Amicus Curiae Brief — Markwayne Mullin, Secretary of Homeland Security, et al., Petitioners v. Al Otro Lado, a California Corporation, et al.

Supreme Court briefFeb 17, 2026

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No. 25-5

IN THE

Supreme Court of the United States

_________

KRISTI NOEM, SECRETARY OF HOMELAND SECURITY, ET

AL.,

Petitioners,

AL OTRO LADO, A CALIFORNIA CORPORATION, ET AL.,

Respondents.

_________

On Certiorari to the United States Court of

Appeals for the Ninth Circuit

_________

BRIEF OF AMICI CURIAE KAIROS CENTER

FOR RELIGIONS, RIGHTS AND SOCIAL

JUSTICE AND RELIGIOUS ORGANIZATIONS

IN SUPPORT OF RESPONDENTS

KATHERINE B. WELLINGTON CATHERINE E. STETSON

Counsel of Record

HOGAN LOVELLS US LLP

125 High Street, Ste. 2010 KEENAN ROARTY

STEVEN HIGGINS

Boston, MA 02110

HOGAN LOVELLS US LLP

555 Thirteenth Street, N.W.

Washington, D.C. 20004

(202) 637-5600

cate.stetson@hoganlovells.com

Counsel for Amici Curiae

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES ...................................... iii

INTERESTS OF AMICI CURIAE .............................. 1

INTRODUCTION ........................................................ 2

ARGUMENT ............................................................... 5

UNIVERSAL MORAL TRUTHS

HAVE LONG REQUIRED SOCIETY

TO PROTECT THOSE FLEEING

PERSECUTION ............................................... 5

A. Christian Tradition ..................................... 5

B. Jewish Tradition ......................................... 8

C. Islamic Tradition ......................................... 9

D. Hindu And Buddhist Traditions ............... 11

E. Other Global Religions And

Spiritualities.............................................. 12

II.

OUR ASYLUM LAWS DRAW FROM

MILLENNIA OF HISTORY

RECOGNIZING SOCIETY’S

OBLIGATION TO PROVIDE

REFUGE TO OUTSIDERS ............................ 14

A. Ancient And Medieval Roots Of

Asylum Law ............................................... 15

B. American Colonies Were Refuges

For Persecuted Groups.............................. 19

C. America’s Asylum Laws Reflect

The Fundamental Religious And

Moral Understanding That

Society Has An Obligation To

Provide Asylum To Those Who

Need It ....................................................... 21

(i)

TABLE OF CONTENTS—Continued

Page

1. American faith-based groups

have long provided asylum to

those fleeing terror and

persecution............................................ 22

2. Religious groups have played

an instrumental role in

developing U.S. asylum laws ............... 25

III. THE GOVERNMENT’S THEORY IS

ANATHEMA TO OUR SHARED

SOCIETAL, MORAL, AND

RELIGIOUS VALUES AND

ASYLUM HISTORY ....................................... 28

CONCLUSION .......................................................... 31

ADDENDUM

iii

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES

Page(s)

CASES:

Kelly v. Robinson,

479 U.S. 36 (1986) ................................................ 29

Morissette v. United States,

342 U.S. 246 (1952) .............................................. 28

Murphy Bros. v. Michetti Pipe Stringing, Inc.,

526 U.S. 344 (1999) .............................................. 29

Rubin v. Islamic Republic of Iran,

583 U.S. 202 (2018) ........................................ 28, 29

LEGISLATIVE MATERIALS:

Andorra Bruno, Cong. Rsch. Serv., R45539,

Immigration: U.S. Asylum Policy (2019) ............ 27

Andorra Bruno, Cong. Rsch. Serv., R48802,

Development of the U.S. Asylum

System: In Brief (2026) ........................................ 27

Refugee Act of 1979: Hearing on S. 643

Before the S. Comm. on the Judiciary,

96th Cong. (Mar. 14, 1979) .................................. 28

OTHER AUTHORITIES:

‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Abdul-Baha at Bristol, 2 Star

of the West, no. 12, 1911 ...................................... 13

‘Abdu’l-Bahá, First Tablet to the Hague

(1919) (Marzieh Gail trans.) ................................ 13

Action of Immediate Witness: Protect the

Rights of Immigrants and Asylum

Seekers (2019) ...................................................... 13

Laura Alexander, (The Image of) God in All

of Us: Sikh and Christian Hospitality in

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES—Continued

Page(s)

Light of the Global Refugee Crisis, 47 J.

Religious Ethics 653 (2019) ................................. 14

Mohammad Alsubaih, The Refugee in

Islamic and International Law (Dec.

2021) ..................................................................... 10

AMMPARO, Evangelical Lutheran Church

in America, https://perma.cc/9TP5-G86L ............ 24

Deborah Anker, Law of Asylum in the

United States (2015 ed.) ....................................... 27

Asylum (etymology), Oxford English

Dictionary (3d ed. 2025) ....................................... 16

Augustine, Letter 113, in The Works of

Saint Augustine: A Translation for the

21st Century, Letters 100–155 (Roland

Teske trans., New City Press 2003) .................... 17

Augustine, Sermon 302, in The Works of

Saint Augustine: A Translation for the

21st Century, Sermons 273-305A

(Edmund Hill trans., New City Press

1994) ..................................................................... 17

Ignatius Bau, This Ground Is Holy: Church

Sanctuary and Central American

Refugees (Paulist Press 1985) .........................16-24

Bhāgavata Purāṇa 10 ................................................ 11

Douglas Boin, Ancient Rome Thrived When

the Empire Welcomed Immigrants. We

Should Remember What Happened When

That Changed, TIME (June 9, 2020) .................. 16

Border Partners, FaithWorks,

https://perma.cc/B4UV-R3TV .............................. 24

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES—Continued

Page(s)

Samuel Cheung, Religious Foundations of

Asylum and the Challenges of

Contemporary Practice, 6 J. Hum. Rts.

13 (2011) ......................................................... 12, 15

Hiromi Chiba, The Role of the Protestant

Church in the U.S. Refugee Resettlement

Program during the Early Cold War Era:

The Methodist Case, in Religion,

Migration and Identity: Methodological

and Theological Explorations (Martha

Frederiks & Dorottya Nagy eds.,

Brill 2016)................................................. 23, 26, 27

Deuteronomy 1 ............................................................. 9

Exodus 3....................................................................... 9

Exodus 22..................................................................... 8

Faith in Action: How Religious

Communities Have Historically United

to Welcome Refugees, Church World

Service, https://perma.cc/PD3D-L8UJ .......... 23, 28

Maura Jane Farrelly, Papist Patriots: The

Making of an American Catholic Identity

(Oxford Univ. Press 2012) ................................... 19

Teresa Field, Biblical Influences on the

Medieval and Early Modern English

Law of Sanctuary, 22 Ecclesiastical L.J.

222 (2020) ............................................................. 18

Jack Forbes, Indigenous Americans:

Spirituality and Ecos, 130 Daedalus 283

(2001) .................................................................... 12

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES—Continued

Page(s)

J. William Frost, Religious Liberty in Early

Pennsylvania, 105 Pa. Mag. Hist. &

Biography 419 (1981) ........................................... 19

Fugitive Slave Acts, History (May 28, 2025),

https://perma.cc/M4JM-TSUA ............................. 22

Genesis 1 ...................................................................... 8

Genesis 12 .................................................................... 9

Genesis 45 .................................................................... 9

Genesis 46 .................................................................... 9

Genesis 47 .................................................................... 9

Haim Genizi, America’s Fair Share: The

Admission and Resettlement of Displaced

Persons, 1945–1952 (Wayne State Univ.

Press 1993) ........................................................... 26

Scott Douglas Gerber, Law and Religion in

Colonial America: The Dissenting

Colonies (Cambridge Univ. Press 2023) .............. 19

Haggadah (Rabbi Jacob Schochetat trans.) ............... 9

History, Church of the Brethren,

https://perma.cc/27GG-4TMM ............................. 20

History, United Church of Christ,

https://perma.cc/F49Q-MY2G .............................. 20

Immigrant & Refugee Advocacy Clinic,

Columbus Sch. of Law, Catholic Univ. of

Am., https://perma.cc/GYP5-786W ...................... 24

Jeremiah 22 ................................................................. 8

Christine Kilby, The Global Refugee Crisis

and the Gift of Fearlessness, 26 J.

Buddhist Ethics 307 (2019) ................................. 12

vii

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES—Continued

Page(s)

Lawh-i-Maqsúd (Habib Taherzadeh trans.) ............ 13

Leviticus 19 .............................................................. 2, 8

Livy, The Early History of Rome: Books I–V

(Aubrey de Sélincourt trans., Penguin

Books 1960) .......................................................... 16

Maha Upanishad VI (A.G. Krishna Warrier

trans.) ................................................................... 11

Matthew 2 .................................................................... 5

Matthew 25 .............................................................. 2, 6

Muhammad Munir, Refugee Law in Islam,

4 J. Soc. Scis. 1 (2011) .......................................... 10

J. Bruce Nichols, The Uneasy Alliance:

Religion, Refugee Work, and U.S.

Foreign Policy (Oxford Univ. Press 1988) ..... 27, 28

Numbers 35................................................................ 15

Operation Safe Haven: The Hungarian

Refugee Crisis of 1956, U.S. Citizenship

& Immigration Servs.,

https://perma.cc/A6G4-BHXG ............................. 23

Partners Work Together for Asylum Seekers,

United Methodist Church,

https://perma.cc/9HPK-7PZY .................................... 24

Geralyn Passaro and Janet Phillips,

Sanctuary: Reconciling Immigration

Policy with Humanitarianism and the

First Amendment, 18 U. Miami InterAm. L. Rev. 137 (1986)......................................... 23

Peter Phan, Deus Migrator—God the

Migrant: Migration of Theology and

viii

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES—Continued

Page(s)

Theology of Migration, 77 Theological

Studs. 845 (2016) ................................................... 7

Quran 8 ...................................................................... 10

Quran 9 ...................................................................... 11

Linda Rabben, Sanctuary and Asylum: A

Social and Political History (Univ. of

Wash. Press 2016) ................... 13, 15-19, 21, 22, 24

Roots, The United Methodist Church,

https://perma.cc/Z4BD-Q55X ............................... 20

Ruth 1 .......................................................................... 9

Sanhedrin 37a ............................................................. 8

Todd Scribner, “Pilgrims of the Night”: The

American Catholic Church Responds to

the Post World War II Displaced Persons

Crisis, 124 Am. Catholic Stud. 1 (2013) ........ 27, 28

Rhonda Shapiro Rieser, The Sanctuary

Movement: A Brief History, Ctr. for

Religious and Spiritual Life at Smith

Coll. (Mar. 1, 2017),

https://perma.cc/YF8Z-SNLD .........................20-22

Arafat Madi Shoukri, Refugee Status in

Islamic Concepts of Protection (2013).................. 10

Sunan al-Tirmidhi (Sh. Abu Amina Elias

trans.) ............................................................... 3, 10

Taittirĩya Upanishad, I (Adi Sankaracharya

trans.) ............................................................... 3, 11

The Displaced Persons Act of 1948, Truman

Library Institute,

https://perma.cc/2MF2-9L94................................ 26

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES—Continued

Page(s)

Lauren Turek, The Religious Activism

Behind U.S. Refugee Policy, ARC Mag.

(Aug. 3, 2021), https://perma.cc/ZT3MYZGZ..................................................................... 28

Unitarian Universalist Bylaws, Art. II. ................... 13

U.S. Dep’t of Homeland Sec., Off. of

Homeland Sec. Stat., Yearbook of

Immigration Statistics: FY 2022 39

(2023) .................................................................... 28

Voyage of the St. Louis, United States

Holocaust Memorial Museum, (June 18,

2024), https://perma.cc/32BY-ND23 .................... 25

George Washington to Francis Adrian Van

der Kemp (May 28, 1788),

https://perma.cc/NY58-3YU3 ............................... 21

Roger Williams, Letter to the Town of

Providence (1655) ................................................. 20

Yoma 85b ..................................................................... 8

INTERESTS OF AMICI CURIAE1

Amici are a coalition of dozens of religious

organizations, institutions, and interfaith networks

representing some of the most prominent religious

groups in the United States. A full list of Amici is

included in the addendum to this brief. Amici

represent faith traditions that have guided

hundreds of millions in their spiritual and moral

obligations to help the vulnerable, displaced, and

persecuted. Many of these faith traditions are

practiced across every country on Earth and have

roots stretching back thousands of years. All make

safeguarding the stranger a core component of faith,

a duty obligatory upon not just the individual but

upon society as a whole.

Amici unite to voice this shared moral truth and

ensure our asylum laws are not interpreted in a

manner anathema to their purpose and history.

Amici are uniquely well-positioned to explain the

origins and development of asylum. The history and

tradition of asylum is rooted in faith beliefs and

existed since our earliest recorded history,

remaining tied to faith through millennia. Amici

and other faith communities were instrumental in

passing our modern asylum laws and responsible for

resettling refugees during large periods of U.S.

history, and are thus uniquely situated to explain

the important religious, moral, and historical origins

of asylum that are reflected in U.S. law.

No party or counsel for a party authored this brief in whole or

in part. No party, counsel for a party, or person other than

amicus curiae or its counsel made any monetary contribution

intended to fund the preparation or submission of this brief.

(1)

Our shared faiths’ sacred texts and traditions

teach that every human being possesses inherent

worth and dignity, including (and especially) those

who are persecuted and forced to flee their homes.

These texts and traditions teach that society is

obligated to help the persecuted stranger. And they

teach that nonresidents like refugees and

immigrants should be treated humanely and

afforded the standards of basic universal human

rights.

This shared moral and societal

understanding forged thousands of years of asylum

practice both inside and outside of the United

States. Amici accordingly submit this brief to

explain that the U.S. Government’s position in this

case is fundamentally at odds with history and

tradition.

INTRODUCTION

When a stranger sojourns with you in your

land, you shall not do him wrong. You shall

treat the stranger who sojourns with you as

the native among you, and you shall love him

as yourself, for you were strangers in the land

of Egypt.

[Leviticus 19:33-34 (English

Standard Version).2]

Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of

the least of these brothers and sisters of mine,

you did for me. * * * [W]hatever you did not

do for one of the least of these, you did not do

for me. [Matthew 25:40, 25:45.]

All Biblical translations are from the New International Version unless otherwise noted.

Whoever grants respite to someone in

difficulty or relieves him, Allah will shade him

on the Day of Resurrection when there is no

shade but His. [Sunan al-Tirmidhi 1306 (Sh.

Abu Amina Elias trans.).]

May the guest be to thee a god. [Taittirĩya

Upanishad, I.11.2. (Adi Sankaracharya

trans.).]

Asylum is a core religious and moral tenet of our

society, with a history as old as humanity itself.

Ancient enslaved people sought asylum in temples

on the mouth of the Nile. The Greeks and Romans

built sanctuaries for the oppressed, persecuted

peoples of other lands. Major faith traditions across

the world made welcoming and protecting the

foreigner a core component of faith. And our very

Nation arose from the politically and religiously

oppressed seeking refuge in lands other than where

they were from.

Amici are an interfaith group of 31 religious

groups, traditions, and coalitions representing

major faith traditions practiced by billions

worldwide. They write to highlight how extreme,

and untenable, the Government’s interpretation of

our asylum laws is from a historical, religious, and

social perspective. The Government’s interpretation

would allow it to block asylum seekers who reach the

border from lawfully seeking protection from

persecution. That position is incompatible with our

Country’s foundational understanding of society’s

moral obligation to protect persecuted outsiders, an

obligation reflected in our most sacred traditions

and embodied in our asylum system.

Our Country’s major faiths make protecting the

stranger a core value. Protecting and welcoming the

stranger is one of Jesus’s first and most powerful

teachings, among the highest moral commands of

the Hebrew Bible, a well-recognized right within

Islamic law and theology, a fundamental Hindu and

Buddhist tenet, and part of Native American

spiritual teachings. That society has an obligation

to provide for persecuted outsiders is a universally

shared belief among the faiths observed by hundreds

of millions of people in our Country, and billions

worldwide.

This core moral understanding has in turn

inspired centuries of religious and social asylum

practice, from ancient civilizations to the American

colonists. This belief drove faith groups to play key

roles in the Underground Railroad providing refuge

to Southern enslaved individuals. And our modern

asylum laws were directly forged from the advocacy

of faith-based groups operating from the shared

moral understanding that society has an obligation

to provide refuge to outsiders fleeing persecution.

Amici strongly agree with Respondents that the

Government’s interpretation of the asylum laws is

insupportable as a matter of statutory text,

structure, context, and history. Amici seek to

emphasize that the Government’s interpretation is

also anathema to our Country’s faith-based heritage

and thousands of years of asylum practices,

including the civilizations whose practices inspired

our Nation’s moral and legal codes. From the first

days of its Founding, this Country has welcomed the

stranger fleeing persecution. Stopping outsiders at

our border and preventing them from lawfully

seeking asylum is contrary to our civilization’s

longstanding understanding of asylum and

antithetical to asylum’s understood role in a moral,

democratic society. When this Court interprets our

asylum laws, it should read those laws in harmony

with our longstanding historical, religious, and

moral traditions, rather than as undermining those

traditions. As the many faiths practiced by this

Country’s citizens teach, a society that does not

protect the least among us is a failed society.

ARGUMENT

I. UNIVERSAL MORAL TRUTHS HAVE

LONG REQUIRED SOCIETY TO PROTECT

THOSE FLEEING PERSECUTION.

Texts held sacred by religions in the United States

and around the world instruct society to welcome

and protect the stranger. This moral teaching is not

a peripheral part of these religions—it is forged into

their very foundations.

A. Christian Tradition

Providing asylum for the persecuted is not only an

act of Christian love—it is embedded in

Christianity’s foundation. Jesus Christ of Nazareth

was a child refugee. Matthew 2:13–15. Jesus and

his family fled from Judea to Egypt to escape statesponsored violence under King Herod, who sought

the child’s death. Id. Jesus’s birth, childhood, and

life situate the experience of forced displacement,

refuge, and survival at the center of the Christian

faith.

The foundational Christian moral command to

“welcome the stranger” is perhaps best captured in

the Gospel of Matthew. Jesus teaches that a day will

come when he will sit on the throne and divide all

the nations into two: “the sheep on his right and the

goats on his left.” Matthew 25:31-33. Jesus will

welcome those at his right hand into eternal life:

For I was hungry and you gave me something

to eat; I was thirsty and you gave me

something to drink; I was a stranger and you

invited me in; I needed clothes and you

clothed me; I was sick and you looked after

me; I was in prison and you came to visit me.

Then the righteous will answer him, “Lord,

when did we see you hungry and feed you, or

thirsty and give you something to

drink? When did we see you a stranger and

invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe

you? When did we see you sick or in prison

and go to visit you?”

The King will reply, “Truly I tell you,

whatever you did for one of the least of these

brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”

Id. 25:35-40. And then, Matthew teaches, the Lord

will turn to his left and send those individuals to

eternal punishment:

For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to

eat; I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to

drink; I was a stranger and you did not invite

me in; I needed clothes and you did not clothe

me; I was sick and in prison and you did not

look after me.

They also will answer, “Lord, when did we see

you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing

clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help

you?”

He will reply, “Truly I tell you, whatever you

did not do for one of the least of these, you did

not do for me.”

Id. 25:42-45. Jesus’s commandment to “the nations”

instructs Christians to organize society in a way that

provides for the stranger. Through Matthew’s

haunting, mirroring language Christians are called

to build a society providing love and refuge for

oppressed peoples.

Millennia of Christian history and tradition reflect

its close relationship to the practice of asylum—both

seeking it and offering it.

Christians were

persecuted for centuries before Christianity became

the official religion of the Roman Empire, and many

early Christians sought safety in new lands. See

Peter Phan, Deus Migrator—God the Migrant:

Migration of Theology and Theology of Migration, 77

Theological Studs. 845, 850-851 (2016). For over a

thousand years, churches have also served as

inviolable sanctuaries where all could seek refuge

from harm.

See infra pp. 16-18.

Many of

Christianity’s denominations were persecuted

religious groups, with many of their number fleeing

to safety in new lands in Europe and America. See

infra p. 7. Christian groups have remained an

important force behind America’s modern asylum

laws, contributing to the passage of key asylum acts

and seeking resettlement for millions of refugees

throughout American history. See infra pp. 22-28.

B. Jewish Tradition

One of the highest moral commandments in all of

Judaism is to welcome and protect the stranger.

This command is repeated 36 times in the Torah,

more than any other commandment. Jeremiah

counsels believers to “[d]o no wrong or violence to the

foreigner.” Jeremiah 22:3. Psalms teaches that “the

Lord watches over the foreigner.” Psalms 146:9.

And Leviticus commands that we “treat the stranger

who sojourns with you as the native among you” and

to “love him as yourself.”

Leviticus 19:33-34

(English Standard Version); see also Exodus 22:21

(“Do not mistreat or oppress a foreigner, for you were

foreigners in Egypt.”). These verses guide all

followers of the Hebrew Bible—both Christians and

Jews.

This obligation to protect the stranger is at its

strongest when it comes to saving a stranger’s life.

The Hebrew Bible teaches that all humanity is

created B’tzelem Elohim (in God’s image) and

thereby divinely endowed with inherent dignity and

respect. Genesis 1:27. The Talmud teaches that

“whoever saves a single life is considered by

scripture to have saved the entire world.”

Sanhedrin 37a. An individual who saves a stranger

thus saves the world. And this obligation to save life

overrides all other Jewish scriptural and Talmudic

commands. See, e.g., Yoma 85b (saving a life

overrides observing the Sabbath).

The obligation to protect the life of a stranger is

not only among the most deeply ingrained of Jewish

moral teachings; it is among the most personal to the

Jewish people. The history of the Jewish people in

the Hebrew Bible is that of migration and escape to

new lands. Moses led the Jewish people from

slavery and persecution under the Pharaoh to

freedom and the promised land of Canaan. Exodus

3:7-10; 12:31-42; Deuteronomy 1:25. Abraham and

his family migrated throughout Canaan and

Egypt. Genesis 12:6-20. Jacob’s family migrated to

Egypt to escape famine, Genesis 45:9-11; 46:1-7;

47:4, and Naomi’s family in the Book of Ruth

migrated to Moab, Ruth 1:1-2. Through generations

of Jewish history, the Jewish people have known

what it means to be an itinerant people seeking

safety, most notably culminating in the refuge

sought during and after the Holocaust, and

extending to the present day.

These historical experiences of migration remain

lived experiences for those of Jewish faith, even for

those who have never migrated or emigrated

themselves. Each year during Passover, Jews read

aloud from the Haggadah a passage instructing that

“in every generation a person is obligated to regard

himself as if he had come out of Egypt.” Haggadah

(Rabbi Jacob Schochetat trans.). Through this

sacred recitation mirroring the historic and

contemporary experience of Jewish people fleeing

persecution, Jews maintain a personal connection to

the plight and struggle of migrants, and the

continuing societal imperative to provide freedom

and safety for all.

C. Islamic Tradition

Like Judaism and Christianity, Islam instructs its

followers to safeguard the stranger. As the Prophet

Muhammad taught, “Whoever grants respite to

someone in difficulty or relieves him, Allah will

shade him on the Day of Resurrection when there is

no shade but His.” Sunan al-Tirmidhi 1306 (Sh.

Abu Amina Elias trans.).

Like their ancestors in the Jewish and Christian

Scriptures, the Prophet Muhammad and his

companions

were

refugees

and

migrants.

Persecuted for preaching monotheism in a land of

idolatry, they fled their home city of Mecca and

sought refuge in Medina. See Mohammad Alsubaih,

The Refugee in Islamic and International Law 39

(Dec. 2021). This migration—known in Islam as

“the Hijrah”—is one of the most important moments

in Islamic history and marks the beginning of the

Islamic calendar. Id.

Muslims hold these early migrants (the

Muhajirun) in the highest esteem and regard them

as among the most honored figures in Islamic

history. See Arafat Madi Shoukri, Refugee Status in

Islamic Concepts of Protection 41 (2013). Those who

sheltered these early refugees—known as “the

Helpers”—are similarly blessed. Id.

Because

emigration is a severe ordeal, and those who help

such individuals in need are correspondingly

rewarded, the Quran teaches that “those who

believed and emigrated, and struggled for God’s

cause, and those who gave refuge and help: they are

the true believers and they will have forgiveness and

generous provision.”

Quran 8:74 (Saheeh

International trans.).

Classical Islamic law adopted a broad theory of

asylum known as aman (literally, “protection”). See

Muhammad Munir, Refugee Law in Islam, 4 J. Soc.

Scis. 1, 4 (2011). Any citizen of a Muslim state—

Muslim or non-Muslim, free or enslaved, male or

female—could grant aman to any individual outside

the Muslim state, thereby affording that individual

protection and residency. Id. The practice of aman

was personally affirmed by the Prophet

Muhammad, who warned that God and his angels

curse those who harm protected individuals. Id. at

5. Indeed, the Quran commands that even the war

enemies of a Muslim state are entitled to asylum if

they seek it—“if anyone from the [warring]

polytheists asks for your protection, grant it to them

so that they may hear the Word of Allah, then escort

them to a place of safety, for they are a people who

have no knowledge.” Quran 9:6.

D. Hindu And Buddhist Traditions

Asylum plays a crucial role in the faith traditions

of Hinduism and Buddhism. As the Upanishads

teach, the divine exists in all of us—Hinduism

commands that “the guest be to thee a God.”

Taittiriya Upanishad, Shikshavalli I.11.2 (Adi

Sankaracharya trans.). And “the entire world

constitutes but a family.” Maha Upanishad VI-7273a (A.G. Krishna Warrier trans.).

As with the Abrahamic traditions, sacred figures

in Hindu beliefs and practices were forced to flee

from unjust conditions. According to the Bhagavata

Purana, the Hindu deity Krishna was born in prison

and fled from the evil king Kamsa. Bhāgavata

Purāṇa 10.3-4. Krishna crossed natural borders to

find refuge in another land. Id. 10.3-4. Because of

the safety he received, Krishna managed to

overcome and eventually destroy Kamsa. Id. 10:44.

Both Buddhist and Hindu teachings uphold the

practice of abhayadana—which includes, among

other things, providing “protection or security to

those who fear threatened or inflicted violence.”

Christine Kilby, The Global Refugee Crisis and the

Gift of Fearlessness, 26 J. Buddhist Ethics 307, 311312 (2019). In Buddhism, “taking refuge is one of

the few practices common to all schools of Buddhism,

whether meaning to shelter or to protect through

sanctuary or meaning inner and outer refuge.”

Samuel Cheung, Religious Foundations of Asylum

and the Challenges of Contemporary Practice, 6 J.

Hum. Rts. 13, 16 (2011).

And in Hinduism,

abhayadana is emphasized as a moral obligation

placed upon the king of a land. Kilby, supra, at 311312. Hindu dharmaśāstra traditions provide that

“the king should * * * save anyone who comes to him

for refuge,” id., and the Mahabharata exhorts a

king’s “sacred duty” to refuse to surrender a refugee

to an enemy, Cheung, supra, at 16. These teachings

obligate a nation’s ruling entity to provide safety to

those fleeing persecution.

E. Other

Global

Spiritualities

Religions

And

Most, if not all, other major faiths and

spiritualities command society to welcome and

protect the stranger.

Among indigenous spiritualities, “[p]erhaps the

most important aspect of” Native American cosmic

beliefs is “the conception of creation as a living

process, resulting in a living universe in which a

kinship exists between all things.” Jack Forbes,

Indigenous Americans: Spirituality and Ecos, 130

Daedalus 283, 283 (2001).

Native American

spiritualities teach that all are worthy (and

deserving) of respect, care, and safety. See id. at

284-287. Because of the shared interrelationship

between all things, Native American tribes

commonly offered asylum (and adoption into their

tribes) to persecuted outsiders seeking a home.

Linda Rabben, Sanctuary and Asylum: A Social and

Political History 35 (Univ. of Wash. Press 2016).

In the Baháʼí faith, one of the central tenets

commanded of all believers is to believe in the unity

of mankind—“[t]he earth is but one country, and

mankind its citizens.”

Lawh-i-Maqsúd (Habib

Taherzadeh trans.). Believers must “think of all

humankind as their friends; regard[] the alien as an

intimate, the stranger as a companion.”

‘Abdu’l-Bahá, First Tablet to the Hague (1919)

(Marzieh Gail trans.). Pursuant to this shared

moral ethos, Baháʼís are commanded to “shelter the

refugees.” ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Abdul-Baha at Bristol, 2

Star of the West, no. 12, 1911, at 8.

At the heart of the Unitarian Universalist

covenantal faith tradition is the mutual

commitments members and congregations make to

one another to live out shared religious values,

including that “every person is inherently worthy

and has the right to flourish with dignity, love, and

compassion.” Unitarian Universalist Bylaws, Art.

II., Sec. C-2.2. These commitments compel

Unitarian Universalists to act for justice and protect

human rights. Since the early 1960s, Unitarian

Universalists have resolved to offer sanctuary for

refugees, end inhumane raids and unjust

deportation, and “protect and assist immigrants and

asylum seekers in their attempts to lawfully enter

and/or remain in the United States.” Action of

Immediate Witness: Protect the Rights of

Immigrants and Asylum Seekers (2019).

In Sikhism, believers are “mandated to perform

selfless service on a regular basis by showing

hospitality to all people—especially those outside

one’s own religious, cultural, or ethnic group.”

Laura Alexander, (The Image of) God in All of Us:

Sikh and Christian Hospitality in Light of the Global

Refugee Crisis, 47 J. Religious Ethics 653, 663

(2019). Because “God is in all people, no one is a

stranger to God.” Id. Sikhs are active globally in

providing support, resources, and safety to refugees

worldwide. See generally id. at 663-664. And “Sikh

tradition teaches that [this] hospitality and

generosity are to be practiced at a structural and

systemic level,” not merely an individual one. Id. at

664.

Many other faiths and traditions embrace similar

beliefs, demonstrating the foundational importance

of providing refuge as both a religious and moral

value.

II. OUR ASYLUM LAWS DRAW FROM

MILLENNIA OF HISTORY RECOGNIZING

SOCIETY’S OBLIGATION TO PROVIDE

REFUGE TO OUTSIDERS.

Our asylum laws are the modern embodiment of a

deeply rooted religious, cultural, and historical

heritage that has consistently affirmed society’s

obligation to provide refuge for those seeking safety.

Asylum reaches back to some of the earliest

moments of recorded human history.

It was

practiced throughout the ancient civilizations that

forged the foundation of Western society. This

tradition can also be found in the form of church

sanctuary asylum, a mainstay of European culture

for over a millennium. Our very Nation began as a

haven for persecuted political and religious

minorities. This tradition is present throughout our

history, from the practices of Native Americans to

the Underground Railroad to modern times.

Congress adopted our current asylum laws in

significant part due to the efforts of faith-based

groups seeking to uphold deeply held societal, moral,

and cultural principles.

A. Ancient And

Asylum Law

Medieval

Roots

“[A]sylum is as old as humanity itself.” Cheung,

supra, at 15. Early humans regarded places like

waterfalls, caves, and temples as sacred and

inviolable—spaces where all could seek shelter and

none could be harmed. Id. Enslaved people sought

asylum in the temples of Osiris and Amon, and at

the temple of Toth at the mouth of the Nile River.

Id. The ancient Israelites established six cities of

refuge. Numbers 35:9-29; Rabben, supra, at 31.

Ancient African societies regarded sanctuary as a

“sacred institution” and designated shrines and

streams as safe grounds for the persecuted. Rabben,

supra, at 35. Indigenous North American tribes

established “peaceable towns” for refugees, and the

Seneca “gave sanctuary to indigenous people of

diverse origins.” Id. Treaties between secondmillennium B.C. Hittite kings affirmed that “[w]hen

a refugee comes from your land into mine he will not

be returned.” Cheung, supra, at 15.

The Greeks and Romans continued this practice.

Asylum is Latin for “sanctuary for refugees,” and its

etymology traces from the Greek word asylos,

meaning “inviolable.” Asylum (etymology), Oxford

English Dictionary (3d ed. 2025); Rabben, supra, at

32. The Greeks established temples as sanctuaries

for “the oppressed and the persecuted.” Id. at 33

(internal quotation marks omitted). It was believed

that severe punishment would befall anyone who

harmed a refugee sheltered in a temple. Id.

The Romans similarly treated temples as

sanctuaries and established their own asylum

practices. Id. Romulus, the mythical founder of

Rome, reportedly made the slope of Capitoline Hill

an asylum for fugitives. Livy, The Early History of

Rome: Books I–V 42-43 (Aubrey de Sélincourt trans.,

Penguin Books 1960).

This place of asylum,

dedicated to an unknown god, attracted refugees

from Rome’s neighbors, providing refugees with a

fresh start and Rome with adequate numbers to

defend herself. Id.; Rabben, supra, at 33 (citation

omitted). The Romans continued this practice

throughout their history, which bolstered their

ranks and weakened their rivals. See Douglas Boin,

Ancient Rome Thrived When the Empire Welcomed

Immigrants. We Should Remember What Happened

When That Changed, TIME (June 9, 2020).

Early European societies likewise created places of

asylum, embodied by the Catholic Church’s practice

of church sanctuary. From Catholicism’s very

beginning, churches were treated as sanctuaries for

the oppressed and persecuted. Ignatius Bau, This

Ground Is Holy: Church Sanctuary and Central

American Refugees 131 (Paulist Press 1985). Once

an individual sought shelter in a church, they could

not be harmed.

The practice of church sanctuary was formalized

by the Theodosian Code of 392, and early Church

leaders “personally protected fugitives and preached

on the inviolability of churches.” Rabben, supra, at

39-41. Saint Augustine called upon Catholics to

protect church sanctuaries. Augustine, Sermon 302,

in The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for

the 21st Century, Sermons 273-305A 310-311

(Edmund Hill trans., New City Press 1994). Saint

Augustine’s Letter 113 demonstrates how religious

leaders protested when the institution of sanctuary

was violated. See Augustine, Letter 113, in The

Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st

Century, Letters 100–155 97 (Roland Teske trans.,

New City Press 2003) (interceding on behalf of an

individual seized from a church).

As Saint

Augustine explained, church sanctuary was a

“common refuge of all” and protected all who needed

it. See Sermon 302, supra, at 310-312.

Church sanctuary went far beyond providing mere

physical shelter. Clergy would play an active role in

adjudicating disputes after an individual sought

refuge. Bishops had authority to “examine all

sanctuary seekers” and intercede on their behalf.

Rabben, supra, at 40; Bau, supra, at 132. Bishops

ascertained the credibility of asylum seekers,

including enslaved people who sought refuge in a

church after complaining of ill-treatment. Bau,

supra, at 132.

Church officials thus became

intermediaries between alleged wrongdoers and

their accusers, creating a religious justice system

serving as a predecessor for modern asylum law.

Rabben, supra, at 40.

The practice of church sanctuary was further

institutionalized

medieval

European

governments. The first Christian kings in England

codified the practice. See Bau, supra, at 134-143.

They established stiff penalties for entering a church

to seize or harm a refugee, and enacted laws

governing how sanctuary operated in the country.

Rabben, supra, at 43-44.

Over time, church

sanctuary became “one of the most powerful and

important medieval institutions.” Id. at 48. Church

sanctuary was an integral, established component of

English criminal law, Bau, supra, at 144, and was

regularly used to resolve conflicts of all kinds both

inside and outside the criminal justice system,

Rabben, supra, at 48. Church sanctuary played a

vital role in defining the “boundaries of the law and

the sacred meaning of justice” in medieval England.

Id.

As the English monarchy exercised more control

over church sanctuary, the power and influence of

the Catholic Church in England gradually eroded.

Teresa Field, Biblical Influences on the Medieval

and Early Modern English Law of Sanctuary, 22

Ecclesiastical L.J. 222, 225 (2020); Rabben, supra, at

52. The English Reformation effectively ended the

practice of sanctuary in England. Field, supra, at

225. But the practice endured in many other

Catholic countries in Europe. See Rabben, supra, at

53-54 (describing how the Catholic Church

“preserve[d] sanctuary in predominantly Catholic

countries such as France”).

B. American Colonies Were Refuges For

Persecuted Groups

From the earliest days of the American colonies,

persecuted religious and political communities from

overseas found refuge in America. See Bau, supra,

at 158-159 (noting that America “was viewed as a

sanctuary, a refuge from the upheaval in the

aftermath of the Protestant Reformation and the

Catholic Counter-Reformation”). The Pilgrims fled

to New England to escape religious and social

oppression. Id.; Rabben, supra, at 56. Maryland

was founded in part as a “haven for Catholics”

persecuted by the English Crown. Scott Douglas

Gerber, Law and Religion in Colonial America: The

Dissenting Colonies 22-23 (Cambridge Univ. Press

2023). And Pennsylvania was settled by Quakers

escaping religious persecution abroad. J. William

Frost, Religious Liberty in Early Pennsylvania, 105

Pa. Mag. Hist. & Biography 419, 423 (1981).

Presaging the later-adopted First Amendment,

many American colonies sought to enshrine

religious toleration in their laws. Maryland adopted

“the first act of religious toleration in the British

world.” See Maura Jane Farrelly, Papist Patriots:

The Making of an American Catholic Identity 63

(Oxford Univ. Press 2012) (noting that Maryland

adopted that law in part to protect its Catholic

population). Rhode Island and Pennsylvania soon

followed, embedding religious freedom in their

foundational legal documents. See Frost, supra, at

423 (noting that William “Penn’s tracts on [religious]

toleration were designed for immediate problems of

persecution of his fellow Quakers”); Roger Williams,

Letter to the Town of Providence (1655).

Because of these laws, the American colonies

became a haven for the oppressed religious groups of

Europe. Persecuted groups fled to America in large

numbers, founding many of the churches and

denominations that have joined this brief as amici

curiae. See, e.g., History, Church of the Brethren,

https://perma.cc/27GG-4TMM

(explaining

that

“[d]ue to growing persecution and economic

hardship,” the Church of the Brethren immigrated

to Pennsylvania from Germany); History, United

Church of Christ, https://perma.cc/F49Q-MY2G

(tracing the United Church of Christ’s history to the

Pilgrims); Roots, The United Methodist Church,

https://perma.cc/Z4BD-Q55X

(explaining

that

“Methodism

America

began

without

authorization or support from England, as lay

Methodists immigrated to America”).

The colonies also served as a sanctuary for political

refugees.

See Rhonda Shapiro Rieser, The

Sanctuary Movement: A Brief History, Ctr. for

Religious and Spiritual Life at Smith Coll. (Mar. 1,

2017), https://perma.cc/YF8Z-SNLD. One famous

example involved two regicides—members of the

court that tried King Charles I and sentenced him to

death following the defeat of the Royalists by Oliver

Cromwell—who later sought refuge in the New

Haven Colony to escape an indictment issued by

King Charles II following the Restoration. Bau,

supra, at 159. When British officers arrived in New

Haven to arrest the two men, colonists hid them in

a cave, while a Puritan pastor “preached a sermon

to the officers in support of sanctuary.” Rabben,

supra, at 56. The colonists’ efforts thwarted the

British officers’ search, and the fugitives were

allowed to live out their natural lives in the colony.

Bau, supra, at 159. This was only one (particularly

dramatic) episode of many; seeking political refuge

in the colonies was common. See Shapiro Rieser,

supra. Episodes like these reflected a broader

reality: protecting the persecuted and oppressed

outsiders was a deeply-rooted, shared value of

colonial America.

These values carried on into the Founding. As

George Washington expressed, America sought

“that this land might become a safe and agreeable

asylum to the virtuous and persecuted part of

mankind, to whatever nation they might belong.”

See George Washington to Francis Adrian Van der

Kemp (May 28, 1788), https://perma.cc/NY58-3YU3.

C. America’s Asylum Laws Reflect The

Fundamental Religious And Moral

Understanding That Society Has An

Obligation To Provide Asylum To

Those Who Need It

Our asylum system grew out of this millennia-old

heritage. America’s modern asylum history and

laws are the product of decades of efforts by faithbased groups and communities to engrain in our

legal system the principle that our society has an

obligation to provide a place of safety to asylum

seekers.

1. American faith-based groups have long

provided asylum to those fleeing terror

and persecution

As described above, throughout American history,

religious communities have treated the protection of

the persecuted and oppressed as a basic societal

obligation. This enduring commitment has placed

them at the center of our Nation’s history of

providing asylum to those who need it.

In the decades leading up to the Civil War, faith

communities across multiple traditions not only

publicly condemned slavery as anathema to their

beliefs and values, Bau, supra, at 160, but also

played key roles in the Underground Railroad. See

Shapiro Rieser, supra.

Church and religious

community leaders served as organizers for the

Railroad, creating a network capable of transporting

enslaved people “across hundreds of miles of

unfriendly territory to safety.” Rabben, supra, at 7073.

Churches and church communities were

sanctuaries along this pathway to freedom. Bau,

supra, at 160. The Underground Railroad expanded

significantly following the enactment of the Fugitive

Slave Act of 1850, a law that mandated the return of

escaped enslaved individuals to Southern

slaveholders. Fugitive Slave Acts, History (May 28,

2025), https://perma.cc/M4JM-TSUA.

Religious

groups which helped enslaved people escape to

safety in the North now helped them obtain refuge

in Canada. Id. These communities risked their own

liberty based on the shared moral value that

communities have a duty to safeguard oppressed

peoples and deliver them to safe lands.3

In the twentieth century, churches and faith

communities played a central role in resettling

refugees displaced by war and strife. Religious

organizations aided in resettling hundreds of

thousands of refugees admitted to the United States

after World War II. 4 Religious organizations

resettled persecuted Cubans after Fidel Castro rose

to power in 1959, Chiba, supra, at 67; they resettled

Hungarians fleeing brutal Soviet oppression in

1956. 5 Religious groups also resettled more than

10,000 refugees in the 1970s, during and after the

Vietnam War.6

In the 1980s, hundreds of religious communities

provided sanctuary to Central American refugees

fleeing civil war and violence. Geralyn Passaro and

Janet Phillips, Sanctuary: Reconciling Immigration

Policy with Humanitarianism and the First

The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 also prohibited harboring or

assisting fugitive slaves. Bau, supra, at 160.

Hiromi Chiba, The Role of the Protestant Church in the U.S.

Refugee Resettlement Program during the Early Cold War Era:

The Methodist Case, in Religion, Migration and Identity: Methodological and Theological Explorations 64 (Martha Frederiks

& Dorottya Nagy eds., Brill 2016); see Bau, supra, at 45.

Operation Safe Haven: The Hungarian Refugee Crisis of 1956,

U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Servs., https://perma.cc/A6G4BHXG.

Faith in Action: How Religious Communities Have Historically United to Welcome Refugees, Church World Service,

https://perma.cc/PD3D-L8UJ.

Amendment, 18 U. Miami Inter-Am. L. Rev. 137, 139

(1986).

Religious leaders across the Country

organized the use of church buildings as public

sanctuaries—just as in medieval Europe—where

Central American asylum seekers could access food,

shelter, and legal advice.7 Id. Over 150 churches

across the Country helped thousands of refugees.

Bau, supra, at 12.

Religious groups, including many which have

signed this brief as amici curiae, remain at the

forefront of refugee resettlement today. Amici have

established migrant shelters on both sides of the

U.S.-Mexico border. 8 They welcome refugees into

their communities. They provide sanctuary in their

churches. They create programs to help asylum

seekers navigate the difficult asylum process.9 And

they continue to advocate on behalf of refugees

nationwide and worldwide. These groups act out of

the shared belief, rooted in sacred practices and

texts, that society is obligated to protect the

oppressed stranger.

In 1981, the Immigration and Naturalization Service ordered

federal agents not to pursue “aliens” into churches, schools,

and hospitals. Rabben, supra, at 131. Churches thus reemerged as inviolable sanctuaries for refugees.

See, e.g., Border Partners, FaithWorks, https://perma.cc/

B4UV-R3TV.

See, e.g., AMMPARO, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, https://perma.cc/9TP5-G86L; Partners Work Together for

Asylum

Seekers,

United

Methodist

Church,

https://perma.cc/9HPK-7PZY; Immigrant & Refugee Advocacy

Clinic, Columbus Sch. of Law, Catholic Univ. of Am.,

https://perma.cc/GYP5-786W.

2. Religious groups have played an

instrumental role in developing U.S.

asylum laws

Religious groups were also instrumental in the

passage of two key modern American refugee laws:

the Displaced Persons Act of 1948 (“the 1948 Act”)

and the Refugee Act of 1980.

The 1948 Act was the first Congressional

enactment permitting the admission of refugees into

the United States. Prior to the 1948 Act, refugees

could only enter the United States through executive

action or immigration quotas. See, e.g., Refugee

Timeline, U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Servs.,

https://perma.cc/FK7E-WSGX. That system proved

ill-equipped to address the unprecedented refugee

crisis caused by World War II. Id. (noting the

“nearly 7 million displaced persons in Europe as a

result of World War II”). And it had failed just a

decade prior. In 1939, 908 Jews had been turned

away from the coast of the United States because of

quota restrictions. Voyage of the St. Louis, United

States Holocaust Memorial Museum (June 18,

2024), https://perma.cc/32BY-ND23.

About a

quarter eventually died in the Holocaust—an event

viewed as one of the great moral failures in our

Country’s history. Id.

Building from these failures, the passage of the

1948 Act was attributable in significant part to the

efforts of faith-based organizations. At the time, few

Americans desired to accept significant numbers of

European immigrants. 10 Against this backdrop,

See Chiba, supra, at 62.

religious organizations stepped forward in order to

persuade Congress and the American public to

embrace war-displaced refugees. See Chiba, supra,

at 62-63. They wrote editorials and letters of

support, testified before Congress, and preached in

favor of the law. Haim Genizi, America’s Fair Share:

The Admission and Resettlement of Displaced

Persons, 1945–1952 70-76, 203 (Wayne State Univ.

Press 1993).

The organizations’ efforts at persuasion were

successful, creating an “upward surge of public

sentiment” and support in Congress for legislation

admitting refugees. Id. at 76. Following the

religious groups’ campaign, “almost every major

American organization * * * endorsed the goals of

the” Displaced Persons Act, and the law was passed

in 1948. Chiba, supra, at 63 (quotation omitted).

These same religious organizations that passed the

act then helped resettle the vast majority of the

refugees that were subsequently admitted. See

supra at pp. 23-24; Chiba, supra, at 62-63.

The 1948 Act paved the way for the more generous

and understanding refugee acts of subsequent

years.11 Genizi, supra, at 114. Between 1948 and

1960, Congress enacted a series of ad hoc measures

in response to successive refugee crises. Todd

For instance, the Displaced Persons Act of 1948 as originally

drafted excluded many Jewish refugees from resettling in the

United States. See The Displaced Persons Act of 1948, Truman

Library Institute, https://perma.cc/2MF2-9L94. Religious organizations played a leading role lobbying for new legislation

to fix this. See Genizi, supra, at 106-111. Congress amended

the law in 1950. See The Displaced Persons Act of 1948, supra.

Scribner, “Pilgrims of the Night”: The American

Catholic Church Responds to the Post World War II

Displaced Persons Crisis, 124 Am. Catholic Stud. 1,

20 (2013).

Religious groups remained at the

forefront, urging passage of these measures; indeed,

by the 1960s, religious organizations had become

“the major nongovernmental groups influencing

American immigration policy.” Chiba, supra, at 67

(quotation omitted).

Religious organizations similarly advocated for—

and succeeded in passing—the Refugee Act of 1980,

which forms the foundation of the current U.S.

asylum system. Scribner, supra, at 20; see Deborah

Anker, Law of Asylum in the United States 10 (2015

ed.).

The 1980 Act adopted the definition of

“refugee” found in the 1967 United Nations Protocol

Relating to the Status of Refugees. 12 It created a

permanent, systematic legal framework for asylum

claims. J. Bruce Nichols, The Uneasy Alliance:

Religion, Refugee Work, and U.S. Foreign Policy 115

(Oxford Univ. Press 1988). And it established a

neutral, nondiscriminatory process for adjudicating

those claims. Immigration: U.S. Asylum Policy,

supra, at 9.

Religious organizations regarded the 1980 Refugee

Act as a step toward fulfilling the Nation’s religious

and moral commitment to help the persecuted and

oppressed. See Faith in Action, supra. Religious

See Andorra Bruno, Cong. Rsch. Serv., R48802, Development

of the U.S. Asylum System: In Brief at 2 (2026); Andorra

Bruno, Cong. Rsch. Serv., R45539, Immigration: U.S. Asylum

Policy at 9 (2019).

organizations, including many that have joined this

brief, threw their full weight behind the Act,

lobbying publicly and in Congress. See Nichols,

supra, at 85; Scribner, supra, at 20; Lauren Turek,

The Religious Activism Behind U.S. Refugee Policy,

ARC Mag. (Aug. 3, 2021), https://perma.cc/ZT3MYZGZ (describing how activism came from

“politically liberal and conservative religious

organizations alike”); Refugee Act of 1979: Hearing

on S. 643 Before the S. Comm. on the Judiciary, 96th

Cong. at 44 (Mar. 14, 1979) (explaining that multiple

religious groups, including some Amici, testified in

support of the 1980 Act).

Over 3.5 million refugees and asylees have come to

the United States under the 1980 Refugee Act. 13

And religious groups continue to use their “moral

power” to ensure that the United States fulfills its

religious, moral, and societal obligation to provide

asylum to refugees. See Turek, supra.

III. THE GOVERNMENT’S THEORY IS

ANATHEMA

OUR

SHARED

SOCIETAL, MORAL, AND RELIGIOUS

VALUES AND ASYLUM HISTORY.

Our laws draw their interpretation and

application from “the legal tradition and meaning of

centuries of practice.” Morissette v. United States,

342 U.S. 246, 263 (1952). They are informed by

“historical practice” of laws and their antecedents.

Rubin v. Islamic Republic of Iran, 583 U.S. 202, 214

(2018).

Here, the Government’s position is

U.S. Dep’t of Homeland Sec., Off. of Homeland Sec. Stat.,

Yearbook of Immigration Statistics: FY 2022 39, 43 (2023).

anathema to the long history of asylum and the

religious and moral principles underpinning it.

The Government asserts that our asylum laws can

be denied to all asylum seekers who reach our

borders, because the Government can keep them one

foot outside. That is incompatible with asylum’s

foundational theory that society has an obligation to

provide protection for persecuted outsiders. The

basic moral rationale of asylum is that society must

protect the stranger. This moral understanding and

core belief, shared by major faiths worldwide, forged

thousands of years of asylum practice and resulted

in our modern asylum laws. See supra pp. 5-28. The

Government’s theory nullifies asylum for the

persecuted outsider—the very people asylum is

primarily supposed to serve. Indeed, it would nullify

asylum for the very foreigners whom our modern

asylum laws were designed to protect. See supra pp.

25-28.

The Government’s interpretation is thus “contrary

to” “long-prevailing” “deep conviction[s]” forming

“the basis” for asylum law itself. Kelly v. Robinson,

479 U.S. 36, 47-48 (1986). It would take a far

“clearer statement than Congress has made * * * to

effect so strange” an asylum regime, where the

archetypal people who should receive asylum are

unable to claim it because they are held at bay one

step from the border. Murphy Bros. v. Michetti Pipe

Stringing, Inc., 526 U.S. 344, 356 (1999); Resp.

Br. 33, 37-39.

The Government’s interpretation also bears little

resemblance to the “historical practice” of thousands

of years of asylum forming our heritage. Rubin, 583

U.S. at 214. The ancient, medieval, colonial, and

modern manifestations of asylum have always made

asylum open to persecuted outsiders.

Rome

provided asylum to its neighbors, colonial America

provided refuge for foreigners persecuted on political

and religious grounds, religious groups provided

refuge to Southern enslaved people through the

Underground Railroad, and the 1948 Displaced

Persons Act welcomed international refugees after

the Second World War. See supra pp. 15-27. A

thousand years of church sanctuary practice

likewise established that individuals could first

enter churches in safety, and only afterwards would

their claims be adjudicated. See supra p. 7. Amici

are aware of no prior asylum scheme in our social,

religious, or political heritage whereby asylum laws

only exist for people who are already safe within a

country’s borders.

This Country’s asylum laws were not drafted in a

vacuum. They trace their roots to Greek and Roman

traditions, where temples served as sanctuaries for

displaced peoples. Asylum existed for a thousand

years in the form of medieval church sanctuary. It

extends to both Native Americans and colonial

America. It extends to the Underground Railroad.

It extends to our welcome of refugees fleeing

persecution and strife for many decades. And it

extends to those who reach our borders in desperate

need of safe passage and refuge today.

Should this Court conclude that the United States

may stop asylum seekers just one step before the

U.S. border—and deny them even the opportunity to

seek refuge within our borders—it would impute to

Congress a purpose and vision of asylum law that

has no precedent in history. Such a ruling would

reject the moral underpinnings that led to our

asylum laws. It would undermine one of the most

foundational tenets of our many faith traditions,

which instruct nations on the critical role of asylum

in ensuring a moral, stable, and sound society. And

it would largely nullify our asylum laws for the very

people those laws were drafted to help. This

outcome would be fundamentally contrary to our

Country’s religious, social, and moral traditions.

CONCLUSION

The Government’s theory that it can bar asylum

seekers from lawfully crossing the U.S. border at a

port of entry—without an opportunity to seek

asylum, even if they are entitled to it—rejects our

civilization’s heritage and our religious and moral

obligations to offer persecuted strangers a place of

safety. For the foregoing reasons, and those in

Respondents’ brief, the judgment of the Ninth

Circuit should be affirmed.

Respectfully submitted,

KATHERINE B. WELLINGTON CATHERINE E. STETSON

Counsel of Record

HOGAN LOVELLS US LLP

125 High Street, Ste. 2010 KEENAN ROARTY

STEVEN HIGGINS

Boston, MA 02110

HOGAN LOVELLS US LLP

555 Thirteenth Street, N.W.

Washington, D.C. 20004

(202) 637-5600

cate.stetson@hoganlovells.com

FEBRUARY 2026

ADDENDUM

ADDENDUM—LIST OF AMICI CURIAE



Alliance of Baptists:

https://allianceofbaptists.org



Central Atlantic Conference, United Church of

Christ: https://www.cacucc.org



Central Conference of American Rabbis:

www.ccarnet.org



Church of the Brethren:

https://www.brethren.org



Cooperative Baptist Fellowship: https://cbf.net



Council on American-Islamic Relations:

https://www.cair.com



The Most Rev. Sean W. Rowe, Presiding

Bishop of The Episcopal Church, and Ms. Julia

Ayala Harris, President of the House of

Deputies of The Episcopal Church:

www.episcopalchurch.org



Episcopal Diocese of New York:

https://dioceseny.org



Episcopal Divinity School: www.eds.edu



Evangelical Lutheran Church in America:

https://www.elca.org



FaithWorks: https://faithworks.com



First Congregational United Church of Christ,

Albuquerque, New Mexico:

https://www.firstuccabq.org



Friends Committee on National Legislation:

https://www.fcnl.org



GreenFaith: https://greenfaith.org



Hindus for Human Rights:

https://www.hindusforhumanrights.org



Hyattsville Mennonite Church:

https://hyattsvillemennonite.org



Kairos Center for Religions, Rights, and Social

Justice: https://kairoscenter.org



Kehilla Community Synagogue:

https://kehillasynagogue.org



Latino Christian National Network:

www.LCNN.org



Men of Reform Judaism: www.menrj.org



New Hampshire Conference of the United

Church of Christ: www.nhcucc.org



New Hampshire Council of Churches:

https://www.nhchurches.org



New York State Council of Churches:

https://www.nyscoc.org



Reconstructing Judaism:

https://www.reconstructingjudaism.org



Rev. Jihyun Oh, Stated Clerk of the General

Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

and Executive Director of the Interim Unified

Agency of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)



Union for Reform Judaism: www.urj.org



Unitarian Universalist Association: 24

Farnsworth Street, Boston, MA 02210



General Synod of the United Church of Christ:

https://www.ucc.org



The General Board of Church and Society,

United Methodist Church:

www.umcjustice.org



Western North Carolina Conference of The

United Methodist

Church: https://www.wnccumc.org



Women of Reform Judaism: www.wrj.org

This is a copy of a public record, reproduced as it was published. It is not legal advice, and it may not be the version a court would rely on. Check the official source before you cite it.