed to conceal the administration’s blatant support for and endorsement of many antisemitic individuals. At an inauguration party, close Trump ally and the world’s wealthiest man Elon Musk performed a Nazi salute; meanwhile, multiple figures in the Trump cabinet have well-documented histories of antisemitic speech and conduct.

• In February 2025, the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives was renamed the White House Faith Office. Trump appointed Pastor Paula White-Cain, a well-known member of the New Apostolic Reformation and a proponent of the "prosperity gospel,” as its leader.

• Around the same time, Trump also created a task force to “eradicate anti-Christian bias.” It is charged with reviewing all departments and agencies for anti-Christian bias and actions, and recommending presidential actions to help the administration rectify past instances of alleged anti-Christian conduct and to protect religious liberty. It baselessly accused the previous administration of engaging in an “egregious pattern of targeting peaceful Christians, while ignoring violent, anti-Christian offenses.” In response, Interfaith Alliance organized a letter from over 25 Christian faith leaders who represent millions of Christians denouncing the commission as a threat to religious freedom. As our President and CEO Paul Raushenbush said on CNN, “This White House uses faith for power. This is all from a Christian nationalist playbook. They don’t have wide support. They have support from a very narrow slice of American Christianity which is white, Protestant, Christian nationalists who are on a quest for power… This EO is actually biased against the majority of Christians."

• In May, the Trump administration created the Religious Liberty Commission to work on a comprehensive report about the foundation and meaning of religious freedom in the United States. Made up almost entirely of Christian nationalist politicians with very limited religious minority representation, the Religious Liberty Commission does not reflect the full diversity of American religious life. As Interfaith Alliance Vice President of Programs and Strategy Guthrie Graves-Fitzsimmons told a reporter after attending its first meeting, “Every member is a far-right activist, and the witnesses were clearly all there to reaffirm preexisting beliefs of commissioners. No one mentioned the Trump administration’s alarming persecution of religious charities, leaders and congregations who don’t share their own narrow ideology. This hyper-partisan commission does a disservice to the American value of religious liberty.”

• In early July, Imam Ayman Soliman, a former Cincinnati Children’s Hospital chaplain, was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) after his asylum status was terminated with little explanation. In response, local faith leaders organized a prayer vigil, rally, and peaceful march; during the march at least 15 protesters were detained by local police and charged with felony rioting and two of his colleagues were fired after speaking out against his unlawful detention. Months later, Soliman was finally released, but other Muslim leaders, including Marwan Marouf, a leader of the Dallas chapter of the Muslim American Society, have been taken into detention and scheduled for deportation. In November, an immigration judge ruled that ICE could deport Marouf from the country. In December, Imam Fouad Saeed Abdulkadir died in ICE detention in one of the deadliest years for people in ICE custody in two decades.

• The Department of Homeland Security and ICE have consistently used Bible verses in their public communications to legitimize attacks on immigrants. These outrageous ads tried to instrumentalize one interpretation of Christianity to support cruel policies to the most vulnerable in society. To combat these mischaracterizations, Interfaith Alliance launched the national campaign, “Choose Love, Not ICE” to demand that ICE stop abusing our neighbors and began it with an online ad campaign that has been seen nationwide.

• In October, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth vowed to purge the military’s “beardos” and adopt new grooming standards which would infringe on the religious freedom of Sikh service members. The Sikh Coalition issued a statement condemning this ruling.

• In November, ICE escalated its attacks on faith leaders by shooting pepper balls at the face of protestors and conducting a mass arrest of religious leaders outside of the Broadview detention facility in Illinois. As Interfaith Alliance argued in an amicus brief for the case, Trump v. Illinois, these attacks infringe on the religious right to protest, noting, “When people of faith take to the streets, they are living out their deepest religious convictions, while exercising their First Amendment rights.”

• In December, the Trump administration suspended all immigration applications for individuals from 19 countries that are already subjected to a travel ban. Most of the countries impacted have a majority of Muslim citizens and many partners have indicated that this is a renewed version of the “Muslim Ban” from the first Trump administration. As the administration advances harmful policies, key Trump allies stoke the flames by engaging in virulent anti-Muslim bigotry rhetoric. The far-right activist and close administration ally Laura Loomer, who openly calls herself a “proud Islamophobe,” has used her platform to spread vicious anti-Muslim hate

‍Conclusion

The most pressing threat to religious liberty in our country today is the Trump administration itself. Religious Americans don’t need their protection – we need protection from their attacks. From attacking bishops who refuse to comply with their authoritarian actions, to giving the greenlight for ICE to desecrate houses of worship, to pushing the misuse of the Bible and Ten Commandments in our public schools, the Trump administration is trampling on the freedom of all Americans to practice their faith free from government interference.

Interfaith Alliance refuses to remain silent as the Trump administration targets our communities, infringes on our rights, and then absurdly claims to care about our liberty. We’re mobilizing to oppose authoritarianism and make clear that the large majority of organized religion stands on the side of democracy, diversity and equality for all people in this country.