MAGA’s assault on religious liberty is being under-covered in news media, but it’s real. President Donald Trump and supporters — collectively called MAGA, after the slogan Make America Great Again — are more openly hostile to religious freedom than any other administration in U.S. history. This is not to say that all past presidents were perfect, but none have worked so hard to interfere with the religious missions of faith traditions when those missions didn’t align with administration policies.
This discrimination has been going on even as President Trump claims to be a champion of religious liberty. “You know, I’ve done more for religion than any other president,” he said during the National Prayer Breakfast on February 5, 2026. “You know, religion is back now hotter than ever before.” Past presidents “bailed out” on religion, he continued, because “they want to be neutral.” That may be because the establishment clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution requires the government to be neutral in matters of religion.
Religious Groups Take MAGA to Court
Several U.S. faith organizations and traditions have filed lawsuits against the Administration. Here is one of the most recent examples. In November 2025 several Catholic sisters and clergy members filed a federal lawsuit to regain access to the Broadview ICE facility in Chicago. Broadview has been an immigration-related facility since 2006. In 2008 Illinois passed a law that allows priests and other pastoral workers to enter the facility to minister to the detainees. (Broadview is a state-owned facility that the federal Department of Homeland Security rents, so state laws apply.) For many years clergy of several faith traditions have entered the facility to minister to people detained there.
But in 2025 clergy were banned from the ICE facility. A Catholic nonprofit organization and several Catholic clergy filed a lawsuit against the Trump Administration saying they had been unlawfully blocked from entering the building. In February 2026 a U.S. District judge issued a preliminary injunction allowing the coalition entry to the facility on Ash Wednesday. “The court finds that the government has substantially burdened plaintiffs’ exercise of religion,” the order read. And so Catholic detainees were able to attend Mass and receive ashes on their foreheads to mark the beginning of Lent.
A year earlier, in February 2025, a coalition of 27 religious groups sued the Trump Administration over its policy allowing federal immigration agents to enter churches to make arrests. The policy infringes on religious freedom, the plaintiffs said, because many congregants fear coming to their churches and synagogues. “They bring this suit unified on a fundamental belief: Every human being, regardless of birthplace, is a child of God worthy of dignity, care, and love. Welcoming the stranger, or immigrant, is thus a central precept of their faith practices,” the suit affirms. In April 2025 a judge ruled against the plaintiffs, however.
Another lawsuit from Baptist, Lutheran and Quaker groups accused Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem of violating their religious and free speech rights. Faith leaders have been arrested for engaging in peaceful protests against Trump Administration policies. Clergy at these protests have been aggressively manhandled. A Presbyterians minister was shot in the head with pepper balls by federal agents while he was praying. And the shooting was clearly deliberate.
The Religious Liberty Commission vs. Religious Liberty
A number of faith-based organizations joined in a federal lawsuit challenging the Religious Liberty Commission, which was established by President Donald Trump on May 1, 2025. The complaint argues that the Religious Liberty Commission encourages religious discrimination. Members of the Religious Liberty Commission are mostly conservative Christian nationalists, according to a report by Ken Camp in The Baptist Standard. It is headed by Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick, who has been a major force behind the Texas law to place a particular state-sanctioned version of the Ten Commandments in every classroom.
The lawsuit accuses the Commission of being biased toward Christianity. According to the suit, “The Commission’s members have promoted the primacy of a Judeo-Christian world view in the public sphere, advocated for discrimination against minority groups under the guise of ‘religious liberty,’ and otherwise supported policies that threaten religious freedom for all those who do not conform to their particular worldview.” Read more about it at The Christian Post.
MAGA Attacks on Christian Charities
President Trump also established a task force to eradicate anti-Christian bias. “My Administration will not tolerate anti-Christian weaponization of government or unlawful conduct targeting Christians,” Trump said in the announcement. “My Administration will ensure that any unlawful and improper conduct, policies, or practices that target Christians are identified, terminated, and rectified.” However, if he were being consistent, he’d have to start with his own administration. In “MAGA ramps up attacks on US Christian groups” at Baptist News Global, Jeff Brumley writes that the “Catholic and Episcopal churches have faced the heat from the MAGA movement for some time and are again in the crosshairs of an administration bent on quashing dissent about its aggressive anti-immigrant and anti-transgender policies.”
In brief, the Trump Administration supports the religious liberty of faith groups that align with Trump Administration policies. Otherwise, not so much.
When the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops objected to a Trump directive allowing immigration raids in churches and schools, Vice President J.D. Vance accused the bishops of greed. “I think that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops needs to actually look in the mirror a little bit and recognize that when they receive over $100 million to help resettle illegal immigrants, are they worried about humanitarian concerns? Or are they actually worried about their bottom line?” he asked.
And back when Elon Musk was still a Trump Administration insider running the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, he and former Trump advisor Michael Flynn spread an accusation that Lutheran churches and charities were “money laundering organizations.” This was based on absolutely no evidence. But Lutheran charities did work with migrants, some of which may have been undocumented, which is something the Trump Administration does not tolerate. See Musk spotlights federal funds for Lutheran aid groups, calls them ‘illegal payments’ at Religion News Service. Established federal grants to Lutheran charities were frozen for a while, but I understand funds have been restored.
“The Islamophobic Administration”
Trump’s first administration, 2017 to 2021, often exhibited blatant Islamophobia. You might remember that one of Trump’s first acts as president was to ban all travelers from seven Muslim countries, along with all refugees. The Brennan Center for Justice issued a report in April 2017 titled “The Islamophobic Administration.” The report is careful to point out that previous administrations sometimes exhibited some anti-Muslim bias also. But President Donald Trump was taking it over the top. “Upon taking office, Trump quickly installed notorious Islamaphobes — including Steve Bannon, Michael Flynn, and Sebastian Gorka — in the White House,” the report says. “Trump’s own blatantly anti-Muslim rhetoric has emboldened people to act on their prejudices, and hate crimes against Muslims have soared. In sum, Trump has created the most Islamophobic administration our country has seen.”
The second Trump Administration has toned down much of the anti-Muslim rhetoric. Indeed, he managed to charm some Muslim faith leaders into endorsing him in the 2024 election, which helped Trump win Michigan. Muslim Trump voters believed him when he said he would end the war in Gaza. Buyer’s remorse set in quickly after Trump took office again.
Hindu Americans have also come under fire, especially from Trump advisor Stephen Miller. Miller has accused Indian Americans of “cheating on immigration policies” and taking “American” jobs. vice President J.D. Vance’s wife, Usha, is Hindu. And many American Hindus expressed alarm when Vance expressed hope his wife would convert to Christianity. See “It’s One of America’s Most Successful Experiments, and It’s Coming to an End,” by Lydia Polgreen in the New York Times.
The MAGA Assault on Religious Liberty Is Unprecedented
Again, I can’t find any parallels to this degree of religious bias and sectarian partisanship in any past presidential administration. By all appearances President Trump has little knowledge of or interest in religion, but he is keenly sensitive to rewarding any groups that support him. It’s been widely reported that conservative White evangelicals and people supporting Christian nationalism are among his most loyal voters. And Trump’s idea of “religious freedom” appears to be extending privileges to these voters. But faith traditions that do not submit to his agenda may be punished for it.
On several occasions he has dismissed the concept of separation of church and state, which the founders established to protect religious freedom. For example, when he announced the establishment of the Commission on Religious Liberty, he said, “They said, really there’s separation. I don’t know. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? I’m not sure, but whether there’s separation or not, you guys are in the White House where you should be, and you’re representing our country, and we’re bringing religion back to our country, and it’s a big deal.” By “you guys” he appears to have addressed the White evangelicals and Christian nationalists in attendance.
The founders of the U.S. saw clearly that establishing a state religion, or privileging one religious establishment over others, was the source of religious discrimination. True religious liberty requires that the government be neutral toward all religions.
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