More than a month into the second Trump administration, a period marked by sweeping and polarizing policy change, many religious groups and leaders have been vocal about their commitment to the shared values that guide the lives of people of faith: service to others, care for the poor, and compassion for the stranger. 

Among these faith communities are a coalition of Quaker groups in the United States, who were the first faith-based plaintiffs to initiate legal action against the Department of Homeland Security last month when the administration rescinded a policy preventing Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents from operating in houses of worship. Earlier this week, a Maryland judge blocked the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement actions in these sensitive sites.  

For Quakers, also known as the Religious Society of Friends, deep listening is a central principle in worship and belief. Quakerism is “a religion that puts a really high value on hearing from everyone, because we believe there is that of God in everyone,” said Erica Cheng, a member of Chicago’s Northside Friends Meeting.  

Cheng and fellow Northside Friend, Kevin Brubaker, who is also the presiding clerk of the Illinois Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, are both what Quakers refer to as “convinced” Friends, meaning they were not born into Quaker families, but decided to join out of commitment to the principles of Quakerism.  

The Friends’ belief in the Inner Light within every human — regardless of factors such as religious background, age and ability, or immigration status — is the central truth that underlies Quaker teachings and positions meetings to embrace seekers. 

It’s also one principle that uniquely bolsters the Quaker-led litigation filed in January.  

“By preventing undocumented immigrants from being in our midst, you are also keeping out our potential teachers, the potential voice of God in our midst,” said Brubaker, pointing to the absence of clergy in Quaker practice and recognition of each Friend as a leader during meetings.  

Lifelong Friend and Quaker Scholar Thomas Hamm identifies the same guiding belief of the Light Within, along with the idea that “the true religion always had to be a matter of individual conscience,” not coercion — a principle central to the founding of a colony based in liberty of conscience and freedom of worship in the 1670s and 1680s— as the basis for many Quaker communities’ proclivity for pluralism today.  

“It’s important to keep in mind that Quakers in North America are a small group in the United States and Canada, somewhere between 80,000 and 90,000 today,” Hamm also noted. “But even in that small group, you would find considerable diversity, you know, ranging from the most bible-thumping fundamentalists who I’m sure voted for Donald Trump three times to the most liberal, universalist, social activist, chain-yourself-to-the-nuclear-missile-in-protest sort of Friends.” 

Though involvement in legal proceedings and recent headlines is primarily representative of progressive Quaker meetings, this political moment is prompting faith communities across the religious landscape to contend with policies that might target or affirm core values.  

“I think for pluralism and interfaith work and diversity and inclusion among faith communities, it’s a really important time,” Bridget Moix, General Secretary of the Friends Committee on National Legislation and convinced Quaker, told Interfaith America, reflecting on how other faith communities and leaders, including the Pope, have recently spoken out against mass deportations. 

“I think there is a time of teaching and learning right now, and that does need to start with self-reflection.”

Given the size of the Quaker communities in the United States that Moix’s work represents, she also pointed to the significance of building solidarity with a diverse array of other faith groups with shared values. “Interfaith work for us is very important in terms of being part of a broader faith community that is seeking to understand the divine and to live faithfully in the world based on what I would think are universal truths that most faith traditions uphold. You know love, mercy, compassion, justice.”  

In addition to uncharacteristically swift legal action taken by Quaker groups in January, earlier this month, the Friends General Conference, an association of local and regional Friends Meetings across North America, filed a subsequent lawsuit alongside an interfaith coalition, including 26 other Christian and Jewish faith communities and organizations.  

“Quakers don’t usually move very fast,” Moix said, reiterating the values of simplicity and humility her Quaker faith calls her to exhibit. “But in moments like this, I think, is when we’re at our best, in the sense of our beliefs really compelling us to speak truth clearly in a moment that needs us.  So I was really proud that Quakers were the first ones to file that suit and that we’re joining others on more of them.”  

The interfaith court filing, representing groups like the Unitarian Universalist Association, The United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, and The Episcopal Church, among others, states that these groups “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.” 

As many Quakers unite with other faith groups, listening first and speaking out as their faith compels them, Friends look to the future with a strong sense of purpose and a constant source of hope. “The arc of the moral universe gradually bends toward justice,” said Hamm, relaying an idea that originated with Unitarian theologian Theodore Parker and was widely adopted after use by Martin Luther King Jr. “That movement toward justice is often uneven. It’s slower than many of us would like to see happening. Sometimes it’s two steps forward and a step back. Yet I can’t help but be confident that we’re going to come out of this.”