WASHINGTON (RNS) — House Speaker Mike Johnson dismissed religious freedom concerns on Wednesday (Oct. 29) about clergy protesting mass deportations being shot with pepper rounds and pepper bullets by Department of Homeland Security agents, saying the agents have conducted themselves in a “measured” manner.
“Religious freedom does not extend and give you the right to get in the face of an ICE officer and assault them, if indeed that was what happened there,” said Johnson, a Southern Baptist, in response to a question from Religion News Service. “What I’ve seen is a measured approach by the people who are trying to enforce our border laws, our immigration laws, and that was desperately needed and desired and demanded by the American people.”
In recent incidents at a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency detention center in Broadview, Illinois, and at a Coast Guard station in Oakland, California, ICE and Border Patrol personnel have been filmed shooting clergy with pepper balls, pepper rounds or rubber bullets, or faith leaders have reported agents doing so.
In a lawsuit filed in Illinois earlier this month against DHS, a group that includes journalists, clergy and demonstrators argue federal agents have violated the religious freedom of faith-based protesters, among other claims. A federal …